lecomte stakes winner instant coffee runs to his heritage

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lecomte, lexington, umpire, wild man from borneo

The victory of Instant Coffee (by Bolt d’Oro) in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes at the Fair Grounds brings more than hopes of classic glory to the talented colt. It also reminds us of the fast and furious rivalry between Lecomte and Lexington, both sons of the great 19th-century American racehorse and sire Boston (Timoleon).

Lecomte and Lexington were foaled in 1850, the year that California entered the Union, and each was a racehorse of very high quality. Lecomte was unbeaten until his defeat by Lexington, and Lexington met his first and only defeat from Lecomte.

Lexington won the Great State Post Stakes from Lecomte, then the latter turned the tables in the 1854 Jockey Club Purse. At these races, the interstate rivalry was so intense that tens of thousands of dollars, probably hundreds of thousands, changed hands on the results. The deciding race was the 1855 Jockey Club Purse, when Lexington won the first four-mile heat and Lecomte was withdrawn from the second.

After Lexington had defeated Lecomte the second time, the bay son of Boston was retired due to failing eyesight and went to stud that year in Kentucky at W.F. Harper’s stud near Midway, Ky., for a covering fee of $100, $1 to the groom. Robert A. Alexander of Woodburn Farm had gone to England to purchase bloodstock, there met Lexington’s owner Richard Ten Broeck, and purchased the horse for $15,000, an American record price for a horse at that time.

As talented a racer as Lexington was, he proved even more important as a sire. He was the leading sire in the country 14 times in a row, with an additional two more sire titles for 16 total. The great blind stallion died at Woodburn in July 1875 at the age of 25, and his skeleton was preserved and is at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Lexington was lionized in print and illustration, as in this lithograph of the horse in racing trim on his retirement to stud in Kentucky.

An interesting facet of Instant Coffee’s pedigree is that both these great rivals figure in the pedigree of the Lecomte Stakes winner.

The role of Lexington is not a surprise. He is present in essentially all pedigrees. Among other notable connections, Lexington is the sire of 1865 Travers winner Maiden, the sixth dam of Nearco (Pharis), and Mumtaz Mahal (The Tetrarch) has Lexington twice in her sixth generation because her second dam, Americus Girl, is by Americus, who was inbred 3×3 to Lexington through Norfolk and his full sister The Nun.

So Lexington is pervasive in pedigrees the world over, but the same cannot be said for Lecomte.

After Lexington ambled off to stud, the chestnut Lecomte raced on, although he, like his sire Boston, covered mares while still remaining an active racer. Lecomte was bred in 1855 and 1856, then after defeats from a horse named Pryor (Glencoe), was sold to Lexington’s former owner Richard Ten Broeck toward the end of 1856.

From breeder-owner Thomas Jefferson Wells, Ten Broeck purchased not only Lecomte for $10,000 but also his younger half-sister Prioress (Sovereign). Together with Pryor, the two offspring of the great producer Reel shipped to England as Ten Broeck’s troika to take on the best of English racing.

For Pryor and Lecomte, the trip was a disaster. Lecomte had a sore ankle and could not stand a proper training regimen; Pryor fell ill on the trip overseas and never recovered his form. Lecomte suffered colic and died on Oct. 7, 1857, and Pryor died 15 days later, per their obituaries in the Spirit of the Times.

The sole bright spot for this tragic expedition was that Prioress raced into a triple dead heat for the 1857 Cambridgeshire Handicap and won the run-off.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the final foals by Lecomte had been born in 1857. The best racer among these was bred in Kentucky by Ten Broeck. He was a bay colt out of Alice Carneal (Sarpedon) and a half-brother to Lexington by his great rival.

Named Umpire, this colt was taken to England by Ten Broeck, and he was notably successful, at one time the actual favorite for the Derby at Epsom. On the day, Umpire started as third choice 6-1 behind The Wizard, who had won the 1860 2,000 Guineas, and Thormanby. The bettors had the first two tagged but in the wrong order, as Thormanby won by 1 ½ lengths, and Umpire was seventh in a field of 30.

