1893 – W. R. Wilson, Trenton, & St Albans Stud

In the very same year of the formation of the J.B. Clark syndicate, there came another man upon the scene also hoping to dominate the Australian Turf.  He would be the syndicate’s greatest rival during its brief reign, and, after its premature demise, would assume the undisputed mantle of Australia’s leading owner.  The man in question was William Robert (W.R.) Wilson, and from the time of his acquisition of the St Albans Stud in early 1890 until his death in May 1900, he came to dominate racing in this land in a manner that rivalled the Hon. James White when at the peak of his fame, and has never been equalled in all the years since. Born in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1850 the son of a civil engineer, William Wilson immigrated to Victoria with his parents and eight brothers and sisters at the age of six.  The family settled in the then quiet town of Geelong, or ‘Sleepy Hollow” as the place was contemptuously termed.

Wilson matured into a big and bluff individual with an eye for the main chance, and at the age of eighteen, travelled to New Zealand where he began working in the nascent alluvial mining industry.  After about five years, Wilson moved on to Port Pirie and Port Augusta in South Australia acting as a commercial agent in a small way.  It was the gold rush in the northwest corner of New South Wales, and with which Port Augusta traded, that gave Wilson the chance of becoming a company promoter. A confident and wilful man, he floated a number of mining ventures in the Lofty Ranges on the Adelaide Stock Exchange in those heady days, most of which failed to turn a profit, except for himself.  It was the discovery of Galena at Thackaringa that initially brought Wilson to Broken Hill and the district that was to make his fortune.

The long narrow hill with the strange silhouette in the Barrier Ranges had been sitting there all those years just awaiting the discovery of its silver underneath.  As Geoffrey Blainey has observed, any rich discovery provokes the exasperated wishes of those who had the chance and passed it by; and in the case of Broken Hill, the exasperated were to be numbered in their hundreds.  “On foot or horseback, driving bullock teams or sitting in mail coaches, they passed within a few miles of the hill, and could have acquired a title to millions of ounces of silver for no more than the price of a coach ticket to Sydney”.  However, the 34-year-old Wilson, who had already floated some silver mines in nearby Silverton, and was managing one, had the money and foresight to buy a one-fourteenth share in Broken Hill for £2,000 in 1884 just at the time of the sinking of the first shafts. In so doing he became one of the men who drew up the original prospectus for the floating of the company that won fame as Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd.  William Wilson served as a director for six years and was one of the early chairmen of the board, championing the method of open cut mining against strong opposition. The company flourished and paid more than a million pounds in the year ending May 1891 to its shareholders, a sum it matched the following year as it generated wealth on a scale unprecedented in Australia up to that time.

Just as the Victorian goldfields proved a boon to the Australian Turf with men like William Bailey, Martin Loughlin and others putting much of their wealth into expensive horseflesh; so too, the silver of Broken Hill made many a racing man and gave bloodstock breeding in Australia a tremendous fillip.  Apart from William Wilson, Ernest Brodribb was another who ploughed much of his Broken Hill earnings back into the Turf.  Another was the Englishman, Alfred W. Cox, the son of a Liverpool jute merchant, who arguably made the biggest splash of all. Mostly ignored in Australian Turf lore, Cox had been sent over here in disgrace after failing his entrance examination for the British Army.  Legend has it that he won a derelict sheep station in a game of poker on the voyage out.

The property proved worthless as a sheep station, but the dry, dusty soil was laden with silver.  Cox returned to England a wealthy man and linked up with Alec Taylor of Manton fame.  Included among the many winners to carry Cox’s colours on the English Turf were Lemberg and Gay Crusader, respective winners of The Derby at Epsom in 1910 and 1917.  Most of the men that reaped immense fortunes from Broken Hill were conspicuous spenders and generous hosts in their extravagant mansions.  Although they called themselves gentlemen, most were never wholly accepted into society, and knighthoods rarely came their way.  As Geoffrey Blainey observes, a significant difference between the gold town of Ballarat and the silver town of Broken Hill, was that in the former some of the citizens who enjoyed the wealth from the mines took civic pride in beautifying the town.  By contrast, Broken Hill produced rich men who, though much richer than their counterparts in Ballarat, shunned the prospect of living in the place because of the heat, the isolation and the inhospitable terrain.

But I seem to have strayed from the path; pray, allow me to return to William Wilson.  As befitted a native of Ireland, Wilson was keenly interested in horse racing from his youth and in his early days in South Australia even served briefly as the secretary of the Port Augusta Jockey Club, organising a few annual meetings on what passed there for a racecourse.  His brother, Samuel, shared the same interest and he was later to become the president of the Adelaide Racing Club.  Although he raced a few horses intermittently down the years, William’s mining adventures and the itinerant demands of company management conspired to prevent a major commitment to the sport until the late 1880s.  However, in 1889 his horses, Sluggard and Chetwynd, won three races at the Flemington Autumn Meeting and this success served to whet his appetite.

Now flushed with dividends of silver as one of the Broken Hillionaires, a term coined by the Sydney Bulletin, Wilson began to expand his team of racehorses during that year while also laying plans for establishing his very own stud.  At the Tattersalls’ Sales in England, he bought the stallion Eiridspord, a son of Isonomy from a daughter of Musket, and the winner of the Newmarket Derby and Liverpool St Leger, together with a selection of well-bred English fillies all foaled in 1887.  The group included Elsie by St Simon, Eleusis and Bonnie Rosette both by Barcaldine, Lady Marden by Marden, and Beanfeast by Plebeian.  All would make their mark on the Australian Turf in due course and, as we shall see, two of the mares would foal A.J.C. Derby winners.  It puts one in mind of the influence of that happy band of matrons that accompanied Fisherman to Australia on behalf of Hurtle Fisher all those years before.

Wilson was the most prolific buyer of yearlings at the January 1890 sales of the New Zealand Stud Company too, and he did some smart business there.  It was Musket blood that he was after, and the best way of getting it then was to buy sons and daughters of Nordenfeldt.  He purchased three good ones in Zalinski, Trenton’s half-brother at the cost of 950 guineas; the future champion three-year-old colt, Strathmore, at 325 guineas; and Steadfast, a half-brother to Lochiel and named in honour of George Stead who for a time owned Lochiel, for 1025 guineas.  What a trio with which to announce one’s first concentrated assault on the Turf! Strathmore won the Caulfield Guineas at only his second appearance, and then proceeded to win the Victoria Derby, St Leger, Champion Stakes and All-Aged Stakes at Flemington and was desperately unlucky in running third in Malvolio’s Melbourne Cup. Zalinski wasn’t a bad second string either, winning the Toorak Handicap, Essendon Stakes and Loch Plate at three and running second to Strathmore in the Champion Stakes.  Steadfast was the relative failure of the group, but even he managed to win the weight-for-age Canterbury Plate at the 1891 V.R.C. Spring Meeting.

