Racehorses in Australia

by Unknown

Now, the first objection that will be put forward to this proposition is that every now and then a true stayer arises from a non-staying sire—I admit this is true. I have already mentioned that Alawa was a son of Maltster; Lingle a son of Linacre, Peru from Grafton, while Eurythmic, the most wonderful horse at present racing, who won a Sydney Cup carrying 9.8 on his back, with a run that will for ever make him famous, had for a sire Eudorus, a brilliant horse for a mile, especially when that mile was in the mud!

The answer to these objections is that, just as a genius sometimes comes from a back-lane; just as a poet is born in a hovel; just as some great orator comes from a peasant stock; so with a sprinter for a sire we get sometimes a stayer. This would have been explained by Darwin by his theory of Atavism—throwing back to a former ancestor for hidden powers—and this is a reasonable explanation. Thus we may reasonably say that David, through his granddam Wakeful, did inherit some of her ancestor Musket’s power to stay. But this leads up to another explanation that can be put forth with plenty of examples to back it up—i.e., that the horse may get his staying powers from his mother: that is, that he has inherited his dam’s heart, not his sire’s. Eurythmic must be regarded as an excellent example of this, for, as we have just mentioned, Eudorus was but a good miler, and his other sons do not show staying powers in spite of the fact that Eusebius won a Derby and a V.R.C. St. Leger, both, however, in shocking time! But when we come to examine the pedigree of Bob Cherry, the dam of Eurythmic, we find that staying is spelt in every line of her pedigree, being by Bodadil from Ardea by Wallace.

Now that I have enunciated my theory, let me suggest why it is that some horses begin their career in brilliant fashion, and look from their first performances as though they would stay, and yet go off and never come back. My opinion is that some of these horses have poor hearts and are made too much use of during their two-year-old period; while some horses during their early three-year-old career are asked to do more than their hearts are fit to do, as a consequence their hearts become dilated. They fail time after time, and are consequently called rogues; in reality, they may be quite honest animals, but their strained hearts cannot respond when called upon—Bigaroon, I think, is an example.

I regard the failure of Eurythmic, when matched against Beauford, as an instance of the dilated heart. Eurythmic was asked to carry the record weight of 10.7 in the Futurity Stakes. He won, and critics said that it was merely a welter race, and that he had nothing to beat. When he came to Sydney to run against Beauford, almost every trainer gave their opinion that Eurythmic would win. What happened? He pulled up absolutely in distress, and a few days later was beaten by David and Furious over two miles. The real explanation is that no matter what may be said to the contrary, Eurythmic did not have a true staying heart, having inherited it from his mother; that it probably became strained in the Futurity and probably dilated, and that while he may win at a mile or a little more, I think it unlikely that he will ever win at two miles again.[^[1]]

[1]. This was written in April, 1922.

Let me make my meaning about the dilated heart quite clear. First of all, one must understand that the heart is a pump; that its walls are composed of muscle—though not of the same kind of muscle that the flesh of the arms and legs is made of. Then the valves of this wonderful pump are made of very strong tissue almost as strong as fine canvas. Considering the amount of work that the heart is called upon to do, getting no entire rest either night or day, the wonder is that it can keep on for sixty or seventy years in man, and twenty or more in the horse, in such a very efficient manner.

Now, if a man who has been working in an office gets “run down” from overwork, and takes it into his head to go off for a holiday, and part of that holiday is devoted to climbing mountains, he will often come back to his office in a worse condition than when he started. What has happened? He has tried to make his heart muscle do work which it is not prepared to do. He has strained his heart. In other words, this wonderful pump has done its best to cope with the extra work that it was called upon to do, and while it may have succeeded, the effort has affected it, and the result of the extra work performed is that the heart has become dilated, and, for the time being, it is not able to do the ordinary work that it is called upon to perform. Provided such a heart is rested and nursed it may come back, but if the possessor of such a heart tries to drive it, and does not rest it, then that heart will fail to do ordinary work, and will most certainly fail if asked to perform extra work.

What happens to the untrained office-man happens over and over again on the racecourse to horses that are asked to win races when they are not “ready”—that is, when they are only half-trained; and while they may succeed they often dilate their unprepared hearts in their honest efforts to succeed. The most recent example of this is Salrak, injured by his Newcastle race.

Again, when a horse is “ready” and his muscles are fit and he is quite able to run a mile and carry a decent weight, he is asked to run a mile and a half; he makes a mighty effort, and from that day on he never does himself justice in a race, for his effort strained his heart; and not being allowed to rest, his heart remains dilated till the end of his days.

Let me illustrate these general remarks by a few concrete instances. Woorak was a most brilliant two-year-old; his bones were short and strong, his hindquarters were perfect, while his muscles were so exquisite that had he been cast in bronze he would have been a joy for ever. He ran in the Chelmsford stakes as a three-year-old, and won, beating his great rival Mountain Knight. Then came the Derby a few weeks later. Everyone who had seen Woorak race recognised the fact that he must be given his head, and that to check him would be fatal. He was a very pronounced favourite, and one of the most experienced trainers said to me: “If you don’t back Woorak don’t bet on the race.” But I remembered that Woorak’s sire had been only a brilliant sprinter in England, so I backed Mountain Knight at six to one simply because his sire, Mountain King, had a Wallace-Carbine heart and could run a mile and a half, and even further, at a brilliant pace. The Derby was run and Woorak put up the effort of his career, but was beaten in the last hundred yards by a very narrow margin. Now we come to the after-history. Five days later Woorak was brought out to run in the Craven Plate, ten furlongs, and he won in record time; some of the field being at the half-distance when he was walking in. From that day onwards Woorak never won at a distance again. These two races dilated his heart, and a mile was the length of his tether. Watching him do his training gallops at Randwick during the winter of 1916, I became convinced that as he had to carry less than weight-for-age in the Epsom that he would be able to run the mile right out. I backed him well and truly, and was rewarded by seeing him win the Epsom by six lengths in a common canter. Now this form so impressed the public that a few days later they simply rushed to back him in the Craven Plate, he having only four opponents. He was at odds-on, and ran in front to the half-distance, then his dilated heart failed suddenly and he was easily beaten by St. Carwyne and Reputation.