Later in 1860, Umpire raced for the St. Leger at Doncaster, with Thormanby favored, but after taking the lead, Umpire could not hold on and finished seventh behind the winner, St. Albans, as the fifth choice in a field of 15. Thormanby finished 11th.

Sound and athletic, Umpire raced on, winning the Queen’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1863, by which time he was owned by Lord Coventry.

Wild Man from Borneo was a great-grandson of Lexington’s great rival Lecomte and won the Grand National of 1895.

Sent to stud, Umpire had some foals, and his son Decider earned a place in history as the sire of one of the best-named winners of the Grand National at Aintree: Wild Man From Borneo, the victor in the great steeplechase in 1895.

In the present day, however, pride of place goes to one of Lecomte’s daughters. This is the Lecomte Mare 1857 out of Edith, otherwise unnamed. She was bred by Wells and is the 15th dam of this year’s Lecomte Stakes winner Instant Coffee.

As with Instant Coffee, nearly all of the contemporary connections to Lecomte come through the Lecomte Mare’s granddaughter Mannie Gray, the dam of Correction and her full brother Domino. Together, they exerted an extraordinary influence on American breeding, especially in the first half of the 20th century, but are still present in pedigrees today.

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‘promise’ is adding to centuries-old story

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carson city, cub mare, ferida, hillsdale, history of thoroughbred racing in america, jersey act, lexington, rokeby stable, summertime promise, ted and judy nichols, teddy's promise

The following post was published earlier this week at Paulick Report.

 

With victory in the last Grade 1 stakes of 2011, Teddy’s Promise added another crown of laurel to one of the oldest families in the American Stud Book that traces back through the centuries to the Cub Mare, who was bred in England in 1762. Her daughter Maria Slamerkin, by the English-bred stallion Wildair, was born when her dam was 7 and is the next ancestor of Teddy’s Promise.

If it seems a bit obscure to step back 250 years to discuss the pedigree of a contemporary stakes winner, there is a lot to learn along the way.

Not the least thing is the value of enthusiastic sportsmanship, which the owners and breeders of Teddy’s Promise displayed when Ted and Judy Nichols chose to test the G1 waters in the La Brea rather than the listed Kalookan Queen Stakes the following day.

An earlier sportsman of great enthusiasm and good fortune was George Lorillard. He raced some of the best offspring of the great 19th-century sire Lexington, and in 1879, he won the Alabama Stakes at Saratoga with Ferida. She is one of the outstanding female-line descendants of Maria Slamerkin, and Ferida is the 13th dam of Teddy’s Promise.

In 1879, Ferida was first or second in 13 of her 14 starts, with her successes also including the Monmouth Oaks and Ladies Stakes, as well as other all-age and all-sex events of the time. The following year, Ferida won the Great Long Island Stakes and had the peculiar distinction of running in two races on the same card.

That takes a tough racer, but Thoroughbreds a century ago were trained differently than they are today. And in the 19th century, it was commonplace for them to race in heats (best two out of three) to claim a prize, rather than the single dash, which was becoming more customary when Ferida was racing toward the end of the century.

And when the bay daughter of leading sire Glenelg and the Lexington mare La Henderson retired, she was considered an outstanding representative of one of the best Thoroughbred families.

Yet 30 years later, that was no longer the case. In 1913, the English Jockey Club created the Jersey Act, which declared any horse a “half-bred” unless it could show direct ancestry in all lines to stock registered in the earliest volumes of the General Stud Book of England. This made horses descending from some of the best American lines ineligible for the GSB unless already in the book.

Primary among those “tainted” horses was Lexington, whose stock had been a cornerstone of the breeding programs of the Lorillards, Whitneys, Vanderbilts, and others up to this point.

As expected, these horses descending from Ferida and other Lexington stock became less desirable, less valuable, and less productive of top-class performers.

But in 1958, another high-class member of this female line showed up in Hillsdale (by Take Away out of the Johnstown mare Johann), and Hillsdale finished his 3-year-old season at Santa Anita with a victory in the Malibu Stakes. Hillsdale was better yet at 4, winning 10 of 13 starts, including the Hollywood Gold Cup, and more than a half-million dollars.

