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GREAT MARES OF AMERICA Early Racing Marked by the Supremacy of Supreme Ones The Eoster of Honor From Ferida to Secret Modern Mares Not Tested BY SALVATOR From the beginning of time psychologies have despaired of understanding the eternal feminine and given up the attempt As far back as human records extend from the infancy of civilization on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates all the evidence tells the same tale In the presence of the female of the species the mere male stands helpless and baffled For all practical pur poses she sizes him up with a deadly ac curacy while he remains just as much andi as badly at sea about her as he was in the days when leaves were the only wear Anc as all vertebrate creation is really of a piece this holds just as good of the equine as it does of the human or the socalle human race Consider the thoroughbred race mare for example In comparison with the dominant male she is regarded as decidedly the weak er vessel Yet in the brave days of old when fourmile heats were the rule and the train ing and racing ordeal often resulted in the crippling or even the death of the candidate for the classics she was much more supreme on the American turf than in these degen crate days when as the renowned Maratho niais hero Be Frank recently demonstrated the long distance championship of the en tire region laved by the Pacific Ocean and buttressed by the Rocky Mountains is de cided upon the basis of a mile and a furlong One would think that owing to her com parative weakness as the racing distances 1 have progressively shrunk with a rapidity and inevitability recalling that of Balzacs peau de chagrin she should have shone out more and more brilliantly in the firmament of the turf But the exact opposite is the case With true feminine unguessability she has done just what would not have been ex pcctcd with her past performances in view 1 FOIUIEIt 3IA11ES IX AMEKICAN ACTIOX Recall in the day of the fourmile heat titans that a mare Maid of the Oaks as the dawn of the nineteenth century was usher ¬ ing the real establishment of the turf in L America outranked all other thoroughbreds Recall the doughty deeds as that century gradually progressed of Lady Laghtfoot of Ariel Flirtilla Trifle Reality Creeping Kate of Black Maria of Fashion and all j those other lightheeled and longwinded I ladies that for decade after decade made life miserable for racers of the supposedly sturdier sex that attempted to keep up with them They were real queens of the turf They ruled in puissant fashion No contest could be too long for them to have the last word and the oftener they sported silk the happier they apparently were as might have v sen expected expectedSo So much for the weaker vessels of the j fourmile period Having shown their su ¬ premacy so long and so conspicuously the natural expectation of the mere male at least would be that as the racing distances 3 I grew short by degrees many of em and l beautifully less it would be still more em ¬ phatically a case of place aux dames But as observed above with the consistent incon ¬ sistency of the sex the opposite has re ¬ sulted The turf queens of the twentieth 1 century have been truth to tell few and far r between their queenliness of a far different t stripe from that of their predecessors predecessorsIt It is almost a quarter of a century since Mr Vosburgh in allotting the weights for the great handicaps Suburban Brooklyn and 1 Brighton placed a mare at the head of the 3 list thereby expressing officially the opinion 1 that the head of the turf was then of the 3 feminine gender The mare in question was Imp and since her day he has not signalized any other race mare with so high an honor The coal black lady has had no real 1 successor Beldame was the nearest ap ¬ proach to one but after her brilliant Sub ¬ urban triumph under 123 pounds she faded away most disappointingly At the begin ¬ ning of that season it had been the expecta ¬ tion that she would with a few races sup ¬ plant both Miss Woodford and Firenze as 3 the largest moneywinning mare in Ameri ¬ can turf annals but this was not to be And even at her best Mr Vosburgh did not on the basis of his handicap allotments i rank ImpThe Beldame so high as he had Imp The mares most nearly dominant upon ti the turf in this country in my time have e been Thora Miss Woodford Firenze and 3 Imp and of this quartet Miss Woodfords s supremacy was probably the most decisive t though it is doubtful if she was really the e superior of the other three Many critics s consider that Imp had her powers been more e carefully conserved and wisely expended lt would have proved herself the real queen Again there are others who believe that t still another marc Artful to have been the c best performer of her sex ever seen in n America but she alas succumbed during U her threeyearold campaign As a Cup l mare Thora stands alone she having won the e Washington Baltimore Westchester and 1 Saratoga Cups in her fouryearold form i As a threeyearold 1SS1 she won the Baden n Baden Handicap at Saratoga establishing a new record of 525i for the distance three e miles milesFEKIDA FEKIDA FOURMILE IIACE MAKE MAKEFerida Ferida was the last great fourmile heat t race mare and her victory in the Great Long S Island Stakes at Shecpshead Bay in 1SSO saw the first heat run in 723 the fastest it on record in a heat race Our latterday y fourmile mares Sotemia the champion n at the distance and Lucrezia Borgia ran n dashes only and the latter against time j Neither of these mares was of high class s Lucrezia Borgia being in fact but a lowly y selling plater while Sotemias name cannot it be found on any list of classic winners winnersMiss Miss Woodford won once at two miles is and a half her match against Drake Carter tr and twice at twomile heats and she is 1s officially credited with a worlds record for her two heats in 333 331U in the Great Long Island Stakes of 1884 after the now historic event had been reduced from four to twomile heats though it was never clear why Bradamantcs earlier performance in Ib I 332 339 at Jackson Miss in 1877 should b be discarded by the statisticians