THE RACEHORSE IN AUSTRALIA

By Dr. W. H. LANG.

The History of the Racehorse in Australia is such a short one that you might, with reason, imagine that the entire narrative could be condensed into a very small space when committed to print. But you would be utterly wrong. On the contrary, an historian, with his heart in the business, could reel off a number of fair-sized volumes, and still his work would not be fulfilled to his entire satisfaction. A little ancient history may be useful to us before we commence to study the subject. As you know, there was no trace of the genus horse on our island continent before the coming of the white man. In America, on the other hand, although there was no horse as we know him, before the advent of the Conqueror Cortez, in 1518, yet the fossilised remains of the Eohippus, the Protohippus and Hipparion are so numerous and well distributed on the great American continents that these wide lands seem to have been the most favoured home of the great race of equidae, in the far-off days before the ice.

The whole species was then cut off, to a horse, possibly by an epidemic, or by the ravages, more probably, of some insect or microbe, and its history in that quarter of the globe recommenced with the Conquest. In vivid contrast the tale of our own Australian horse, and all our other domestic animals, begins as late as the 10th day of January, 1788. Governor Phillip brought with him from the Cape of Good Hope, where he had called to obtain supplies on his voyage hither with his first fleet of convicts, a stallion and three mares with foals at foot, a few cattle, and in all 500 head of live stock, but which consisted for the most part of poultry.

The new Colony had a good deal of bad luck at this time. The four-footed animals, owing to the negligence of a convict herdsman, strayed away, and although one has reason to believe that the horses were recovered, there is no certainty on that head. With the cattle there is a different story to tell, and on the very day upon which I am writing this, I read, in “The English Sporting Magazine” of 1797, the story of their loss and recovery. A boat’s crew sought a bay on the coast whilst searching for fresh water. At the spot where the men landed they fell in with a convict who had escaped five years before, and who had joined the blacks. This man showed them where the lost cattle had made their home, deep in some fertile valley, and in the course of their nine years of liberty they had increased in numbers to sixty-one head. It was a valuable find for the struggling colonists, who, from drought and flood, had lost a large portion of their property.

In the very early years of “the Colony” there was exceedingly little need for the assistance of light horses in the daily work of the place, whilst the desire to possess an animal more speedy than that owned by a neighbour had not yet arisen at all. You will, perhaps, recollect that, until the year 1813 or thereabouts, the only portion of our vast continent which was being made use of by white men was a little strip of soil between the Blue Mountains and the sea, some forty miles by eighty, and the few horses which had now been brought over from the Cape, or out from the Old Country, were simply beasts of burden, or, at the best, perhaps, hacks and harness horses.

It was on the 31st day of May of that year that Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson burst their way through the hitherto impenetrable ranges and scrub into the limitless lands beyond, and it was upon that same day that the use for a swift and long-enduring saddle horse was discovered by the inhabitantswho followed in the tracks of these explorers, and the first real need of the thoroughbred as a sire found its way into Australia.

Yet, though there seems to have been such a limited demand for the thoroughbred steed in these very early days, there were, at least, three importations before the transit of the Blue Mountains had been accomplished, and you cannot help wondering what was the inducement which tempted the importers to take the risk.

A mist floats over the particulars of these first arrivals. In the closing years of the eighteenth century there is on record that a blood horse, Rockingham by name, was shipped to Australia from the Cape of Good Hope. It was at the end of the seventeen nineties, and the only other authentic fact which I can ascertain concerning him is that he subsequently became known as “Young Rockingham.” There is no trace of anything which he may have left behind him in the way of progeny. He was probably by Rockingham, a stallion which was covering in England about this period, but not the Rockingham, of course, by Humphrey Clinker, who appears in the pedigree of Doncaster. The day of that sire had not yet dawned.

A blood horse called Washington is said to have been imported from America in 1802. The first volume of the “Australian Stud Book” simply mentions the fact, and adds that he was “said to have been a very handsome horse,” and there it ends. But Mr. T. Merry, in his book on the American horse, states that he was by Timoleon, and that he was not sent to Australia until 1825. The third importation before the transit was of one whose name is still alive, and that is “Old” Hector, or simply Hector. The exact year of his arrival here is uncertain. A correspondent in a weekly paper some months ago gives it with confidence as 1803, and states that the horse died in 1821. The first volume of the “Stud Book” quotes it as 1810, but refers to him as a “Persian.” Hector was a favourite name amongst horse-masters, and there were as many Hectors in Australia as there were King Harrys on the field of Shrewsbury. The thoroughbred Hector is described as “a very fine, commanding horse. The gameness of his stock proves that he was not an Indian horse.” The second volume corrects the dates, and believes that Hector was imported in 1806, whilst the seventh volume adds that Hector went to Tasmania from New South Wales in 1820. In a Tasmanian advertisement he is described as “by Hector, probably Hector by Trentham,” the property of the Iron Duke. All this is not only of interest, but it is of a certain value to studmasters, for the blood of Old Hector survives in some force to-day through the descendants of his daughter Old Betty. But, as that famous mare, the ancestress of such a very numerous and worthy family, was not foaled until 1829, we are left in a deep quagmire of doubt as to what her real pedigree can possibly have been. The “Stud Book,” however, accepts the mare as being by Hector.