Sent to stud at Claiborne Farm, Hillsdale placed his family on a much higher level of contemporary recognition, and his two-years younger half-sister Hillbrook is the fifth dam of Teddy’s Promise.

And while Hillsdale was central in asserting that this family was still top quality for racing, his sister proved a broodmare of excellence for Paul Mellon’s Rokeby Stables. Hillbrook produced seven foals, all fillies, and one major winner, Prides Profile (Free America). The latter won the Schuylerville, Gazelle, and Diana, as well as finishing second in the CCA Oaks and Ashland, third in the Mother Goose and Alabama.

What makes Hillbrook exceptional is that six of her daughters produced stakes winners, and several of them were high-class animals. The daughter of importance to our story is Prides Promise (Crozier), who was second twice in three starts.

But as a broodmare Prides Promise produced Summertime Promise (Nijinsky) for Rokeby, and when she was deemed redundant in the racing stable, she was sold and became a more successful racemare with victories in the 1976 Apple Blossom Handicap, as well as a second in the G1 Santa Margarita.

At stud, Summertime Promise looked like a bust, with no black-type winners from only five foals. But four of those were fillies, and each produced at least one stakes winner. The most important were Blushing Promise (Blushing Groom), whose only foal was the important racehorse and sire Carson City for W.T. Young’s Overbrook Farm, which bred most of this generation, and Alydar’s Promise (Alydar), who was acquired by John Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm and produced the important sire General Meeting (Seattle Slew) for him.

Alydar’s Promise is the second dam of Teddy’s Promise, and the mare produced her second-to-last foal in 1998. This was the Capote mare Braids and Beads. After being acquired by the Nichols, Braids and Beads produced Teddy’s Promise, and the result is now part of history.

fly down makes his case for the classics

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a.p. indy, Belmont Stakes, dwyer stakes, fly down, history of sport, lane's end, lexington, mineshaft, mr. prospector, nick zito, queen randi, ulrica

The following article was published earlier this week at PaulickReport.com.

With his first stakes victory in the G2 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park, the Mineshaft colt Fly Down set the stage for a challenge in the classic Belmont Stakes next month.

Although trainer Nick Zito is still evaluating the colts readiness, the classic-winning trainer did say that “if he rebounds from this, if he’s OK, we’ll look at the Belmont.”

And while fitness for 12 furlongs and maturity for competing with classic horses are things for the trainer to judge, the pedigree of this colt suggests that the Belmont Stakes or a race at a similar distance should be well within his range.

Horse of the Year Mineshaft had one of most consistent distance profiles of any son by Horse of the Year AP Indy. Mineshaft was notably immature when young, was given time and racing experience abroad, then really came into his best form at 4 with increasingly impressive performances after a return to the States and dirt racing.

Bred on the highly successful cross of AP Indy over mares by Mr. Prospector, Mineshaft combined speed and staying capacity that are essential to success at the highest level in races at a mile or more.

And his son Fly Down has further additions of speed and stamina. His dam, Queen Randi, is by champion juvenile Fly So Free and traces back umpteen generations to the the first American-bred mare in the family, Ulrica.

A foal of 1863, Ulrica was by nothing less than the greatest 19th century American sire, Lexington. And Ulrica was a pretty useful representative of the great stallion’s offspring. She won the Saratoga Stakes at 2 and, among her other stakes placings, ran second in the 1866 Travers Stakes to Merrill, a son of Lexington.

The offspring of Lexington were competing in the Midsummer Derby at the manly distance of a mile and three-quarters. Furthermore, Lexington sired the first three winners of the Travers, as well as a half-dozen more over the ensuing years.

All this goes to show is that the family of Fly Down has been both a highly accomplished and highly regarded family for a long time.

Yet just a few generations ago, things went sour. Although the sires of the fifth and fourth dams from the 1950s were the good horses Requested (Wood Memorial winner and Preakness second) and Agitator (Nearco horse who won the Sussex and was second in the July Cup), the black-type horses became scarce, and then (horrors!), Fly Down’s second dam was bred in Florida.