Wilson had already decided to settle permanently in Victoria when he attended those 1890 New Zealand Sales and was at an advanced stage in negotiations through W. C. Yuille and Co. for the purchase of the famous St Albans Stud, just outside of Geelong.  For a boy with racing in his blood who had spent some of his formative years in the Geelong district, it was a much-coveted prize.  The foundation of the St Albans Stud during the 1870s by its original owner James Wilson, and its passing into the hands of John Crozier in the late 1880s, is described in the 1872 chapter of this book.  Crozier only retained St Albans for a few years and made the mistake of using Savanaka as his principal stallion. Notwithstanding the quality of his pedigree, Savanaka wasn’t the most prepossessing of individuals, and despite the best of mares, failed as a stallion and somewhat sullied the reputation of the St Albans paddocks.  Crozier had now placed the property on the market although it wasn’t until February 1890 that a price slightly more than £70,000 was agreed upon, with the deal to include all of the stock except the yearlings, which Crozier would dispose of the following month.  It was on 20^th March that William Wilson officially became the new Squire of St Albans.

At the time the stud changed hands the resident stallions standing there were the ageing First King, who was then rising 16 years old, the year-older Robinson Crusoe, and Albury, an undistinguished son of Yattendon; Newminster; while several of Andrew Chirnside’s mares were quartered there as well.  Wilson lost no time in re-invigorating the bloodlines roaming the paddocks and overhauling the property itself.  His first act was to appoint his long-time friend from South Australia, Les Macdonald, as his racing manager, a key role given Wilson’s penchant for extensive travels in England during his tenure of St Albans. Macdonald had trained and raced horses since his teens.  When a very young man he won the South Australian Derby in 1879 with Pawnbroker.  Later that same season he won the A.R.C. Alderman Cup with Banter.  Macdonald’s sister married J. E. Saville, one of the leading owners and trainers in South Australia.  Indeed, he won the Melbourne Cup with The Assyrian and very soon after took a team of horses to England and stayed there.

Saville was the first Australian owner to exploit the English racecourse with an Australian-bred horse.  In so doing, he preceded the Hon. James White in that adventure and among the horses he took with him in 1888 was Ringmaster, selected by Macdonald for Saville.  Ringmaster won five good races over there including the Great Northern Handicap of 500 pounds at York. Macdonald took over Saville’s Adelaide training establishment and engaged one Mr Hugh Munro, a successful footballer of the day, to assist in the training of his horses.  Just how significant that piece of recruitment was for the future of Australian racing can only be marvelled at, for not only did Hugh Munro train a succession of winners including the Melbourne Cup in 1901, but he would become the father of Jimmy and Darby Munro, two of the greatest jockeys Australia has ever produced.  Still, all that lay in the future when this talented sportsman swapped his football boots for a stopwatch.  Meanwhile, Macdonald, with Munro’s assistance, went to Victoria to win the Maribyrnong Plate twice in three years with those two smart youngsters, Newstead and Hortense, in the mid-eighties.

William R. Wilson trusted Les Macdonald absolutely and between them, the two men were to revitalise St Albans into the finest thoroughbred stud in the southern hemisphere.  A lodge was erected and a pretty drive formed about two hundred yards on the town side of the former main entrance.  The old range of stabling was removed and a brick building substituted further from the house; the paddocks were re-grassed; and large-scale irrigation work was undertaken, while electric lighting was also introduced.  James Wilson’s old summer track down by the Barwon was rendered usable again, and Hugh Munro was retained to train the racehorses.  A 12’ high corrugated iron fence was erected to guarantee privacy on the training ground.

The new Squire of St Albans was obsessed with the superior blood of Musket, and with Carbine unavailable he was determined to at least obtain Musket’s second-greatest son, Trenton.  This magnificent racehorse was out of Musket’s second crop in New Zealand, and the first foal from that wonderful daughter of Goldsbrough, Frailty, one of the best broodmares ever foaled on these shores.  Because of shelly feet – a common condition with the Musket breed -Trenton’s racing career over four seasons had been restricted to just 13 starts.  Unbeaten in three appearances at two and winning each time for a different owner, he was then acquired by that ubiquitous character of the Australasian Turf, Dan O’Brien.  After a very quiet three-year-old season in which Trenton was seen just twice in public, O’Brien set him for a big plunge in the 1885 Melbourne Cup only to be denied by a head in the race won by Sheet Anchor.

After that campaign, O’Brien sold Trenton to the free-spending baronet and Anglophile, Sir William Cooper, for 2500 guineas, and the horse went into the stables of Tom Lamond.  Cooper only got four runs for his money, but one of them was that famous 1886 Melbourne Cup when Trenton was again a gallant second, this time being beaten a long neck by Arsenal, after giving the year-younger horse more than two stone in weight.  Cooper and Lamond subsequently had a falling out just a few weeks after the Cup, which saw the son of Musket transferred into the stables of Ike Foulsham.  Old Ike couldn’t match Lamond’s genius with crocks and never even got a start out of the horse and Cooper sold Trenton in March 1888 at Fennelly’s Bazaar on the eve of going to England with his brother Sir Daniel Cooper.  Alec Benson then acquired the rising seven-year-old horse on behalf of Hobartville Stud and Andrew Town for just 800 guineas.

Trenton let down into a very masculine stallion and had just finished serving his second book of mares when the impecunious Town defaulted on his loan, and his mortgagees William Long and George Hill foreclosed on Hobartville in late 1889.  Town’s tragic death quickly followed, and Trenton came onto the market along with all of the Hobartville stock at the stud’s dispersal in May 1890.  William Wilson attended those sales in person and was forced to go as high as 3000 guineas before subduing William Inglis in a bidding duel.  This wonderful son of Musket, then nine years old, was on his way to Geelong at last!  It was a high price to pay for a stallion whose stock remained untried on the racecourse, but he was to prove the re-making of St Albans Stud.

When the stud announced its list of stallions at the service of the public in mid-July, Trenton was made available at a fee of 50 guineas. Despite the demands on the horse, Wilson found time to exhibit him at the Geelong Agricultural Show later that year where he won the special prize for thoroughbred stallions.  Still, handsome is, as handsome does. However, proof of Trenton’s prepotency came quickly when the first of his progeny to race, Gaillardia, cleverly won the rich Sapling Stakes at the Caulfield Grand National Meeting in mid-August. Ironically, in winning Gaillardia edged out a filly of William Wilson’s on the post – and it was one time the Silver King didn’t mind losing.  One swallow a summer does not make, but when the brilliant Etra Weenie waltzed in for the Maribyrnong Plate at the 1891 V.R.C. Spring Meeting, Trenton’s reputation was assured.  Others in his first batch included the future Sydney Cup winner, Lady Trenton, and a Villiers winner in Bliss.

Accordingly, Trenton’s second crop was awaited with keen anticipation and by the close of the Randwick autumn meeting in April 1893, it was clear that the stallion had again delivered the goods in the shape of two promising juveniles, Light Artillery and Delaware.  Light Artillery was an exceptionally handsome brown colt, deep-set and big-barrelled, out of the good imported mare Bengal Light, and prepared for John Turnbull by a promising, young 33-year-old Melbourne trainer named Walter Hickenbotham.  Bought as a yearling for 675 guineas at the Sydney Sales, his purchase price had been recouped early in the season when at his second appearance he won the valuable Debutant Stakes. Light Artillery then failed to fire during the Melbourne autumn but brought across to Sydney he closed out his season by upsetting a good field to win the Sires’ Produce Stakes at Randwick. Delaware, a more backward colt than Light Artillery, and trained by Tom Lamond for the old Cobb and Co identity, Walter Hall, burst onto the scene on the fourth day of the A.J.C. autumn fixture when he careered away from a field of twenty to win a nursery handicap by six lengths. However, those sportsmen attending the A.J.C. autumn fixture who considered that sons of Trenton might have a mortgage on both Derbies later in the spring had cause for doubt after the running of the Champagne Stakes.

