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Swynford and Tracery at the Top I BY SALVATOR. Swynford heads the English sires for 1923. The list of leaders, recently printed in Daily Racing Form, shows that he gave Tracery about a two-thousand-pound sterling beating, the respective figures being 5189,486 and ?179,SS0. Owing to the fact that Tracery was bred in America, I had been hoping that he would do what, all the early part of the season, he threatened to top the list. This would have established a new record, as previously no American-bred stallion ever achieved that feat. And now perhaps none ever will. It was a near thing. Had Papyrus been a shade better, could he, for instance, have won the St. Leger, it would have been a sure thing. But such is " racing luck. No one, however, will begrudge Swynford his "pride of place." It has been honestly won, and comes as the consummation of a highly honorable stud career, following a turf career of similar distinction. It cannot be said, however, that he has as yet given to the turf his own equal. Tranquil looked like a grand filly in the St. Leger, but her crushing defeat on the heels of her Don-caster triumph made many things that had been said and written of her sound somewhat foolish. EXTRAVAGANT PRAISE FOR TRANQUIL. I find, in fact, the same inclination among present-day English turf writers to lose their heads over the winner of the moment that used to be considered a typically American characteristic. Some amusing things might be reproduced from the outbursts that Tran-quils "Leger" evoked from British scribes. She was bracketed with Sceptre and Pretty Polly Indeed, it was intimated that she might be their superior! And so on and so on. And this in turn calls to mind some of the outbursts of a year ago when Hurry On loomed up among sires. Here, of course, the inspiration of the commentators had a somewhat different source. The connection between turf greatness and commercial exploitation is so intimate and inevitable in England that when you hear a chorus of unbridled encomiasts of a certain sjre you can make up your mind with more or less certainty principally more that a large part of it is inspired by hopes of "future business." It is, in short, propaganda for a purpose. OF THE "MARVELOUS" HURRY ON. Last year most British turf writers and breeding "experts" were telling us what a marvel Hurry On was. They had him heading the sires list annually for a decade to come; and, as a matter of solemn fact, one eminent scribe proclaimed that the mantle of, St. Simon had fallen on him and he was destined to eclipse that immortal progenitors achievements! Alas for the fallibility of sure-thing-play-! ing, either of racers or sires of racers. This ! year our second and greater St. Simon, has fetched up a rather poor seventh, the winnings of his get being only about half as j much as those of the get of Swynford. So the breeding teetium whirls. "Nobody knows" j where the winning number is going to fall, ! or whether it will ever fall in the same place again. But numerous gifted prophets do not hesitate to "tell the world" all about it, well in advance. It is a curious thins that the eight leading sires in England for 1923 represent eight different sire lines. Without exhaustive research, I doubt if this condition was obtained there before in a long while. Here is the exhibit: . Sire. Sire line. "Winnings. Swynford .............. tsonomy 89,485 Tracery .Springfield 179.SS0 The Tetrarch I.e Sancy 100.300 Lcmberg Bend Or 154.070 Sunstar .Speculum 148,220 Son-in-Law Hampton 127,015 Hurry On P.arcaldine 96,400 Stcdfast St. Simon 93,260 It is significant that the ere-while dominant St. Simon line is at the foot of the list. And what is still more significant, we have to go on down below the topmost octet to no less than the seventeenth stallion Charles OMalley, before we reach another St. Simon representative. The Bend Or line has receded to fourth place, but atones for this by its strength immediately below the first eight. The ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth sires Flying Orb, Friar Marcus, Phalaris and irolymelus are all Bend Ors, which gives that line no less than five of the first twelve sires in England for 1923 a notable score. Last year the Bend Or horse Lemberg topped the tree, for right at the end of the season he nosed out Hurry On for the honors, after the latter had all along appeared to have "a moral" for them. . A MEMBER OF THE ISONOAlY LINE. While I would have liked to see Tracery lead, I must confess to pleasure at a member of the Isonomy line having beaten him, seeing that beaten he must be. I have often wondered just how great a horse Isonomy must have been, to do what he did. Being a handicap horse, not a "classic" winner, and a stayer rather than a racer reputed for phenomenal speed, he never enjoyed the favor that either Bend Or, or St. Simon, so to speak, luxuriated in. I always thought Isinglass would have been attended by far more reclame had he been a member of either one of these lines rather than that to which he belonged. He never excited the enthusiasm that more than one Bend Or or St. Simon horse drew out. It is also true that Isonomys other sensational son, Common, was underrated rather than overpraised the critics were prone to disparage rather than commend him. Isonomy himself was not appreciated, as a sire at his true worth, until shortly before death took him so suddenly, when but sixteen years old. Had he been spared to live out so long a span of life as Bend Or and St. Simon enjoyed, the inference seems irresistible that today his influence might be absolutely dominant. His representatives have never been of large numbers but how deep the impress they have made ! In France the value of his blood is held to be exalted, owing to the French partiality for stayers and the fact that this quality, which Isonomy himself so conspicuously possessed, he has handed on to his descendants. Here in America we have various excellent strains of Isonomys blood, though both male and female channels ; of course, the pre-eminent one that through his grandson Star Shoot, which led the American sires in live different seasons, and one of whose daughters, Livonia, produced The Finn, lead-ins sire of 1123,