That was the point where the family made an abrupt turnaround.

The reason for the change of fortunes is simple. The sire of the second dam was Mr. Prospector, who sired Randi’s Queen in his second crop, and the young mare became one of her sire’s many winners. Randi’s Queen won four races in two seasons, and by the time her racing career was over, Mr. Prospector was on his way to becoming one of the great sires in the world and on the way to Kentucky to stand at Claiborne Farm for the rest of his stud career.

The colt who pushed Mr. Prospector over the commercial edge was Conquistador Cielo, also a Florida-bred out of the Bold Commander mare K D Princess. Winner of the Saratoga Special in 1981, when Randi’s Queen was completing her racing career, Conquistador Cielo set the seal on his own quality and ability with victories the next year in the Metropolitan Handicap, Dwyer, and Belmont Stakes.

That string of victories also convinced breeders that Mr. Prospector was more than just a sire of very talented sprinter-milers.

Classic quality tells, and when put to stud, Randi’s Queen produced three black-type runners, including stakes winner Prince Randi (by Caveat). One of her least successful offspring was Queen Randi, a nonwinner in three starts. But that daughter of Fly So Free has been a revelation as a producer.

The mare has produced three foals who have run very good speed figures, and two are now graded stakes winners. The first of these was the Chief Seattle mare Seafree, whom Eric Reed as agent picked out of the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale for $7,500. Seafree won the La Canada, was second in the Santa Margarita, earned $280,566, and then sold at the Fasig-Tipton November breeding stock sale for $200,000 in 2007.

The following September, Fly Down was an $80,000 yearling for breeders Broadway Thoroughbreds and William S. Farish at the Keeneland yearling sale. Fly Down now has three wins in five starts and earnings of $182,070.

the success of lexington

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breeding in context, great stallions, lexington, mechanics of racing style

In a response to Monday’s post, Travers posed a question: “Lexington was the leading sire in the United States 16 times. What percentage of the foal crop during those years were Lexington-sired horses? What made him such a dominant sire during those years?”

OK, that’s two questions. The answer to the first is going to take some digging into the Stud Book and will require more time than I can offer today. But an answer to the second is more accessible.

Lexington was a tip-top racehorse whose chief competitor was Lecompte. Both were sons of the fierce and virtually unbeatable horse Boston. Out of high-class mare, Lexington had top racing class in both parents and possessed it himself. So on pedigree and performance, he had considerable hopes for making the grade as a sire.

But no stallion is so good that he can lead the sire list 16 times, right? Well, tell that to Lexington. Truly transcendant stallions, who add something to the breeding environment that is otherwise lacking, can produce a slew of performers that are amazing.

That is what Lexington did.

And I have suspicions about how his success developed. His hopes for success as a stallion were aided immensely by his owner, RA Alexander, who was a far-thinking breeder with enough money to give his stock every decent chance to do their best.

But even more importantly, Lexington came to stud at time of change in the tides of racing. When he was racing, the premium sport was competing in three- and four-mile heats. Best two out of three.

Those horses were tough.

But racing changed forever after the War Between the States, and perhaps surprisingly, Lexington had the right genetic and mechanical qualities to take advantage of the changeover from heat racing to what the English called “dashes.”

These were the single heats, frequently over six furlongs or a mile, that constitute what everyone now thinks of as “racing.” Even though multi-heat racing hung on for decades, in bits and backwaters like Kentucky, the momentum in the racing centers of New York was to the English style, the English course, and light and elegant grayhound stock that had the finesse to show their form over short distances.

Some of the long-distance racers performed admirably in the change of style. Others did not. And Lexington was a marvel. He had to have possessed certain factors for power that his competition did not have. That would have made him a more effective racehorse, and it would have been immensely valuable to his offspring racing over shorter distances that put an emphasis on power: power to get position quickly, power to accelerate when needed, power to finish through the stretch.

