feature a hundred years ago Bayardo won 22 of his 25 races. He failed to win the Triple Crown, being under par for the Guineas and meeting trouble in running in the Derby by a fallen horse. He was the champion sire in 1917 and 1918 and leading broodmare sire of 1925. He produced two Triple Crown winners, Gay Crusader and Gainsborough, and through the latter’s son Hyperion has had a lasting influence on the thoroughbred, despite his early death at 11
Fairie picked up a 14th share of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, which when the tin deposits were realised to actually be silver, became the biggest mining company in Australia. The company is still in existence but is now part of BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining concern. However, in the early 1900s, after a number of years Down Under, Fairie was ready to come home. On landing in England he discovered that his share in the company had become worth millions and he became a fully fledged member of the super rich without having to have lifted a finger. With money to burn, the man hit the bloodstock sales in Sheikh-like fashion and Taylor started to enjoy his patronage in 1904. However, it was Fairie’s purchase of the mare Lady Muncaster that really set the wheels in motion for him and his trainer. She was to become one of the great martriachs of her era, Fairie’s run of luck sticking with him all the way from Australia to England.
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The first really good horse to emerge from her descendants was Bayardo. By the Hardwicke Stakes winner Bay Ronald and out of the Galopin mare Galicia, a grand-daughter of Lady Muncaster, Bayardo was unbeaten in his two-year-old career, his wins including the National Breeders’ Produce Stakes, the Richmond Stakes, the Rous Memorial Stakes, the Middle Park Plate and the Dewhurst Plate. After an interrupted winter and a couple of losing efforts in the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby, Bayado picked up winning ways once more in the Eclipse Stakes, the Champion Stakes, the Prince Of Wales Stakes, and the St. Leger. Fairie, who reportedly tuned down an offer for the horse equivalent to £2.97 million in today’s money, kept him in training at four. The horse rewarded his loyalty by picking up minor races en route to victory in the Ascot Gold Cup and the Chester Vase. In all the colt won 22 races from 25 starts, 15 races in succession through his three-year-old and
four-year-old seasons and over £2 million in prize-money in today’s currency. Bayardo was rated 141 by Timeform and secured leading trainer and owner awards for Taylor and Fairie. He retired to Manton Stud exactly a hundred years ago. But this was not the end of the story for Fairie’s dam as her next offspring was to prove a highly talented individual too. In 1909 while Bayardo was beating all on the racecourse, his younger half-sibling by Cyllene, Lemberg, began to look in his home work at Manton as though he too might be something special. That summer Taylor gave Lemberg a piece of work with the same older horses that had marked Bayardo out as a Classic prospect – Lemberg treated those work companions in much the same manner as his older halfbrother had done. He has often overshadowed by his halfbrother Bayardo yet his list of victories and placings is as impressive.