And, to close these very early, almost prehistoric data, a bay stallion, named The Governor, was imported about 1817. He was by Walton from Enchantress, by Volunteer, from a mare by Mambrino, but I can find no mention whatsoever of this horse’s services, nor of his progeny. That, indeed, was inevitable, for until this period no race mare with a clean pedigree had ever come to our shores. Our country at that time was no land of promise, so hopelessly far away was it from the Old World, and from civilisation, over seas very dangerous, not only on account of the smallness of the vessels employed in transport, but also from the unceasing violence of the enemy.

Chapter II.The First Race Mare.

But now, after Waterloo, with the seemingly interminable wars and tumults lulled into peace and calm at last, things were beginning to shape themselves in the Colony. Evans had explored the country a hundred miles or so farther out than that point to which Blaxland’s little company had penetrated, and he had discovered the Macquarie River, and named it. Oxley had already condemned as useless almost all the fertile land of the Southern Riverina, although, at any rate, he had thrown it open, and in 1824 Hamilton Hume had walked with his few followers, and with Hovell, an old ship’s captain with whom he continually fought, from Lake George to Port Phillip Bay. Cattle and sheep had increased enormously, the country over which they depastured seemed to be without end, but markets were few and far apart. Horses of stamina, and therefore of the best blood were urgently required in order to round up the mobs of bullocks and cows which roamed the unfenced plains, and to accomplish the long journeys to the distant towns.

And thus it was that our best early stallions, and some of our mares which still, through their descendants, carry on their lines, were brought to Australia. Steeltrap, in 1823, was the first of the successful stallions to land. His was valuable blood. He was by Scud, and Scud sired two Derby winners, the first, Sam, bred in 1815, the very year in which Steeltrap was foaled, and the second, Sailor, in 1817. The Oaks winner of 1819, Shoveler, was also a Scud filly, and therefore it is perfectly evident that Steeltrap came from the most fashionable blood of his day, and must have been worth a great deal of money. His dam was by Sorcerer out of Pamella, by Whiskey from Lais. He was a chestnut, and “sired very game horses.” Their gameness, no doubt, was exhibited during the long and tiring journeys after cattle, for contests must have been rare in which they could have had opportunities of proving their mettle on the racecourse. Steeltrap remains with us still in the persons of the descendants of “The Steeltrap mare.” There were several matrons identified by the same cognomen, but this particular representative of the clan was out of “a Government mare,” presumably clean bred, and she left two daughters, Beeswing and Marchioness, both by The Marquis, a son of Dover.

Zulu, the winner of the great Melbourne Cup in 1881, came from this line, as well as Bylong, Stanley, Sweetmeat and Tridentate, while around Wagga numbers of the same breed are still alive through the medium of the mares Lady Cameron, Lady Phoebe, Latona and Antonia.

In the same year, 1824, which brought us Steeltrap, there also came to our shores Bay Camerton, or Old Camerton, or simply Camerton. He was known by each and all of these names from time to time. He was by Camerton, from Waltonia, by Walton, and quickly ran out, on his dam’s side, to the very famous Burton Barb mare, which is now so readily identified as the tap-root of the exceptionally high qualitied No. 2 family. Bay Camerton survives through the line of Camilla, a daughter of his when mated with Old Betty. But now, in the following year, 1825, arrived the first of all the race mares that have made Australian Turf story. This was Manto. It was indeed a happy day for our Turf when she, then a three-year-old, landed in New South Wales. She was bred in England in 1822, was bought by Mr. Icely, Coombing Park, and imported to Australia in 1825. I can find no description of the colour of Manto, as, curiously, she does not appear in the “General Stud Book.” The omission came about probably in this manner: In 1780 the Duke of Cumberland, “the Butcher” of Culloden, bred a marenamed Rose, by Sweet Briar out of Merliton, by Snap. She passed through several hands, but ultimately ended up in the ownership of old Dick Goodisson, an eccentric fellow, and the favourite jockey, as well as companion of the Marquis of Queensberry, better known as “old Q.,” and worse known in the lines of the Poet Wordsworth as “Degenerate Douglas.” Dick Goodisson bred a filly by Buzzard from Rose in 1800, a full brother to the same-named Lyncaeus, and two more sisters, one in 1802, and another in 1803. These mares were simply known, after the slack method of the time, as “sisters to Lyncaeus.” The last foal of one of these same sisters to Lyncaeus, by Soothsayer, the individual dropped in 1802, was this Manto of ours, and Mr. Wanklyn, the erudite keeper of the “New Zealand Stud Book,” and a prolific author in the matter of “Stud Book” lore, believes that it was the fact that she was the youngest born foal of her mother, and that she was sold as a youngster to go abroad, which accounted for the non-appearance of her name in the recognised official records of the day.