In that race, Carbine’s three-quarter-brother, Carnage, ploughed through heavy going at Randwick to win rather easily, carrying the now-famous colours of the St Albans studmaster.  William Wilson had purchased this beautifully-built, dark chestnut colt by Musket’s son, Nordenfeldt, together with his dam Mersey, at the dispersal sale of the Sylvia Park Stud in New Zealand for 2300 guineas.  Mersey, who by then was seventeen years old, proved expensive at that price, but not so the colt foal at foot.  Wilson had made an offer for the whole of the Sylvia Park thoroughbreds, as well as the farm itself back in 1890 when the sale of Carbine’s birthplace was first proposed.  Alas, his comprehensive offer was refused as were all others and in 1891 the famous dispersal sale was conducted.

Having failed to buy the whole stud, at least Carnage ensured Wilson didn’t come away empty-handed.  A better-conformed horse than Carbine, and very deep through the brisket, he did share the same lazy good-natured character of ‘old Jack’. The colt had made his much-awaited public debut when unplaced at Caulfield in the Oakleigh Plate in February and had run twice at the Flemington Autumn Meeting without success before breaking his maiden status in the Federal Stakes at Caulfield in mid-March.

That easy victory over Light Artillery, albeit with a 23lb weight concession, prompted the visit to Sydney.  Not that Carnage was the only promising two-year-old that St Albans Stud sheltered that season.  Havoc, a three-quarter brother to Trenton, had also been bought for 2200 guineas on William Wilson’s behalf at the Sylvia Park sale. Like Carnage he was by Nordenfeldt, but out of Trenton’s dam, Frailty, and rumours were emanating from Geelong that in time he might even prove the superior colt.  Unfortunately, he was backward and immature and only started once as a juvenile late in the season; he was then hors de combat for eighteen months and missed his three-year-old season entirely.  Still, the rumours regarding his ability, as we shall see, were eventually proven to be true.

The 1893 A.J.C. Derby field and race conditions appear in the table below:

A large and representative assemblage congregated on Randwick heath in bright and glorious sunshine to assist at the opening of the A.J.C.’s Spring Meeting. The grandstand enclosure looked its best and the well-kept lawn formed a delightful promenade for those fashionable ladies wishing to be admired. It seemed that every true sportsman who loved to hear the rustle of silk and the thunder of hoofs on the green sward was present. Though the equine competitors from Victoria were very few, the sportsmen from across the Murray were present in full force including the V.R.C. committeemen C. M. Lloyd and W. Leonard. The pleasure of the afternoon was considerably enhanced by the delightful music played by the members of the Second Regiment Band. And their red coats added to the picturesque scene. By the time the warning bell had rung out its final summons for the opening event, more than 12,000 people had passed through the entrance gates including a large vice-regal party from Government House, quite different in composition to that which had attended the previous year’s running of the A.J.C. Derby. Following upon the departure from Sydney of Lord and Lady Jersey on 1 March 1893, 58-year-old Sir Robert Duff had been appointed as Jersey’s successor as Governor of N.S.W. later that same month.

Duff and his wife, Louisa, had arrived in Sydney with their family in the vessel Parramatta on Monday 29 May, a raw, sullen, overcast day and been sworn into office that same afternoon. A fine-looking gentleman with an Elizabethan beard so befitting of one whose early career had been as a naval officer, Duff was a wealthy landowner with extensive estates in Banffshire, Scotland. Duff, a progressive Gladstonian Liberal in politics, had represented Banffshire in the House of Commons continuously since 1861 and only resigned his seat upon his N.S.W. appointment. A keen sportsman and a good shot, Duff was a hunting and racing man through and through and within the first week after his arrival here had attended the Tattersall’s Grand National Steeplechase meeting at Randwick. Also, present in the vice-regal party on Derby Day 1893 were the Earl and Countess of Hopetoun and suite, together with Sir William and the Hon. Lady Plowden.

Only five horses were accepted for the 1893 A.J.C. Derby and neither Carnage nor Light Artillery – the two best colts of the season – were in the race, with the former aimed solely at the Victoria Derby – Melbourne Cup double, while the latter suffered an interruption to his training programme.  The general public, confronted with such a moderate lot, in their desperation, made Projectile the favourite. Another of those Kirkham-bred foals acquired by the J.B. Clark syndicate, he was bought for 800 guineas and trained by Tom Payten.  Projectile had won the Ascot Vale Stakes in his first season as well as running a good second behind Bungebah in the V.R.C. All-Aged Stakes, at the same meeting.  The second elect was Delaware who bid fair to give Walter Hall his first blue riband, while yet another son of Trenton, Trenchant, was next fancied. Solanum, trained by Mark Thompson on behalf of colourful bookmaker Humphrey Oxenham, was an interesting runner.  A son of Somnus out of Blue and White, a smart filly that had won both the December Stakes and The Shorts at Randwick, Solanum had been knocked down to Thompson for 200 guineas at the Kirkham sale of yearlings in April 1892.  Although on form Solanum hardly seemed a serious chance, Mark Thompson’s horsemanship was well respected.  The fifth runner of the Derby quintet, Pharamond, wasn’t expected to disturb the judge.

Rowley Pickering who wrote as Nemo in the Sydney Mail made his observations of the race in the idiosyncratic language of the time: “The favourite and Delaware, notwithstanding that the pace for the first mile was little faster than that of a blackfellow running in boots, were kept too far out of their running, and when the so-called race resolved itself into a four-furlong and a half spin, they had to give Solanum, Trenchant and the beaten Pharamond a long start.  Pharamond failed to stay it out, and Trenchant, in whom Allsop, his trainer, reposed the greatest confidence, out-stayed and out-paced Solanum in the run home. Delaware made a long run from the three-furlong post, but the effort played him out.  Had he been in possession of a little more condition, he could not have lost, and there can be little doubt but that before the close of the season, he will succeed in lowering the colours of the pair that finished in front of him.”  The farcical winning time of 2 minutes 54 seconds, except for that recorded by His Lordship in 1878, was the slowest in the history of the race since 1865 and was more befitting of cab horses than Derby colts.  Many sportsmen were critical of the jockeyship and observed that, had the recently retired Hales ridden in the event, he would have won on any of the five runners. One curious coincidence of the race was that the five runners finished in exactly the opposite order to their numbers in the racebook.

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And so, it came to pass that a Trenton colt did win the Derby, although not the one people had in mind during the months leading up to the classic. After the race, Trenchant was taken into the paddock to be decorated with the blue riband by Lady Duff, resplendent in a cigar brown, bengaline silk dress made with a short jacket opening over a flowered antique brocade vest and topped off with a toque hat of brown and pink velvet, with brown feather tips. Quite a sensation was created when Lady Duff was about to invest the Derby winner with the insignia of honour. The noble equine, whether rendered nervous by his victory or feeling uncomfortable in the presence of vice-royalty, plunged and jumped about in the most erratic fashion; Her Ladyship however persisted in decorating the winner against his will, her presence of mind never deserting her in the face of what looked like danger.