Those athletic virtues, added together, made Lexington a marvel of his time and an icon in ours.

lexington: greatest american sire of the 19th century

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19th century thoroughbred breeding, bloodstock history, glencoe, lexington, physical description of lexington, the thoroughbred record, thoroughbred history

An outstanding racehorse who set records racing four-mile heats, Lexington had the combination of athletic talents that allowed his offspring to bridge the transition from long-distance heat racing to modern dash races decided in a single heat.

Especially when combined with some of the top-caliber broodmare sires, such as Glencoe, Lexington transformed his superior heat-racing qualities of ruggedness and quick recovery into fleet expressions of single-heat success.

As a result, the bay son of Boston led the American sires list 16 times and died as one of the most renowned stallions in the breed. His genetic legacy is the foundation of every American pedigree of the late 19th century and early 20th. Even today, Lexington is there in the far reaches of many pedigrees.

In an unsigned obituary from The Thoroughbred Record of 9 July 1875, probably by BG Bruce, we read that

Lexington was a blood bay, fifteen hands three inches high, with four white feet extending over the pastern joints; his head, though not small, was clean, bony and handsome — his nostrils being large, the jawbone uncommonly wide, and the jaws wide apart, affording abundant room for a clear and well detached throttle. His bones were not particularly large except the backbone, which was immensely so. His neck rose well from his shoulders and joined his head admirably. His shoulders were wide and well placed, particularly oblique, and rising well at the withers. His back was of medium length, coupling well back; a loin wide, slightly arched and very powerful. His body was large, round and full, being ribbed in the best possible manner, very deep through the heart, which made his legs look short. His hips were not remarkably wide, though strong. His arms were not large, and his second thigh [gaskin] was peculiarly light and thin, and to our eye, was his greatest defect. His feet and legs were small and clean, with tendons large and strong as catgut. His action was superb — bold, free, elastic, and full of power.

From this description, allied with photos and paintings of the horse, it is clear that Lexington a medium-sized, scopy, well-balanced animal with considerable power, although noted as lacking a really powerful gaskin. That last betrays his heritage as a thorough distance racer, and doubtless the great broodmare sire Glencoe, who is described as having an exceptional gaskin, provided some benefit to Lexington’s sons and daughters in that regard too.

Lexington was sent to stud in 1855 at WF Harper’s farm near Midway, Ky., and near the middle of 1856, RA Alexander bought the young stallion from owner Ten Broeck for $15,000. Thereafter, Lexington stood at Alexander’s Woodburn Stud until his death on 1 July 1875.

great american outcross: lexington with glencoe

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charles trevathan, glencoe, international racehorse, lexington, strains of the thoroughbred, the american thoroughbred

In his book, The American Thoroughbred (1905), Charles Trevathan noted that in the 19th century the strains of the Thoroughbred “had become absolutely a fixed one in America — so much so that with a fair degree of certainty one could count upon combining certain well-known American strains and certain imported strains and getting a race-horse of some capacity.”

And one of the greatest crosses in the 19th century Thoroughbred was the great sire Lexington mated with Glencoe mares, which produced numerous top-class racers, and both those stallions covered in Kentucky.

Naturally, Glencoe was nearly 20 years the elder, with Lexington born March 17, 1850. Glencoe was imported to the States in 1836, after serving his first season in England, when he sired the great broodmare Pocahontas. Trevathan wrote that

Glencoe was by Sultan and was bred in England by Lord Jersey in 1831. He was a beautiful golden chestnut, with both hind legs white half-way to the hocks, and a large star in his forehead. His head was a little Roman, very expressive in character, with fine, thin muzzle and well set on a stout neck, which ran into well-shaped shoulders, the latter being oblique and rather light in the blade. He had good length, with round barrel, well ribbed to strong, broad hips, a little swayed in the back, with heavy, muscular quarters, big stifles, sound legs, and feet inclined to be a little flat.

As a racehorse, Glencoe had speed and stamina, winning the Ascot Gold Cup, and he was sold to Col. James Jackson and brought to stand in the US. As a sire who combined the prevailing English qualities of speed and stamina, Glencoe sired many high-class racers and became a noted sire of broodmares.