Before leaving England, Manto had been served by Young Grasshopper, by Grasshopper, who was by Windle, a son of Beningborough, by King Fergus, by Eclipse. Young Grasshopper’s dam was a daughter of Sorcerer, and as Manto was by Soothsayer, by Sorcerer, we have an early illustration of the value of close in-breeding. Manto dropped her foal a few days after setting her feet on Australian soil, and the little thing was christened Cornelia. Unfortunately, Mr. Icely, unappreciative of the excellence and value of his importations, failed to keep anything like accurate records of his stud. He did not even take a note of the colour of his foals. We do know, however, that Manto, subsequent to the birth of Cornelia, also foaled Chancellor, to Steeltrap, Lady Godiva to Rous’ Emigrant, Lycurgus to Whisker, and Emilius to Operator.

She also produced a colt named Jupiter, which was sent to South Australia, but he is returned without the name of his sire attached. It is to Cornelia that we must look for the tap-root from which nearly one thousand racehorses in Australia have traced their origin. She threw a colt named Emancipation, by Toss, a bold experiment in still more extensive in-breeding to Sorcerer—a filly, Lady Flora, by Whisker, a full sister to her, named Besom, a colt, Euclid, by Operator, a filly, Old Moonshine, by Rous’ Emigrant, and Flora McIvor, also by Emigrant. Moonshine’s name still crops up through Coquette, Speculation and Progress—Grand Flaneur’s understudy, but Flora McIvor had an enormous family. For Mr. Icely she threw the fillies Fatima, Florence, Faultless, Emily, Zoe, Flora and Chloe, and five colts, Figaro, Cossack, Nutwith, The Chevalier and Bay Middleton. Mr. Icely then disposed of the old mare to Mr. Redwood, of Nelson, New Zealand, and for him she produced at the age of 26 and 28, or possibly, for Mr. Icely’s lack of stud records causes much uncertainty, at 27 and 29. Io and Waimea, Flora McIvor’s pair of New Zealand children, and her children’s children, from these two famous mares, rose up and called her blessed. Io and Waimea were dropped in 1855 and ’57, and then, full of years and honours, and with no further offspring, the grand old mare died in 1861. The list of great racehorses which claim her for their ancestress is too long to quote, but the names of even a few of these will tell you what a very cornerstone of our pastime Flora McIvor has proved herself to be. There was Bloodshot. I can see him in the Cup chasing Newhaven home now, when my eyes are closed. And then there were Chicago, Churchill, Circe, Cissy, Cremorne, Cuirassier, Euroclydon, Frailty, The Gem, Havoc, Manuka, Newmaster, Niagara, Nonsense, Oudeis, Parthian, Progress, Siege Gun, Trenton, Wakatipu, Wild Rose, Zalinski, Beauford and Zoe, whilst the brood mares that trace to the same source run into hundreds.

Chapter III.The ’Thirties.