The Countess of Hopetoun looked very well in a pretty pale fawn-coloured spotted canvas made with two deep flounces, each edged with a band of white satin covered with cream lace insertion; the bodice was partly of white satin covered with lace, with canvas sleeves and revers; set off by a small bonnet of pink and blue forget-me-nots, tied with pink velvet ribbon strings. Still, no one could have ever accused her of dressing extravagantly. She always looked well and wore magnificent diamonds while her dresses were inevitably neat and in the most exquisite taste. As the Referee racing correspondent observed: “She looks thoroughbred, every inch of her.” It was after the sashing that Judge Benson remarked: “The worst Derby field I have seen since The Duke’s year.” Although Sir Robert Duff had been at Rosehill on more than one occasion, it was a pity that the first race he witnessed for a Colonial Derby was such a poor affair. Yet if the Derby proved ordinary fare, that wasn’t true of much of the support card. Brockleigh, an impressive son of Goldsbrough and one of the biggest horses in training, in taking the Epsom Handicap won a lot of money for the public while Dan O’Brien’s Loyalty finishing very resolutely, scored a well-merited win for New Zealand in the A.J.C. Spring Stakes, lowering the colours of that future champion stallion Stepniak into the bargain. And some astute judges, observing Jeweller’s win in the Trial Stakes, correctly believed they’d seen the A.J.C. Summer Cup winner.

While Trenchant’s breeding is credited to Josh Leeds, it was Andrew Town who had mated Bridesmaid with Trenton at the Hobartville Stud.  Leeds acquired Bridesmaid, who was carrying Trenchant at the time, along with some other mares when the whole of the Hobartville stock came onto the market in May 1890.  Bridesmaid, a good-producing daughter of Yattendon, had previously foaled two winners of the Q.T.C. Hopeful Stakes. Purchased when a yearling by William Gardiner, the proprietor of the Gobolion Stud, Trenchant gave trainer John Allsop his second A.J.C. Derby following upon the success of Gibraltar three years earlier. It proved to be a memorable A.J.C. Spring Meeting for Allsop as not only did he train a double on the First Day when his Antaeus won the last – the Kensington Handicap, but he produced Paris to take out the rich Metropolitan Stakes on the Second Day.

In contrast, it was a poor meeting for J. B. Clark and William Bailey, who little anticipated the tide of adversity which swamped their inaugural efforts of the season with Projectile, Camoola and Pulvil. A.J.C. Derby Day of 1893 was to be long remembered by those who had entrusted their confidence and their coin to the syndicate’s representatives. Remnants of tradition for the famous Kirkham era were so closely identified with the horses belonging to the racing confederacy presided over by J. B. Clark that the public seemed ever-ready to extend them the same level of support vouchsafed in those halcyon days when the popular and honoured blue and white flag was invincible. This it was that Warpaint received such hearty support for the Epsom, much to the sorrow of may later.

Trenchant had been quite a nondescript juvenile finishing unplaced in each of his three appearances during his first season. While only a compact little colt – he never stood much above 15 hands – nonetheless he was well put together. Allsop had evinced confidence that he had a Derby colt in the making, although it wasn’t until the son of Trenton finished a good second in the Spring Handicap (10f) at the Tattersall’s September meeting upon his seasonal re-appearance that bookmakers took him seriously.  William Gardiner’s experience in the ranks of ownership had been one of aspiration rather than fulfilment up to the time of the Derby. Trenchant appeared to have the measure of the Sydney colts but a southern challenge awaited. Allsop delayed transporting his Trenton colt to Melbourne until later in October as he had no intention of running him in the Caulfield Guineas. Perhaps it was just as well as the V.A.T.C. Spring Meeting that year proved to be something of a circus.

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In the seventeen years since the Victoria Amateur Turf Club had taken over the heath at Caulfield, no spring meeting had ever been postponed. But in the year 1893, it happened. Torrents of rain rendered it necessary to defer Guineas’ Day until the following Wednesday when on the scheduled Saturday the course presented an appearance more suggestive of boating than of racing. Even with the deferment, Guineas’ Day dawned breezy, blustery and boisterous and with a rain-affected track nonetheless. There was a good crowd in attendance considering it was a weekday, and fourteen runners went to the post for the Caulfield Guineas. Patron won in quite a brilliant manner, for three furlongs from home the Grand Flaneur colt was absolutely last but had them beaten at the distance.

If the postponement of the Guineas provided the first sensation of the V.A.T.C. Spring Meeting, the Caulfield Cup provided the second. Rarely has any race in Australia triggered such controversy in its wake and it all came about because of interference in the last fifty yards. Oxide and Sainfoin appeared to have the race between them until Tim Swiveller charged up on the outside of both, only to roll in towards them close to the winning post. He certainly brushed Oxide who enjoyed a slight margin over Sainfoin at the time. The V.A.T.C. judge placed Tim Swiveller first by a half-length to Sainfoin, with Oxide a neck away third. As discussed in my 1891 chapter, no sooner had the horses returned to scale than I. T. (Ike) Carslake, the owner-trainer of Sainfoin, fired in a protest. I shan’t repeat here the story of Carslake’s failed V.A.T.C. appeal and ultimately successful V.R.C. appeal, but let it be said that this celebrated case made clear the supremacy and power of the senior club.

The internecine power struggle between Victoria’s respective racing clubs in the wake of the Caulfield Cup notwithstanding, southern sportsmen were far more interested in Trenchant’s prospective clash with Carnage in the Victoria Derby, relishing the opportunity of beating the first colony.  Rheumatism that had proved so troublesome to Carnage’s shoulder during the winter months eased with the sunshine and his trainer Hugh Munro was able to start him for his seasonal debut in the Caulfield Guineas in which he ran unplaced to Patron.  That run brought him on.  It was in October 1893 that the innovation of reading the card on important spring events was put into effect for the first time at the Victoria Club, which gave quite a fillip to betting turnover.  The stable money poured on Carnage for the Derby-Cup double and how close he came to pulling it off!

The Derby at Flemington that year was a genuine contest. The race record was equalled, and the manner in which Carnage sprinted in the straight soon settled all opposition with Trenchant and the other N.S.W. challengers failing even to run a place.  As if to underline the dominance of St Albans at this time, both minor place-getters in the Victoria Derby were bred there as well.  The perceived merits of the three-year-olds were measured in the Melbourne Cup on the following Tuesday when Carnage, with a pound over weight-for-age, went to the post sharing second favouritism in a wide-betting race, with Trenchant and Light Artillery friendless at 100/1 in a thirty-horse field.  Carnage led for home and was hailed as the winner until the aged Tarcoola ran him down just inside the distance to win by a half-length.  The two Trenton colts both finished down the course.  It was the closest William Wilson would ever come to winning the Cup.

Neither Trenchant nor Carnage did much on the racecourse after their glorious spring of 1893, although leg problems plagued each.  Trenchant did run the minor placing in the A.J.C. St Leger and later at that same autumn meeting won both the City and Rous Handicaps, but it was the last time the horse saluted the judge.  The colt was absent from the racecourse during his entire four-year-old season and then returned for a brief campaign as a spring five-year-old.  Although Trenchant finished unplaced in four out of five races that season, in the other one, the Caulfield Cup, he ran a gallant second behind Humphrey Oxenham’s Waterfall.  The subsequent form of Carnage was similarly mixed.  He never quite matured into the horse that many hoped he would, as a three-quarter brother to Carbine.  He did manage to finish second in both St Legers – behind Patron at Flemington and The Sailor Prince at Randwick – but like Trenchant he failed in the 1894 Sydney Cup on the heavy ground in the race won by John Mayo’s Lady Trenton.  Likewise, his four-year-old season proved disappointing, and seven races yielded only one victory – the V.R.C. Essendon Stakes on the first day of the V.R.C. Autumn Meeting of 1895.  The following spring, he was retired to the St Albans Stud where he stood for just one brief season.