Firenze was never asked to go farther than a mile j and threequarters at which distance she V won four different times twice as a three yearold Imp was beaten a head only by Ethelbert when he set the record for two miles and a quarter in 349 twentytwo years ago that performance having never since been equaled or beaten beatenaiODEUX aiODEUX MARES XOT ASKED TASK Modern mares are not asked for heroic a achievements The nearest approach has h been Cleapatras victory at a mile and three quarters in the Latonja Championship of j 1 19 20 when she took up 119 pounds and ran ii in almost record time 2 56 a superb 1 a achievement Yet the modern mare does not j stand out in this sprinting era Our latter i day speed marvels which negotiate five and g six furlongs in whirlwind style are almost jj invariably males either stallions or geldings i In recent years we have had nothing like likeGeraldine C Geraldine Correction Cleophns and others J jo of yesteryear with the exception possibly c of Pan Zareta It will always be remem bered however that Artful defeated Roseben j at his favorite distance apparently without effort showing what class can do even a against a sprinting champion of his caliber It may be said that America has never j had a Pretty Polly or a Wheel of Fortune I but mares like Miss Woodford and Fivenze c offer parallels to Sceptre and La Fleche The test of supreme greatness involving the ability to display the highest form season after season during an extended period has j been displayed with us but seldom Under j this test Miss Woodford Firenze and Yo Tambien outrank all others when we consider t the lengths of their careers Imp did not I blossom early and strangely enough was c considered a sprinter at first It was later j that she developed the capacity to go so far She could carry heavy weights for which j her size and range well fitted her but in inI j 1 this respect no great race mare was the equal I I of Firenze small though she was Again and again we find her winning under 128 pounds and once under 129 Yo Tambien too carried 127 pounds a mile and a quarter at three and at four when handicapped at 129 at the same distance was still able to win with it Miss Woodford flourished in an era when the scale was lighter and the imposts she carried in her thirtyseven victories never I J exceeded 122 pounds and never save on two occasions reached 120 Firenze carried from 120 to 129 pounds successfully on no i less than twentyeight different occasions and invariably at distances exceeding a mile Yo Tambien picked up from 120 to 129 pounds and won seventeen times only one of thesa races being at less than a mile From the day of Ferida Americas best mares to me are those whose roster I give below It is not a long list for as I have intimated firstclass mares or mares first class among racers of their own sex have been singularly scarce I have kept the roll down by excluding some which I regretted tc mares like Glidelia Senorita Ida Pick wick Helen Nichols Reclare and others of former days and several leading ladies of late years because they did not seem really to class with the selected ones bril ¬ liant as they may have been The table is arranged chronologically according to the date of foaling of the various members GREAT MARES SINCE 1S7G 1S7GYear Year Marc Starts Wins Auit 1870 Ferida b m by GlenelK La LaHenderson Henderson by IxxinRton 54 24 35082 1S7S Thora b m by Longfellow Susan Ann by Lexington 43 23 30845 1SSO Miss Woodford b in by llillet Fancy Jane by Neil Kob insoii 4S 37 118270 1881 Modesty ch m bv War Dance DanceRallet Rallet by Planet 82 35 48000 1S82 Wanda ch m by Mortcmcr Minnie Minor by Lexington 24 12 64305 18S3 Dew Drop b ra by Falsetto Explosion by Hampton Court 22 13 45832 18S4 Firenze b m br Glenels Florida by Virgil 82 48 112588 1885 Los AnRplPs ch ra bv Ileuelg La Polka by Lexington 110 48 97410 1888 La Tosca ch in by St Rlaise Toncqncs by Monaniue 33 21 40140 1S89 Yo Tambien ch m by Joe Hooker Marion by Malcolm 73 44 S04SO 1SSO Yorkville Hollo ch m by Miser Thorn by Ix ngfollow 37 21 84230 1894 Imp blk in by Wagner Fondling by Fonso 171 02 70119 1001 IJeldame ch m by Octngon Bella Donna by Hermit 31 17 102570 1901 Hamburg Uelle ch m by byHamburg Hamburg Isiae bv Kosebery 20 16 84040 1902Artful br t by Hamburg j Martha II by Dandie Din Dinmont mont 8 5 811 1902 Tradition b f by Goldfinch Hectare by Itefonn 19 12 i2907 1003 Maskettc br in by Disguise Riturica by Hamburg 17 12 77090 1912 Itegrct ch ra by Broomstick Jersey Lightning by Ham burg 11 9 30450 Purse and stake values have increased so vastly of late years that comparisons on a moneywinning basis are uninstructive Thoras entire winnings in twentyfive vic lories were less than 30000 for her credit of 30845 includes what she earned in ten races in which she was either second or third Nowadays it is possible to win a larger sum in a single effort So the names of several of Americas large moneywin ning mares do not appear in the list above such as Colonial Girl Reckon and others as on class they did not seem to belong there I would have liked to foot the list with Cleopatra but how could she be in eluded in such company when she won only eight races in twentysix starts Of this my private gallery of great Amer ican race mares it is pleasant to think that the blood of many of them has helped to produce many stars of subsequent genera tions Feridas daughter Carrie C produced Jean Bereaud Thora produced Yorkville Belle also in the table the only instance of this kind In addition she also foaled both Dobbins and Sir Francis Miss Woodford became the mother of one clinker George Kessler Modesty through her daughters transmitted her merit to several brilliant racers Including Regret the final figure on my roster Dew Drop died without produce as did Yo Tambien Firenze became the granddam of Water Pearl and the third dam of Paul Jones Los Angeles produced Los Angeleno winner of a notable fourmile race on the Pacific coast Wandas family in eludes a winner of the English Derby La Tosca gave us Chuctanunda Caughnawaga Mohawk II etc etc Several good winners trace to Imp if no great ones Maskette was taken to France and there became a dis tinguished matron