There were very few clean bred horses imported to Australia between the arrival of Manto and the ’thirties of the last century. Such as they were, these are not only very interesting, but several of them proved themselves to be extremely valuable, and we have their representatives racing with credit on our courses to this day. Thus, in 1826, The Cressey Company brought to Tasmania the chestnut horse Buffalo, by Fyldener, a great grandson of Herod, from Roxana, a granddaughter, on both sides of the house, of the immortal Eclipse. It is a little surprising to find a commercial company in those far-off days selecting a stallion of such superlative blood lines for the purpose of producing utility horses in this distant land, for the racehorse can scarcely yet have entered into its calculations when the company made its purchases. We may be very certain that the managers had very wise heads upon their shoulders. By the same ship they also imported the stallion Bolivar, and the chestnut mare who became so famous in after days, Edella. The latter produced three chestnuts to her fellow traveller Buffalo, the colts Liberty and Fyldener, and the filly Curiosity. Edella was by Warrior, a great grandson of Herod, from Risk, a great, great, granddaughter of Herod from a Precipitate mare, and Precipitate was a granddaughter of Eclipse. You can thus see how tremendously closely our ancestors bred in and in to Herod and O’Kelly’s mighty nonpareil Eclipse. Curiosity, the in-bred daughter of Buffalo and Edella, was put to Peter Finn, a horse by Whalebone from a Delpini mare, brought to Tasmania in 1826, in the brig “Anne,” and the result was the bay filly Diana. This mare became the property of Mr. Field, of Tasmania, and his family has religiously cherished her descendants ever since. Mr. Field put Diana to Bay Middleton, a son of imported Jersey, who was by Buzzard, a son of Blacklock from Cobweb, the great Bay Middleton’s dam. The result of the union was the filly Resistance, who, when her time came, was sent to Peter Wilkins, a brown horse by The Flying Dutchman from Boarding School Miss. A daughter of hers was christened Edella, after her great-great-grand dam. One wishes that those forebears of ours had had more ingenuity in their choice of names. Edellas, Curiosities, Camillas, Violets and Cobwebs fly in clouds through the earlier stud books. However that may be, this particular Edella threw two great colts, Stockwell, by St. Albans, and Bagot, by the same sire. Stockwell, after showing that he was a first-class racehorse, unfortunately died, and Bagot, when his name had been changed to Malua, was the greatest horse of his day, and founder of his family. This history of the introduction of the horse into Australasia is an engrossing theme, but if we gave way to our desires and followed each and all of them up through the century we would run into many volumes. Skeleton was the only new arrival during 1827, and his name has, but for Woorak’s successes, nearly died out from our modern pedigrees. I, however, possess several letters from the Marquis of Sligo to Mr. W. Reilly, Skeleton’s importer, concerning him, and pointing out to Mr. Reilly the horse’s many qualities.

As a piece of contemporary history, one of these letters is worthy of reproduction in a history of the Racehorse in Australia:—

“Mansfield Street,“London,“30th March, 1832.

“Mansfield Street,

“London,

“30th March, 1832.

“My Dear Sir,—

“In reply to your note requesting me to give my opinion of Skeleton, who formerly belonged to me, and whom you have sent to New SouthWales, I have much pleasure in confirming the representation of my cousin, Captain Browne, relative to his performance and character; indeed, I can go much farther, in consequence of what has occurred since his statement was made. Every one of Skeleton’s brothers have since distinguished themselves in the highest degree, so much so that, when I wished to purchase another brother on account of my knowledge of the good qualities of two former ones, I was asked 500 guineas for him, though only a yearling. One of his brothers (not the same) was since sold for 700 guineas, a three-year-old, and that in Ireland, where money is scarce.

“My conviction is that, had he been fairly treated by my trainer, he would have found himself one of the best horses in England. Indeed, his public as well as his private trials warrant me in saying so. The proof of my opinion was my seeking to re-purchase his sire (Master Robert), and purchasing his brother.

“Were Skeleton now in this country, I would not hesitate to adopt him into my stud, which is pretty numerous and of some value, as may be proved by my selling last year a two-year-old, Fang, a relative, too, of Skeleton, for the enormous sum of 3,300 guineas money, and contingencies worth at market 500 more, making by £100 the greatest price ever given for a two-year-old. Mr. Western’s opinion of him is, I think, quite correct, and I know no stallion more likely to effect an important improvement in the breed of horses in Australia.”

“(Signed) SLIGO.”

You see what an alteration in values has taken place during the ninety years since the Marquis penned these lines. Three thousand guineas was an “enormous sum” for a horse, and seven hundred a great price for a three-year-old in Ireland, “where money is scarce.” Times have changed, indeed, with a vengeance. The Captain Browne mentioned in the letter was the father of our very familiar old friend, Rolf Boldrewood, and Skeleton has left behind him a deep mark in the Malvolio and Woorak family, through Madcap, Giovani, Lady Laurestina, and finally Latona, by Skeleton out of Miss Lane.

All told, there were forty-seven blood stallions imported into Australia between the beginning of things and the end of 1838, and, considering what state the world had been in, politically and socially, during a great part of that period, and remembering the weary length of the voyage, the risk of capture by the French, and all the dangers incident to a sea voyage of some twelve thousand miles in small vessels, ships which could only be described as cockleshells, we did not do so very badly after all. It is interesting, and valuable, too, to mark the chronological order of the advent of such of these as have left a name behind them, in spite of the great gulf of time and all the tremendous events which have taken place on the earth since their brief day.

Blood Stallions of Note That Were Imported Between 1799 and 1838.