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The economic depression of the 1890s that swept across Australia created havoc everywhere but especially for those men on the land.  It started with the shipping strike of 1890, and the slump in world prices for wool and wheat greatly exacerbated it.  By 1891 the whole ramshackle nature of Australia’s financial structure began to collapse under its own weight; and as confidence crumbled, there was a run on the banks, which saw many of them close their doors. Insolvency was everywhere, and as credit dried up, all industry was dragged down. Thousands of people left the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria for the ephemeral prospect of riches in the West Australian goldfields.

Horse racing fell into a slump that saw the prize money for the Melbourne Cup drop from £10,000 in 1890 to just £3,000 in 1894 with a commensurate fall in the price of yearlings.  It was a state of affairs that ruined many racing men as we have already seen with the likes of Charles and Hurtle Fisher and Etienne de Mestre going to the wall. While William Wilson’s fortune, based as it was on mining, wasn’t as vulnerable as those exposed to the land, the depression meant that for the moment St Albans Stud couldn’t be justified on the grand scale on which it had flourished during the heady days of prosperity.  Early in March 1895, William Wilson created a sensation when he announced his intention to dispose of the St Albans Stud and all of his racing and breeding stock and retire from the Turf.

What the canny Wilson intended in the circumstances was a refinancing of the entire operation, inviting the general public to oblige by means of subscribing for tickets in a lottery.  It revived memories of the Maribyrnong distribution by Charles Fisher back in 1868 but on a much grander scale: the amount asked by Fisher was less than one-sixth that required for St Albans and back then there were only 35 prizes.  In the five years since Wilson had bought the St Albans estate for £70,000, it was estimated that he had spent a further £30,000 on stock and refurbishments.  I doubt if there has ever been a more valuable array of champion racehorses and broodmares past, present and future, held in Australia by just one man.  Given the hard times, Wilson knew that a sale or public auction would return a mere fraction of his outlays.  Hence the idea of a lottery with the horses and the estate itself, comprising the individual prizes.  Wilson asked 56-year-old George Adams of Tattersalls to organise proceedings.

The proposal was quite straightforward.  There would be 125,000 tickets at £1 each with 130 prizes up for grabs; after allowing for organisational and promotional expenses, Wilson would finish with a small profit over his total outlays during his proprietorship.  Any lucky ticket holder that won a horse could take possession of his prize immediately, but those not wishing to do so could arrange for their horse to be sold at auction a week later and receive the money raised there instead.  And therein lay the means by which Wilson calculated he would be able to reclaim the nucleus of St Albans and continue the life of the stud.  Cashed up with the lottery proceeds in a time of economic hardship, Wilson would have few rivals in any public auction of the prizes, and he held no doubts that he could reclaim the St Albans estate itself back from the lucky winner at the right price.  After all, few people would have the means to finance it as a going concern during a depression.

It is worth reflecting on the order of the first ten prizes drawn in Brisbane on October 24^th, 1895, as it indicates the value that Wilson and his advisers placed upon individual thoroughbreds at the time:

First Prize: The St Albans Estate consisting of 748 acres and situated 3 ½ miles to the east of Geelong; Second Prize: Trenton – recognised as the best sire in Australia at the time; Third Prize: Eiridspord – a son of Isonomy and already a successful stallion; Fourth Prize: Robinson Crusoe, the Derby hero of 1876 and by now 22-years-old; Fifth Prize: Strathmore, winner of the Caulfield Guineas, Victoria Derby and St Leger; Sixth Prize: Bill of Portland, the only son of St Simon in Australia at the time; Seventh Prize: Carnage, winner of the Victoria Derby in 1893; Eighth Prize: Havoc, winner of the Australian Cup in 1895; Ninth Prize: Wallace, a three-year-old son of Carbine and arguably the best juvenile of the previous season; Tenth Prize: Challenger, a 3-year-old son of Eiridspord and winner of the Debutant and Ascot Vale Stakes. Of course, given that there were 130 prizes in all, some of the lower-order prizes are fascinating in hindsight.  For example, Insomnia was prize number 77 and was described as a barren mare.  If only they’d known.  That spring, Insomnia got in foal to Trenton and twelve months after the lottery, happened to drop a filly that was registered as Wakeful.  Oceana, the dam of a two-year-old called Newhaven, was prize number 59. Eight days after the lottery was drawn, Newhaven would win the Maribyrnong Plate and first disclose the promise of what was to come.

From the day in March when William Wilson announced the lottery, until the day of its draw, the value of the prizes was maintained.  Wilson headed the winning owners’ list for the season, while Trenton – with only three crops racing – had been runner-up to Grand Flaneur as the leading stallion, with Robinson Crusoe finishing fourth in the table.  As was the case with Charles Fisher’s lottery, not all the tickets were sold, perhaps not surprising considering the hard times; although one major barrier to their wholesale disposal was the inability of agents to make the affair public in England.  Originally Wilson had intended for Joe Thompson to act as the sales agent in England, and he was sent a large allocation of tickets, only for Thompson to decline the role owing to the stringency of the English law at the time.  In the end, the few thousand tickets that went to the Old Country had been applied for by cable and dispatched directly from Brisbane.

Nonetheless, the ticket sales were healthy, and George Adams drew the lottery as scheduled in the Centennial Hall, Brisbane, a week before the Melbourne Cup. Uncannily, the very first prize drawn was the estate itself, which was won by a Seymour group of eight men.  A syndicate of four at Creswick headed by Mr C. E. House won Wallace, while Carnage went to the lightweight Sydney jockey, Liddiard, who used to ride for the Payten stable.  It was Harry Arundel of the Federal Hotel, Berrigan, who won Trenton; and therein lay problems.  Arundel immediately telegraphed to Yuille and Co. to put the stallion up for sale the following week but in the meantime, insure him for £5,000.  It was alleged that Arundel – a former clerk at a firm of solicitors – was guilty of defalcation and a writ of ‘foreign attachment’ was served on Wilson preventing him from transferring Trenton. Arundel claimed the winning ticket was half-owned by his wife, a claim that however dubious, was acknowledged by his creditors in a bid to resolve the legal imbroglio.  Both parties recognised that if the matter had been allowed to drag through the courts the best years of Trenton’s life as a stallion might have passed and there wouldn’t be left a hair of the stallion’s tail to divide at the end of it.

