The American Line of St. Simon

O'NEIL SEVIER

With an Account of Some Other Horses of Great Promise Recently Brought to the United States

THE importation from Great Britain and France into the United States and Canada of first rate thoroughbred racing and breeding stock did not, as was predicted, end with the resumption of the interest of British and French producers in racing and production. This revival of interest antedated the finish of the great war by twelve to eighteen months, having been inspired by the shipping over the Atlantic of upward of $5,000,000 worth of valuable bloodstock in 1915 and 1916. Eight to ten million dollars' worth of stallions and mares of the highest quality have been brought overseas since 1917 by American and Canadian producers. Thoroughbred yearlings of the stoutest breeding and greatest promise have, these three seasons, been fetching anywhere from $30,000 to'$80,000 at the Newmarket sales. Equally steep prices have been realized by the Tattersalls for top grade stallions and mares of producing ages.

Since 1917 American and Canadian buyers have had to bid high for the stuff they desired whether they have sought to purchase publicly or through private channels. But they have met the competition of British and French and South American breeders with a prodigality suggestive of the munificence of Argentine wheat and stock raisers who, for half a century, have bought in Great Britain and France, without considering price, anything and everything they have wanted. In consequence of their enterprise and intelligent spending, the breeding industry of the North American continent has been reinforced by some two hundred and fifty or three hundred horses of both sexes, whose offspring are destined to exert a powerful, if not a controlling, influence in American racing and production for many decades to come.

Among the stallions of wide celebrity, both as regards their bloodlines and their performances under silks, that have crossed the Atlantic as a result of the post war activities of Americans and Canadians in British and French markets, are Prince Palatine, Negofol, Light Brigade, Brown Prince, Ambassador, Wrack, North Star, Archaic, Nassovian, Yulcain, Troutbeck, Huon, Omar Khayyam, Atheling, Honeywood, Donnaconna, Wigstone, Fitz William, Prince Pal, Pacines, Roselyon, Trevisco, Wormleighton, etc. These horses have cost their importers sums ranging from $20,000 to $250,000 each. They have been accompanied to North America by scores of mares hardly less famous and certainly not less valuable for breeding purposes than themselves, notably, Terrentia, Melody, Constancy, Cleopatra, Sunbonnet, Homage, Sweet Briar, Agnes Yalasquez, Pasquita, Merriment, Wilful Maid 2d., Marian Hood, Embassy, La Deliverance, Parthia, Pontypridd, Coronation, Welsh Rabbit, Dark Sapphire, Sombra, Star Spangle, Sly Missie, Noowa, etc.

Among professional breeders—that is, men who make a business of producing thoroughbreds for public sales, and sportsmen, who breed that they may have horses of their own making for racing—who have participated most liberally in this buying abroad are, Edward F. Simms, William Woodward, the late Jere Wheelwright, Frederick Johnson, C. K. G. Billings, Hal Price Headley, Edward Cebrian, former United States Senator Johnson N. Camden, Willis Sharpe Kilmer, Henry T. Oxnard, Richard T. Wilson, Richard Trimble, George Wingfield, the Seagrams, of Toronto; Commander J. K. L. Ross, of Montreal; William R. Coe, John H. Rosseter, Edward R. Bradley, Joseph E. Widener, George D. Widener, Admiral Cary T. Grayson, Captain Philip M. Walker and Clarence H. Mackay.

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Prince Palatine

MRSIMMS, an oil producer of the southwest, imported the most celebrated of the brilliant foreign stallions, perhaps—Prince Palatine, greatest of the sons of Persimmon, and Tracery's rival in Great Britain in 1913 for the distance runners' palm. Tracery, Kentucky bred and a product of August Belmont's Nursery stud, was sold to an Argentine breeder last spring for a matter of $267,000, according to racing manuals the biggest price ever paid for a thoroughbred of any sort. A little while after the news of the sale of Tracery had reached the United States, came word that Mr. Simms had succeeded in persuading the Due Decazes, one of the most considerable thoroughbred producers of France, to part with Prince Palatine for a sum approximating, the difference in exchange considered, a quarter of a million dollars in United States currency. And before he had concluded arrangements for bringing Prince Palatine over the sea Mr. Simms bought a half interest in Negofol, another of the Due Decazes stallions, for $100,000.

Prince Palatine was bred in Great Britain by Colonel Hall Walker. He raced under the silks of Thomas Pilkington. After the finish of his career as a race horse he was purchased for stud service by J. B. Joel. From Mr. Joel the Due Decazes bought him to take to France. Prince Palatine had some stud success before his purchase by Mr. Simms. Prince Galahad, He Goes, Firework and seven or eight others won from him on the other side.

It is generally conceded by thoroughbred producers that in Prince Palatine the American thoroughbred breeding industry has secured the most promising of the younger male representatives of the St. Simon line. But the Prince is only one of eight or ten male descendants of St. Simon acquired by Americans and Canadians in the course of the last few years. Negofol is a descendant of St. Simon through Childwick. He was bred in France, where the blood of his sire has been the predominating thoroughbred blood for years.

St. Simon's Progeny

NASSOVIAN was imported to the United States last winter for service at Hurricana farm. He is descended from St. Simon through William the Third.

Atheling II goes back to St. Simon through Desmond, the most successful of the St. Simon stallions now at service in Great Britain and Ireland, one of whose sons, the disqualified derby winner, Craganour, was sold to an Argentine breeder some years back for $150,000. Atheling II was brought over by George Wingfield for service at his Nevada stock farm near Reno. Atheling defeated Canyon and Kwang Su in the Dewhurst Plate of 1915.

Huon, brought to America by Richard Trimble, traces to St. Simon through Ard Patrick and St. Florian. Ard Patrick was a British derby winner for which the German government paid the late John Gubbins $110,000 in order that he might be put at the head of the Imperial Military stud. Huon was looted by the British from Germany, Bred in Germany, he was sent to Ireland before the war to sire chargers for the officers of crack German cavalry and artillery regiments from the stout half-bred and three-quarter-bred mares which have helped to make Ireland famous as a horse producing country. When the Germans invaded Belgium and France, and England threw her lot in with Frenchmen and Belgians, the British military authorities seized Huon and put him up at auction,

Prince Pal and Donnaconna, great grandsons of St. Simon through Prince Palatine and Persimmon, were imported by the late Mr. Wheelwright and Mr. Sanford.

These uncommonly good stallions, along with our own George Smith, a Kentucky derby and Bowie Cup winner, have probably given America a preponderance of first rate stock horses of the male line of St. Simon which will, in the next eight or ten years, make the United States and Canada a source of supply for the rest of the world of the St. Simon blood.