Emigrant was the king of them all. If ever you run out the pedigree of an Australian-bred horse of to-day, whose ancestors have dwelt for some generations in Australia, there crops up the name of Rous’ Emigrant. It forms a memorial, far more enduring than brass or iron, to that very gallant sailor and splendid judge of all things connected with the racehorse, the Hon. H. J. Rous, “The Admiral.”

Rous’ Emigrant was a black brown, according to one who actually saw him, although some authorities, including the General Stud Book, describe him as having been a bay. In my own eyes I always frame a mental picture of a rich, glowing, mahogany brown horse, with a bold, generous, manly head, a great full eye, a noble crest, deep, fine shoulders, a barrel as round as any cask, and a tremendous loin. “He carries his flag like a Russian duke” of the olden time, and his quarters and gaskins are immense, with hocks straight, flat and strong. Old Mr. Gosper, of Windsor, N.S.W., is reported to have given the following verdict concerning Emigrant, and in the vernacular, “I never seed an ’orse that I liked better than Rous’ Emigrant. ’Is ’oofs looked as though they war made o’ granite, and at eighteen there wasn’t a blemish of no sort on ’is legs.” A rare horse.

But if the tide of emigration had been a somewhat weak one up to 1839, something had evidently occurred in the history of the colony, or in the world’s politics, so as to entirely alter that state of affairs, and I am not quite sure what that something might have been. The prosperity of Australia about this period was not very startling. The price of cattle was low, the population was not increasing in a satisfactory manner, “boiling-down” had already been resorted to, and yet, between 1839 and the commencement of 1844, fifty-three blood stallions were brought into the country. And the bustle and boom of the gold rush was still in the womb of futurity.

Chapter V.The Foundation Brood Mares of Australia.

We have examined the foundation stones of our thoroughbred horse, so far as the sires are concerned, and now it is necessary to look at that even more important element in the building up of our racing stock, the early brood mares. We have already noted the arrival of Manto and the birth of Cornelia, the most important events which ever occurred in the chronicles of our Australian turf. None of the mares that followed, between 1825 and the early ’forties of the last century, were nearly so potent for good, although the influence of one or two of these has been sufficiently great.

Here is a brief list of those worthy matrons:—

And then, during the ’forties, there came Falklandina, Quadroon, Paraguay, Nora Creina, Miss Lane, Splendora and the Giggler. A few others there were, but their sun has waned, their glory is faded, already they have slipped over the horizon of time, and are out of sight. Of the early arrivals, apart from Manto and Cornelia, Edella has handed down to us such horses as Caramut, Malua, Mozart, Rapidity, Glenloth, Sheet Anchor, and numerous matrons which may, at any moment, teem, once more, with winners as of old. Spaewife lives through David, a Debutant winner, Finland, Fishery, and all that Fishwife family which brings back so vividly the name of that excellent old sportsman, Mr. John Turnbull. Quambone, Fucile, Tim Whiffler and Troubadour spring from the same root. Whizgig is responsible for Blink Bonny, Coronet, Meteor, Prodigal, Ringwood, Rufus, Strop and Tim Swiveller.

Most of this little troupe came over to the mainland from Tasmania in order to earn their fame.

Lady Emily is the founder of the tribe of Beaumont, The Bohemian, Lady Betty, The Nun, Pardon, Picture and Reprieve, but Gulnare, who was imported in the same year as Lady Emily, has left a much more indelible mark on our records than any other of the pioneers, with the exception of Manto.

That very remarkable man, Captain John Macarthur, who, I believe, did more for young Australia than any other individual, imported this mare. She was a grey, but her colour character seems to have been lost during the gulf of years between us and them. Sappho retains her ghostly influence overher descendants much more markedly than does Gulnare. Yattendon was the great exponent of the family, but many good horses came from the same line, such as Camden, Cassandra, Dainty Ariel, Survivor, and so on, and there are a goodly number of mares still with us from one of which the ancient glories of the house may readily be revived. Merino, Fairy and Octavia are practically dead, but the Cape mare, through Moss Rose, had many good descendants in the early days, and she may yet again come to the front.

There is a very grave doubt, however, what the ultimate origin of this useful mare might have been, for the Cape mare was thirty years old when she is said to have dropped Moss Rose, and this is a very unusual, if not unprecedented, age at which a clean bred mare could drop a foal. Of those mares imported in the ’forties, Falklandina still exists. Ritualist, the sire of some useful jumpers of to-day, comes from her, and Maddelina, Torah, Terlinga and Monastery each claim her as their ancestress. It is a South Australian family. Quadroon was a live wire until of recent years, when she seems to have weakened considerably. Chuckster, Grey Gown, Hyacinth, Kit Nubbles, Metford, Oreillet, Riverton, Swiveller and Trenchant are amongst the best moderns who run back straight to this old dame.