Trenton’s credentials as a stallion were undoubtedly enhanced by Auraria’s win in the Melbourne Cup a few days after the lottery, as indeed was the reputation of St Albans, for all three place-getters that year were bred at the stud.  When Trenton was put up for public auction in mid-November, Clarence Wilson, a son of Sir Samuel Wilson, offered 7000 guineas for him!  Alas, greed saw the price refused, only for the horse to be sold a short time later to the very same bidder acting on behalf of Cobham Stud in England, for 5000 guineas.  That same stud also managed to purchase Carnage from William Wilson for a reported 3500 guineas, after the St Albans proprietor had privately repurchased the son of Mersey when only 1850 guineas were bid for him at the public auction. When Wilson negotiated to re-purchase Carnage, it was with the objective of his continuing at St Albans where he had had about fifteen mares during the season. However, in the end, the Cobham Stud made an offer Wilson couldn’t refuse.  It was a sad loss for Australian bloodstock as time would show that Carnage’s one limited season at St Albans yielded two high-class gallopers in Combat and Seclusion.

It seemed, however, that the English were at last determined to atone for their original sin of letting Musket go to the colonies by snapping up his descendants. Despite holding a wad of tickets in the lottery, the only plum drawn by Wilson himself was Bill of Portland, and holding that ace made the decision to let Carnage go a little easier on his mind. Undeterred by his lack of luck in the lottery the Silver King proceeded – through the agencies of C. M. Lloyd and Les Macdonald – to buy back most of his horses in training, including Wallace and Havoc, and several of the best broodmares as well.  Re-purchasing the estate took a fortnight longer but eventually it, too, through the help of Walter Hall, came back to Wilson’s ownership for £24,000 – down from an original reserve of £40,000. Thus except for the departures of Trenton and Carnage to England and gallant old Robinson Crusoe to New Zealand, St Albans stood much the same as it did before the lottery had ever been announced, although Wilson was considerably better off.   Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

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Both Carnage and Trenton were shipped together in the Orizaba in December 1895 and arrived at the Cobham Stud, Kent, in February.  Carnage, whose initial service fee was 50 guineas, got a full book of mares in his opening season and occupied the box sacred to the memory of the 1874 English Derby hero, George Frederick, while Trenton, standing at twice the amount, took the stallion box once occupied by the great Blair Athol.  Neither Carnage nor Trenton was afforded the opportunities they deserved at Cobham, although Carnage was only there a season or two before Count Lehndorff, who was managing the State Studs of Prussia, purchased him on behalf of the Graditz Stud in Germany.

“Blood is the juice that works wonders!” was a saying of Lehndorff that still adorns the mare stables even today, and the prospect of buying a three-quarter brother to the legendary Carbine was one the Count could not resist.  The amount quoted by William Allison for Carnage at the time was 10,000 guineas, but he changed hands for 7500 guineas plus old St Gatien, who shared the 1884 English Derby with Harvester.  Carnage wasn’t in England long enough to establish himself, but fared little better in Germany, for on his arrival at Graditz, he was prostrated by a bad attack of fever and never really recovered from it.  Although he got a number of useful horses, he gradually lost his hold on breeders there and after 1906 was left to sire half-bred mares at the Berberbeck State Stud in Germany where he died in early 1912.

Nor was Trenton’s European odyssey any more inspiring.  The son of Musket took ill on the long voyage to England and arrived in such poor condition that almost his whole first season book of mares had to be cancelled.  Neither did the rigours of the English climate assist, for the horse suffered from rheumatism in his first couple of winters there.  The two best of his early English-bred colts, Longy and Eccleston, were each distinctly unlucky.  Longy was ruined by drinking bad water when he was sent on an ill-fated expedition to Baden Baden. And Eccleston’s owner was killed in the Boer War thereby rendering his horse’s engagements void, and the horse was subsequently sold to an Austrian breeder.  Although he got a handful of winners there, including a number over obstacles, Trenton died in England at the age of 24, his talent mostly unrecognised.

Not so in Australia.  In the years after Trenton was shipped to England, his reputation here continued to burgeon as the sons and daughters in the crops he left behind reached maturity and achievement on the racecourse.  In time Revenue would give him a second Melbourne Cup winner, while Aurum would be acclaimed as one of the greatest two and three-year-olds seen in Australia.  Alas, those sons of Trenton that did make it to stud here, generally failed to carry on the line although it was the colts foaled in the 1890 season that proved the best.  Our Derby hero, Trenchant was retired to William Gardiner’s Gobolion Stud, on the banks of the Macquarie River near Wellington in NSW.  Scarcely standing more than 15.2 hands, Trenchant got a number of useful horses at the stud although nothing quite as good as himself, the best being Retrencher (Memsie Stakes) and Severity (winner of a Caulfield Stakes and runner-up in a Sydney Cup). Actively working at the Gobolion Stud was J. A. Gardiner, William Gardiner’s son who much later – in June 1941 – was to become an A.J.C. stipendiary steward.

Delaware, on the other hand only got one good horse in the Moonee Valley Cup winner, Rael Locin.  Perhaps the best of Trenton’s sons at stud was Light Artillery who stood at the Morphettville Stud of Sir Thomas Elder and served with some quality mares, got a number of good class winners on tracks in South Australia and Western Australia.  If Trenton’s sons proved disappointing in the breeding barn, his daughters exceeded expectations as the likes of Etra Weenie and Lady Trenton attest.  All told his daughters were responsible for 55 individual winners of principal flat races in Australia including five Melbourne Cup winners in Lord Cardigan, Merriwee, The Parisian, Westcourt and Night Watch as well as other great gallopers such as Dividend and Melodrama.  It seemed entirely appropriate when Trenton’s skeleton was presented to the Victorian National Museum in 1907.

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After the tumult and the shouting of the St Albans’ lottery in 1895, William Wilson seamlessly retained his domination of the Turf with a string of high-class gallopers over the next few seasons.  Indeed, just days after the lottery, Wallace, whom Wilson bought back for 2500 guineas plus contingencies on the Derby and Cup, won the Victoria Derby for the St Albans studmaster, and although he failed in the Cup, the son of Carbine as we have seen enjoyed a remarkable season.  Wallace was just one of many greats to come out of St Albans Stud in the late nineties’ although not all of the winners carrying William Wilson’s famous colours were homebred.

Mention should be made of the great La Carabine, the daughter of Carbine foaled in 1894. It was Matt O’Shanassy who bred La Carabine, as he had imported her dam, the Barcaldine mare Oratava from England. Herbert Power leased La Carabine and she was naturally then trained by James Wilson. She tried to emulate Briseis by winning the Doncaster as a two-year-old and in a trial with Hopscotch in the days before the race she did something wonderful. Herbert Power then backed her for the big mile but she finished down the course. A measure of just how much money Power ladled on her for that Doncaster is given by the fact that she started the 6/1 second-favourite despite not having run a place in her first five starts.  It was thought that the trial must have flattened her. Nonetheless, Power got some of his money back later at the meeting when La Carabine won the Nursery Handicap.

As a three-year-old, La Carabine raced six times without being placed, her best performance coming when she finished fifth in the Sydney Cup. She had only one successful outing as a four-year-old and that was only a partial success, as she ran a dead-heat with Dreamland in the V.R.C. August Handicap and then lost the run-off. When O’Shanassy’s stud was sold on March 10, 1899, there was very little competition for La Carabine, as her record up to that time was anything but impressive. W. R. Wilson was able to get her for only 210 guineas. He didn’t have to wait long for the return of his money. The following spring La Carabine won the V.R.C. Stand Handicap and then ran second to Alva in the  Toorak Handicap.