Trevathan wrote that “At twenty-seven years of age the old chestnut died, at Georgetown, Kentucky; and his owner at the time, A. Keene Richards, Esq., caused him to be buried in his garden, near the spot where his [Glencoe’s] famed daughter Peytona had been laid to rest.”

out of the past: thomas merry

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american thoroughbred, australian, billet, bonnie scotland, buckden, eclipse, enquirer, glencoe, glenelg, herod, hidalgo, leamington, lexington, longfellow, matchem, peytona, thomas merry, war of secession

One of the voices almost lost in time is the venerable bloodstock writer Hidalgo, the pen name for Thomas Merry.

Perhaps the most important contemporary commentator on Thoroughbred breeding in America for the last quarter of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, Merry had some decidedly firm ideas about the importance of male lines, especially those that had fallen out of favor due to the winds of fashion. In his book, The American Thoroughbred, Merry writes:

from the close of the Revolution to 1865, the end of the War of Secession, we imported thrice as many of Herod’s line as of Eclipse and of Matchem blood. And from the close of the Civil War to the present date — there were 138 stallions of Eclipse’s male line as against 172 of Herod’s and 42 of Matchem’s. It looks to me as though we had overdone matters in all three periods, especially in the second one, at the close of which we found ourselves overloaded with Herod blood. The marvelous success of Leamington, Billet, Glenelg and Buckden, all Eclipse horses; and of Australian, the only Matchem horse imported for nearly a half-century, upon the Lexington-Glencoe mares, from 1870 to 1885, shows how badly we were in need of a really good and legitimate outcross.

Despite his hobby horses, Merry was a good analyst, calling the results as they stood from the racetrack. For example, he noted that the great sire “Lexington got no sons worth being called sires, but his daughters built up reputations for all five of the above named sires, with Bonnie Scotland and Prince Charlie thrown in. Of the above mentioned stallions, Leamington did not get the most winners but he bred, by long odds, the best class.”

One of the reasons that Lexington did not get the sire sons was that racing changed radically from the days when Lexington set a world’s record for racing four-mile heats. By the time most of his best stock were racing, the sport was strongly trending toward single dashes, frequently at distances short of a mile, although there were still heat races and many long-distance races.

Although Lexington himself was able to cope with the changing environment by breeding on a nimble and swift racer, his sons bred back to the stouter side of the pedigree, getting too many slow horses.

Merry’s comments on the uncertainties of breeding and racing can be summarized by the following:

American breeding is a good deal of a lottery, at best, for horses have succeeded   here that were failures, or comparatively so, in England and Australia. Leamington made three seasons in England, during which he got 19 winners of 42 races, none of which exceeded $2,000 in value. We all know what he did here for, after being buried alive on Staten Island for three years, he was sent out to Kentucky where he got Enquirer, Lyttelton, Longfellow and Hamburg, all in one season ; and Hamburg, the poorest of the lot, won over $3,500 in three seasons, while Lyttelton was much  better ; and as for Enquirer and Longfellow, [they were the stars of their day.]

Glencoe’s case is even more startling as a reverse caused by transplantation. He stood to sixteen mares in 1836, getting 13 foals, only one being a male, which died as a yearling. What his daughters achieved at the stud would fill this entire volume if I undertook to give it in detail. He was brought into Alabama, where most of his get were flashy, the great Peytona excepted. When he got up into Kentucky and had access to the daughters of Medoc, Leviathan and Wagner, the records soon began to tell a very different story. Even in 1860, twenty-nine years after his birth and three years after his death, he was second on the list and that by a narrow margin.

Finally, his observations on the sales scene, then not nearly as formalized as it is today, follow the theme above and sound hauntingly familiar.

American breeding is, to a considerable extent, a lottery. Look at the great performers that have sold as yearlings for less than $1,000; and at the high-priced yearlings that have not since won enough to pay for their straw bedding; and in the history of those horses and their performances you find a sufficient corroboration of what I say.

In a year when the Kentucky Derby winner originally sold for less than the stud fee to produce him and when the sales have plummeted to such an extent that bargains out of those sales are certain to abound in another year or two, it is somehow strengthening to know that such economic thrashings are just part of the great scheme.