Paraguay, with a very limited list of foalings to her name, will probably live for ever in Australian turf lore, as, of her two sons, Whalebone and Sir Hercules, the latter has made a very deep mark in the honour list. Miss Lane we have seen as the founder of the Madcap clan. She was incestuously bred, her sire, Rector, a son of Muley, having produced her from a Muley mare. The Giggler was at one time full of promise, but with the failure of Menschikoff at the stud she seems to be fading into oblivion. And the last of the 1840 to 1850 immigrants which we will mention here is Nora Creina. Our reason for paying particular attention to her is that we have authentic notes concerning her journey hither, and as one voyage is not unlike another, we may, from this one example, receive a general idea of the difficulties and pleasures of transportation at that time from the Old Country. Mr. William Pomeroy Green, in the year 1842, chartered a ship from Plymouth, and brought his whole family, and all his household goods, along with him to this new land. I do not know whether the vessel was a brig, a barque, or a ship—most probably a barque—but, at all events, she was only of 500 tons register.

Into this little thing was squeezed a family consisting of the father and mother, six sons, one daughter, a governess, a butler, a carpenter, with his family, the head groom, a second groom, a herdsman, a “useful boy,” a gardener, a laundress, a man cook, with his wife, a housemaid, and a nurse, a young and inexperienced surgeon, two young friends of the family named Richard Singleton and James Ellis, Mr. Walker, a Sydney merchant and his sister, a Mr. Wray from Devonshire—an invalid—Mr. William Stawell, afterwards famous as Sir William Stawell, Chief Justice of Victoria, as well as all the crew and live stock.

The latter consisted of two thoroughbreds, Rory O’More, by Birdcatcher out of Nora Creina’s dam, Nora Creina herself, by Sir Edward Codrington from a mare by Drone, her dam Mary Anne, by Waxy Pope out of Witch, by Sorcerer; a hunter named Pickwick; a favourite mare of Mr. Green’s Taglioni; a Durham cow christened “Sarah”—and Mr. Stawell took out two bulls.

Here was prospective romance for you, and as much of it as you please. Mr. Stawell, of course, married Miss Green, and their sons are amongst the best-known, most trusted and well-liked of all Victorians of the present day.The patriarchs of old, the Swiss Family Robinson of our childhood, were never in it for the enterprise and romance of the whole affair. They sailed on August 8th, 1842. The ship “Sarah” was not very seaworthy—indeed, she was lost on the return voyage—but although there were several gales experienced on the passage, and parts of the bulwarks were washed away, they all arrived in safety at Port Phillip on the first day of December. “Mr. Stawell swam his bulls ashore, but our horses were taken in a horse box on a launch.”

In his diary, Mr. Green, under a September entry, says:—“My horses are doing well. I take them to the main hatch every day that is fine, and give them the height of grooming and salt water washing.” Mr. Green was a man of method, and he kept accurate records of his stud doings. There is no lack of particulars with regard to Norah Creina’s foalings, and the only thing about it which we can complain of is, that he put her to her near relative, Rory O’More, for all the first seven seasons. She had slipped a foal, however, on board the “Sarah,” to an English horse. I have no doubt he could not well do otherwise, there probably being no other available stallion within reach. The old mare had fourteen foals. Of these, the most famous were Tricolor (V.R.C. Derby), Oriflamme (Derby and Leger), Royal Irishman (Adelaide Leger), Norma (Australian and Adelaide Cups), Dolphin (Adelaide Cup), Pollio (Australia Cup), Quality (V.R.C. Oaks), Spark (the Hobart and Launceston Cups), and Garryowen, a lesser light. Such races, no doubt, were easier to win then than they are now, but it was a creditable record.

Taglioni, the “favourite mare,” although with no given pedigree, has rendered herself more or less immortal, in that Explosion, an Ascot Vale winner, Pegasus, a Hawkes Bay Guineas winner, Volume (New Zealand St. Leger), and some others trace to her.

So now we have taken a rapid and somewhat bird’s-eye view of the thoroughbred arrivals in the Colony down to the beginning of the fifties of the nineteenth century, and we shall now endeavour to take a like bird’s-eye photograph of what these same horses came out to do, and what racing was like in their day.

Horse racing in Sydney, of course, commenced some years earlier than it did in the Port Phillip division of the Colony, settlement in the north there having an advantage of nearly forty years over the south. I find in a copy of the first Melbourne “Argus” ever printed, on June 2nd, 1846, the entries for a race meeting at Homebush. Amongst these appear the names of Alice Hawthorn and Gulnare. They are somewhat puzzling at that date, as Macarthur’s Gulnare was three and twenty years old in ’46, whilst her daughter, also named Gulnare, was still breeding in ’83, a fact which apparently puts her also out of court. The name seems to have been a popular one, for some reason or another. There was also a mob of Alice Hawthorns, and this particular individual was most probably the mare by Operator from Lorina (imp.), a bay foaled about 1840.

