What’s in a Name? A Horse Pedigree
by Richard Hooper
In 1868, Sanders DeWeese Bruce published the first volume of what would become the official stud book of American thoroughbred horses. He subsequently published five more volumes, and a revised volume I, before selling it to The Jockey Club in 1896.
As early as 1815, attempts to make an American stud book had been announced and pedigrees were regularly submitted to various magazines and newspapers at least as far back as the mid-18th century.
One of the more notable examples appeared as “Annals of the Turf,” by George Washington Jeffreys, published in the “Petersburg Intelligencer” beginning in 1826. It was included as an appendix to the fourth edition (1828) of a popular work on the care and management of horses by Peter Cottom. The fifth edition of Cottom’s work contained an an entire section entitled “The American Stud Book.” It was the first alphabetical listing of pedigrees to be published in stud book form in America.
However, it was not a free standing work, dedicated to pedigrees. That distinction goes to “The American Race-Turf Register, Sportsman’s Herald, and General Stud Book.” Published in 1833, it was compiled and written by Patrick Nisbett Edgar, who, legend has it, fled Ireland after murdering the family gardener.
Edgar’s task was gargantuan. He claimed to have ridden about 15,000 miles and written several thousand letters soliciting pedigrees. Aside from the physical toll involved, there was also contradictory information, a general scarcity of information and, at times, a flood of information that Edgar could not sort out.
Contradictory and too much information usually overlapped with horses of the same name. There were 13 horses listed with the name Diomed as well as the famous one, listed separately from the others, who won the first running of the Epsom Derby in 1780 and was imported to America in 1798 by General John Hoomes of Bowling Green, Viginia.
Edgar listed 10 horses named Atlanta. There were 11 mares named Kitty Fisher and one more as Fisher, Kitty–all named after the English courtesan, a favorite of numerous artists (including Sir Joshua Reynolds) and one of the first persons to be famous for… well, simply being famous.
Edgar’s credibility was also hindered by his own irascible nature. If he thought someone had not been nice to him, he might very well leave that person’s horses out of his stud book. Among others, he left out the horses of William Ransom Johnson, known as the Napoleon of the Turf, for what Edgar described as Johnson’s “illiberality” towards him.
One of the valuable aspects of Edgar’s undertaking was occasional anecdotes of various horses, such as that of Sweeping-Tail. During the American Revolution, she was captured by the British, recaptured by an American for a large reward, retaken by the British, and subsequently kept as an escape horse for Lord Cornwallis.
Another of Edgar’s anecdotes is the tragic story of Polly Williams, who had won so many races that no one would race against her.
Her elderly owner, a Mr. Davis, kept her as a riding horse and had loaned her to a relative who, unbeknownst to Mr. Davis, traded her to a Mr. Deloney. Mr. Deloney, in turn, challenged Mr. Davis to a race, claiming that his mare would beat any that Mr. Davis had. Mr. Davis, believing he could race his great mare, confirmed the bet.
As Edgar described it, “They both mounted their horses and went over to a neighbor’s house in order to draw the articles of agreement and to pay deposit money. After these preliminaries were completed, the parties separated, Mr. Davis to send into Virginia for Polly Williams, and Mr. Deloney to put her in order for the race.
“Old Mr. Davis, on arriving at the house of the person to whom he had lent his mare was astonished to learn that his celebrated mare was traded away, and more particularly to the very man, whom of all others, he was unwilling should own her, and more especially, as he was now quite certain that he had lost both his mare and his money.”
The race was never run. Polly Williams was mysteriously shot through the head and killed. As Edgar concluded, “Mr. Davis claimed the stakes and got them.”
As Edgar stated in a preface to another of his anecdotes, “It almost puts credulity itself to the blush.”
(Richard Hooper is an antiquarian book expert in Middleburg. He is also the creator of Chateaux de la Pooch, elegantly appointed furniture for dogs and home. He can be contacted at rhooper451@aol.com.)