Alas, she could only come fourth in the Caulfield Cup won by Dewey and then failed in Merriwee’s Melbourne Cup and the V.R.C. Handicap. In the autumn, however, La Carabine came into her own, when she won both the Australian Cup with 7 st. 5lb and the Sydney Cup with 8 st. 2lb., each time with Wally Burn in the irons. When Burn was about to mount La Carabine for the Sydney Cup, Les Macdonald asked him how he intended to ride her. “It won’t matter; she’ll win whichever way the race is run!” answered the confident Burn. Macdonald often regretted in later life that he didn’t give Sam Anwin the same latitude on Wakeful in the Sydney Cup won by San Fran. Although La Carabine started as the favourite for that 1900 Sydney Cup, it was at a nice price and she landed a tidy stake for the St Albans’ party. On the final day, she ran away from Merriwee in the A.J.C. Plate. Then she visited Adelaide where she ran unplaced in the Adelaide Cup and claimed the minor placing in the Birthday Cup behind Paul Pry and Gunga Din. However, when carrying W. R. Wilson’s colours for the last time at her next and last start as a five-year-old, she won the Alderman Cup.

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It was during the currency of that May 1900 Adelaide meeting and when the St Albans establishment was at the very height of its fame that Wilson died prematurely, at the age of just 50, in his town residence, Shanghai Villa, in St Kilda Rd, Melbourne. Wilson had been suffering for some months with internal ulceration, and septic poisoning eventually supervened.  During a decade-long reign, his horses won over £72,000 in stakes money. Wilson’s many victories included three Champion Stakes, two Sydney Cups, three Champagne Stakes, three Australian Cups, three Victoria Derbies and two Victoria Oaks; but he never did claim either an A.J.C. Derby or a Melbourne Cup, although in the latter he was placed on four occasions. Perhaps Wilson’s best chance to win the Melbourne Cup had been with the Trenton mare, Nada, in 1894 and he backed her for a fortune. Les Macdonald instructed jockey Bert Morrison not to go to the front until he reached the distance, and the jockey lost the race by obeying orders.

Nada measured only 14 hands 1 ½”, being low but stoutly built, like Aurum and Wakeful. The mare could have slipped her field three furlongs from home. At the turn, Devon, swerving from the whip, almost knocked Nada down; yet she ran a close third behind Patron and Devon. Les Macdonald was usually an excellent loser although such circumstances could try any man’s character. Nonetheless, Macdonald admitted that Morrison had done what he was ordered to do, though it would have been better had the jockey given the mare her head when she was going so easily. That way Devon’s interference would have been avoided. Nada’s severe Cup preparation practically settled her. The Possible subsequently beat her in the V.R.C. Bagot Handicap and when she was brought over to Sydney in the spring for The Metropolitan, a cyclist ran into her on the road and she raced no more. Still, while W. R. Wilson never did have a Melbourne Cup to his name, among the great horses to carry his colours were Carnage, Strathmore, Aurum, Wallace, Bobadil, and La Carabine; and the famous jacket of white and cardinal seams was just as popular on the flat as it was in the grandstands because the people knew his horses ran on their merits.

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No discussion of the St Albans Stud during the reign of W. R. Wilson could be complete without proper mention of the jockey who won so many of the rich plums of the Turf for the stable, H. J. Morrison. Herbert Joseph (better known as Bert) Morrison, earned more renown for the family name than even his father, Joe. Joe Morrison, it will be recalled partnered Robinson Crusoe to victory in the 1876 A.J.C. Derby and almost certainly saved that colt’s life on the dramatic voyage back to Melbourne. Three of Joe’s sons took to the saddle. The eldest and youngest, Percy and Reginald respectively, did much of their riding in India where among other races, Percy won the 1902 Viceroy’s Cup on Tubal Cain. However, it was Bert who really left his mark. He was born in July 1879, within a stone’s throw of the Williamstown racecourse at a time when his father was assisting in the preparation of C. B. Fisher’s horses. Those same stables were later used by James Redfearn.

Bert Morrison began riding at the age of twelve, under the tutelage of his brother-in-law, John Nicholson, who had trained Dunlop to win the 1887 Melbourne Cup. Bert Morrison first appeared in the saddle on Oxley in a Maiden Plate at Maribyrnong on Christmas Eve, 1891. It was the inaugural meeting of the Maribyrnong Racing Club, which eventually passed out of existence when the Government took steps to control racing. Apart from marking Morrison’s debut in the saddle, the meeting was remembered for the fact that Charles Lewis, an elder brother of Bob, rode a double. Morrison hadn’t ridden a winner from his first seventeen mounts when he became apprenticed to W. R. Wilson, yet his first three rides in the ‘ white, cardinal seams and cap’ were successful.

On May 24, 1894, he won a Maiden Plate in Adelaide on Warfare; and then quickly followed it up with victories on Parthia in the V.A.T.C. Cambria Purse and on Steadfast in the V.R.C. Winter Handicap. Wilson treated Morrison fairly. As an apprentice of just fifteen, the jockey received £3 for each losing ride and 10% of the stakes won. Philip Russell, the V.R.C. committeeman was another for whom Morrison rode in those early days and he used to allow £1 for expenses from Geelong to Melbourne, £5 for a losing mount, and, if the race happened to be at a suburban meeting, he always generously laid Morrison the stake to nothing. Morrison became indentured to W. R. Wilson on January 2nd 1894 and remained with the stable for almost seven years. During that period, he won races for his master that aggregated to the value of £24,270.

Morrison partnered with all of the top gallopers and his principal victories included the A.J.C. Plate (Havoc); Oakleigh Plate (Resolute); Maribyrnong Plate (Scorn); Australian Cup (Bobadil); V.R.C. All Aged Stakes (Bobadil); Champion Stakes (Bobadil); V.R.C. Flying Stakes (Wallace and Aurum); V.R.C. Sires’ Produce Stakes (Aurum and Revenue); V.R.C. Ascot Vale Stakes (Aurum and Bobadil); A.J.C. Champagne Stakes (Aurum and Bobadil); V.A.T.C. Caulfield Guineas (Aurum and Bobadil); V.R.C. Oaks (Eleusive and Symmetry); V.R.C. St Leger (Aurum and Bobadil); and the V.A.T.C. Futurity Stakes (Resolute and Bobadil). After the death of W. R. Wilson, Morrison married and gave up riding. After two or three years of experience as a hotelkeeper, he became a freelance jockey and J. N. McArthur was among the owners for whom he rode. Afterwards, Morrison joined his brothers in India. On Acetine – the runner-up to Wakeful in the 1902 Sydney Cup – he finished second to Great Scot in the Viceroy’s Cup of 1904. Morrison returned to Victoria from India in March 1906 and again engaged in hotelkeeping. Later in life, he often had a horse in training and these included Songbird with whom he ran second to Wakeful in the Oakleigh Plate and Sweet Bird who credited him with a few races at Caulfield and Flemington including the Birthday Cup.

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With W. R. Wilson’s death, the Australian Turf had lost its greatest patron.  Yuille and Co offered the St Albans’ racehorses for sale on August 10^th at their Newmarket stockyards, and such was the public interest taken in the sale that an entry fee of one shilling was charged “in order to keep out the riff-raff”.  La Carabine went for 1200 guineas to Sir Rupert Clarke while Bobadil, for whom the late William Wilson had refused 5000 guineas during his racing days, went for exactly one-tenth of that price when knocked down to Mr F. S. Grimwade.  But the greatest bargain of all turned out to be an unraced three-year-old filly, described in the catalogue as ‘a nice little mare by Trenton that should be worth a place in any stud’.