But it is Victorian racing to which we are for the most part going to direct our attention at present. In January, 1803, a survey party had examinedthe site of the present Melbourne. Collins had formed a convict settlement during the same year at Sorrento, down close to the Heads, but had quickly abandoned the enterprise. Hume, as we have seen, had reached the neighbourhood of Geelong in ’24; Captain Wishart, in his cutter, “Fairy,” had entered and named Port Fairy after his little craft in ’27; Dutton, on a sealing expedition, had built a house at Portland in 1829, and Mr. Henty had made a permanent settlement there in ’34. In May, ’35, Batman entered Port Phillip Bay in a schooner from Tasmania, and Fawkner’s schooner “Enterprise” navigated the lower reaches of the Yarra in August of that year. He was the son of a convict who had been in Collins’ Sorrento picnic party, and was attracted back by his favourable recollections of the place.

In 1836 the blacks came down from the Goulburn and committed murder, somewhere near to the Werribee. In ’37 Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, exploring beyond Geelong, were lost, and killed by the aborigines, and life was very unsettled and wild. But now mobs of cattle had commenced to be driven over from Botany Bay to the new settlement, and white men, with the restlessness and energy of our race, were arriving with frequency, for reports concerning the place were distinctly good, and in 1838, so numerous were the inhabitants of Port Phillip, that they decided that the time was ripe in which to inaugurate a race meeting. We are a strange nation; a peculiar people. March 6th was the great day, just eighty-three years ago. There were five hundred spectators present, and four races took place for their edification. Two were won by a mare named Mountain Maid, and two by a gelding, Postboy. Four starters constituted the largest field of the day. The course was right handed, one mile round the she-oak clad Batman’s Hill, a rising ground between the present Spencer Street Railway Station and the gasworks. The starting post was at the site of the North Melbourne Railway Station. As you enter the city from Sydney, you can, if you care to, recall the scene. The scrub was thick between the hill and the surrounding country. It was cut by winding, deeply-indented waggon tracks, for the ground was soft and boggy. Two carts, sheltered from the sun by old sails, performed the functions of publicans’ booths.

It was a two-days’ meeting, but the second helping, like so many second helpings of other things than race days, was a failure, or even, indeed, an utter fiasco. In 1839 there was again a two-days’ gathering on the slopes of Batman’s Hill. The racing was poor, Postboy and Mountain Maid again being strongly in evidence, but the attendance was so large that it was generally agreed that the population must have doubled since the previous year. But now the turf world fairly began to hum, and Batman’s Hill was no longer considered suitable for the purposes of racing. The experienced eye of someone had “spotted” the flats by the Salt Water River as being made to order for the sport, and on the 3rd of March, 1840, the first race meeting at Flemington was successfully carried through. It was a three-days’ affair, and for the first time in Port Phillip the riders sported colours. The quality of the competitors must have been very poor, for, if you look up the arrivals, in their chronological order on a previous page, you will see that few, if any, of their stock can have been taking part in the contests, and, therefore, most of them must have been nothing better than half-bred hacks. But the spirit of emulation had now caught fire, and all through the country owners were making matches one with another, and metropolitan racing was booming to such an extent that a ruling body called “The Port Phillip Turf Club” was called into existence. To the deliberations of this body, and their resulting actions, we owe the fact that horses in Victoria now take their ages from the first day of August in each year.

