Horse racing -- Australia -- History; Race horses -- Australia -- History; Stainforth, Martin, 1866-1957
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:—
1825. Manto, by Soothsayer—sister to Lyncaeus. (No. 18.)
Cornelia, by Young Grasshopper—Manto. (No. 18.)
1826. Edella, by Warrior—Risk. (No. 3.)
Cutty Sark (chestnut), probably by Soothsayer, but pedigree never
authenticated.
Spaewife (chestnut), by Soothsayer—Rous’ Emigrant’s dam. (No. 4.)
1828. Whizgig (bay), by Whalebone—dam by Canopus. (No. 3.)
Lorina, by Smolensko—dam by Whiskey—Hoity Toity. (No. 26.)
Dam of Alice Hawthorne.
1830. Lady Emily, by Manfred—dam by Cossack. (No. 29.)
Gulnare (grey), by Young Gohanna—Ultima. (No. 17.)
1831. Merino, by Whalebone—Vicarage. (No. 3.)
The Cape mare, said to have been by Driver. (No. 24.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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