And now the course itself, at Flemington, became firmly and thoroughly established when, in 1844, plans were submitted to the Town Council, and that body approving of them, the place was declared to be a reserve for the purposes of racing. Five trustees were appointed, in whose name the ground was held, these including the Crown Commissioner of the day, the Surveyor-in-Charge, Mr. J. C. Riddel, Mr. Dalmahoy Campbell and Mr. William J. Stawell. Shortly afterwards the Superintendent of Port Phillip declared this transaction not to be legal, and a new grant was completed on October 22nd, 1847. The land included those portions of the Parish of Doutta Galla from 23 to 28 inclusive, beside the Saltwater or Maribyrnong River, the trustees being Mr. Riddel, Mr. Stawell, Mr. Dalmahoy Campbell again, and Mr. Colin Campbell. The term of years was subsequently increased from ten to twenty-one, which, on the latest renewal of the compact, was finally extended to ninety-nine, at the rent of one peppercorn per annum. The spot was then known to the inhabitants as “The Racecourse,” but a little village now began to grow up in the neighbourhood, and this was soon christened “Flemington,” in honour of a genial butcher who supplied meat to the hamlet, and whose name was Bob Fleming. In those early days everyone went to the races, and the route to and from the course was either by river-steamer or by road. The boats left the wharves at eleven o’clock and returned at sunset, and you may be sure there were hot times in the town o’ nights after the races. Bands and Christy minstrels enlivened the voyage by water. Passengers on the trip home not infrequently toppled overboard, and one or two were actually drowned. Accidents by road were common. At one meeting alone three men were killed, two being run over by vehicles, and one by a runaway horse. Assaults were common, and fighting very popular. Mr. O’Shanassy—who afterwards became Sir John—was attacked whilst taking a meditative canter round the course, and struck over the head very viciously by a ruffian armed with a heavy hunting crop. It was proved to have been a premeditated crime. Not being disabled by his injuries, and being a man of much determination and courage, O’Shanassy turned upon his assailant, pursued and captured him, and had the satisfaction of seeing him receive a sentence of six months’ imprisonment.

The winning post stood alongside the river bank somewhere between the present mile and seven furlong barriers. It was a handy spot at which the steamers could tie up to gum trees on the banks, and could disembark their passengers, but it had the disadvantage of being a considerable distance from the top of the steep, rising ground which soon became known as Picnic Hill. It was not, however, until the sport had been in existence for some twenty years that it was found advisable to change the winning post to its present site, thus converting the Hill into a permanent, convenient and commodious stand. By the year 1846 racing had taken a very firm hold of the light-hearted community, and already a public idol had been discovered and worshipped, spoken about and written about, much in the same way as the public and the press magnify our idols the Carbines, the Poitrels, the Artillerymen, and the Eurythmics of our own times. This golden image which the folk had set up on the Flemington Flats was a dark chestnut horse called Petrel. The reports concerning his paternity and his adventures before he became a racehorse varied considerably. By some he was considered to be by Rous’ Emigrant, whilst a sporting writer of the period maintained that he was “by Operator or Theorem from a Steeltrap mare.” The most authentic story concerning his origin seems to have been that, in 1841, an overlander between Sydney and Adelaide arrived at a station near the Grampians, bringing along with himtwo well-bred looking mares. Both were heavy in foal, and it was believed that they had been stolen. The overlander found employment on the station of a Mr. Riley, and here the foals, both of them colts, were dropped. One of these was Petrel.

At two years old the colts were sold to the overseer of a Dr. Martin for thirty-six pounds the pair, and the future champion commenced his education as a stock horse. Mr. Colin Campbell soon heard that Petrel had shown wonderful speed after cattle and emus, and you may be pretty sure that the stockmen had also discovered on their homeward way of an evening, that “the big chestnut beggar could gallop like fun.” Mr. Campbell swopped a mare worth twenty pounds for him, and his racing career then began. He was the undoubted champion of Victoria, and was then despatched, per sailing ship, to Botany Bay, to “take the Sydney-siders down.” But the voyage over was long and rough, he had no time before the races in which to recover himself, and he was very well beaten. The excitement in Sydney was tremendous, and the description of the event reminds one somewhat of a latter day happening when the Victorian, Artilleryman, was unexpectedly defeated by the New South Wales representative, Millieme, in the St. Leger.

It is pleasant to know that the old champion ultimately fell into the hands of Mr. James Austin, in whose possession he lived a life of ease, “roaming the flats by the homestead creek,” until, at the ripe age of twenty-five, he passed in his checks.

And during the Petrel fever days, one is glad to notice that at length the winners in the metropolitan areas were beginning to come from horses which were eligible for, and ultimately were entered in the Stud Books of Australia, and were now repaying their enterprising owners for their extensive outlay and boldness. Thus, when Petrel was carrying off the champion prizes at Flemington, Garryowen, the second living son of our old friend Nora Creina, was winning Town Plates and Publicans’ Purses, whilst Paul Jones, a colonial-bred colt, foaled in ’41, by imported Besborough out of imported Octavia, threw down his Van Diemonian gauntlet to Petrel, and on one occasion, to the wild delight of the Tasmanians present, actually finished ahead of him in a heat. But while these exciting happenings were taking place in the centres of population, racing was also catching a hold on the dwellers in the wild bush. Thus you will find, if you read the works of the late Revd. John Dunmore Lang, that in 1846 this distinguished divine made the overland journey from Sydney to Port Phillip, during which he kept an extensive diary of events.

On his arrival at Albury, he relates how he discovered the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood, “on the Christian Sabbath Day,” indulging in the excitement of their annual races. So shocked was the minister that he broke into the Latin tongue:

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