She was from the very last crop the great stallion got in Australia.  Les Macdonald, who had so successfully managed St Albans on behalf of Wilson, had kept his eye on this filly from the time she began to gallop about the Barwon River paddocks; he asked Neil Campbell to bid for her on his behalf, and she was knocked down to him for 310 guineas.  How typical that Trenton has saved his very best until last, for the filly was none other than Wakeful, quite probably the greatest mare Australia had ever seen until recent times. Whereas La Carabine was lightly-built, possessed a smooth action and was a grand stayer, Wakeful was stout, low pitched in front and thick behind, and possessed a machine-like action and power.

Considering what she went on to do, Wakeful’s racecourse debut was most inauspicious. She was a four-year-old when she was produced at Caulfield on the first day of September 1900 for the Doona Trial, which, with 6 st. 10lb she ran second. That was just a pipe opener. An unplaced run in the Paddock Handicap five weeks later gave her astute owner all the information he needed, and the mare was set for the Oakleigh Plate. Les Macdonald couldn’t believe the times of some of her private trials and backed her so heavily that she went off as the favourite at 4/1. Macdonald confided to a friend before the race that she had ’21lb up her sleeve’. Of course, she won and then ran away with the Newmarket with a 10lb penalty and again started the favourite, this time at 5/2. Shipped to Sydney, and given another 10lb penalty, Wakeful (7 st. 10lb) next won the Doncaster Handicap by two lengths in race record time.

Just how much Macdonald won over that sequence of victories was said to have been nearer £100,000 than £50,000. The question then became: Could she stay well enough to win the Sydney Cup? When the stable gave a lead in the early betting markets the money came with a rush and her price rattled down to 2/1. She should have won by many lengths! Les Macdonald instructed his jockey Sam Anwin to hold Wakeful up in the early stages of the Cup. The result was that she spent much of the journey fighting her jockey until she was winded and couldn’t stall off San Fran and Australian Colors at the finish. Macdonald admitted that he, and not Wakeful, lost the 1901 Sydney Cup. It was one of the very few mistakes Macdonald made when instructing jockeys. In later years, he admitted to that distinguished trainer Dick Bradfield with whom he was friends, that the instructions he gave cost him £60,000! It also spoilt his chance of putting up a sequence of three Sydney Cups in a row – La Carabine won in 1900, while Wakeful triumphed with 9 st. 7lb in 1902.

Wakeful made a glorious chapter of Turf history as a five-year-old: she won the Caulfield Stakes, Melbourne Stakes, St George Stakes, Essendon Stakes, V.R.C. All Aged Stakes, A.J.C. Autumn Stakes, A.J.C. All Aged Stakes, the Sydney Cup and the three-mile A.J.C. Plate. She was beaten half a head in the Caulfield Cup by Hymettus when carrying nine-stone; was fifth in the Melbourne Cup won by her stablemate Revenue with 8 st. 10lb, and second in the Futurity Stakes with 9 st. 13lb when conceding no less than 45lb to the winner Sir Foote. Many thought the strenuous programme Wakeful fulfilled at five years would settle her, but at six years she won ten races in brilliant style. Perhaps the most famous portrait of Wakeful, one painted by Martin Stainforth, came during the mare’s six-year-old season although the moment he chose to capture on canvas was defeat rather than victory. I refer to the depiction of Wakeful’s great struggle with Ibex in the V.R.C. Flying Stakes at Flemington in 1902 and reproduced below.

The respective jockeys in that finish were James Barden on Ibex and F. Dunn on Wakeful and the commission for the work came from W. H. Mate who subsequently presented the painting to James Barden after it was exhibited at the 1913 A.J.C. Spring Meeting at Randwick. At seven years of age, Wakeful won three races and ran the greatest race of her career, 10 stone into second place in the Melbourne Cup behind Lord Cardigan with 6 st. 8lb. Her rider admitted later that he threw the Cup in the air. The mare was taken to the front a long way from home and then beaten less than a length. Had Wakeful been nursed for the last furlong dash, she would have smothered the opposition. At the Flemington tracks the next morning, the immaculate owner (he always wore spats and gloves) revealed to Dick Bradfield that Wakeful’s defeat had cost him six figures!

Wakeful wasn’t Les Macdonald’s only purchase at the dispersal sale of St Albans. Nothing demonstrated Macdonald’s sound judgement of bloodstock more than the horses he bought at that sale.  In a bit of brisk bidding, he got Kinglike for 900 guineas, Aurous for 350 guineas, and Revenue for 725 guineas.   Macdonald then settled with a house and stables at Caulfield.  Each of those three horses proved a first-class stakes winner.  In the 1900-01 season, Kinglike won the Caulfield Guineas; Aurous won the Caulfield Futurity Stakes; and Wakeful won the V.A.T.C. Oakleigh Plate, V.R.C. Newmarket Handicap and A.J.C. Doncaster. The following season Revenue won the Melbourne Cup.

Macdonald retained Wakeful and Aurous as broodmares and kept them at studs in N.S.W.  The influence of W. R. Wilson’s St Albans’ blood was to augment the Macdonald fortunes for the next decade and more.  Among the progeny of Aurous was the sprinter Dunolly and the dams of Desert Gold and Tangalooma.  Wakeful’s second foal, Blairgour, the breeder won the Oakleigh Plate and Futurity Stakes in 1911.  Wakeful’s son, Night Watch, gave Macdonald his second Melbourne Cup in 1918.  In the 1903-04 season, Macdonald won the V.R.C. St Leger with Kinglike’s brother, Scottish King.  Successful bearers of the black jacket, rose sleeves and white cap in 1906 and 1907 included Lady Rylstone and Wandin.  The former was a winner of the A.J.C. Champagne Stakes and the V.R.C. Oaks, while the latter won the Oakleigh Plate before being sold to India at a tidy price.

During the First World War and the 1920’s Macdonald had comparatively few horses in training.  Those that he did have were trained by Dick Bradfield, who won the Cup with Night Watch.  It was during that period that Bradfield won many races for Messrs Clark and Robinson with Lucknow, King Offa, Magpie, Lanius and others.  Macdonald acted as manager of these horses for their owners who lived in England.  When Night Watch won the Melbourne Cup at the price of 12/1, Macdonald remarked that it was only a matter of sentiment that he kept the horse in training.  Indeed, Macdonald had several descendants of Wakeful in training up to March 1927 when he had a clearing sale of all the stock he owned at the time.  Wakeful’s daughter and three horses in training sold for 2975 guineas.  Wakeful, I might add, was still owned by Macdonald when she died at the age of twenty-seven in September 1923.  It was in November 1929 at the age of seventy-three that Charles Leslie Macdonald died in a private hospital of a bullet wound to the head.  He had been in ill health for a long time and was found lying unconscious in a room in his flat at Cliveden Mansions, East Melbourne. Near him was a revolver.  It was a melancholy ending for Macdonald, who died childlessly, but left a widow.  He was the last real surviving link with William Wilson’s St Albans adventure.

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In relaying the story of C. L. Macdonald’s post-St Albans fortunes, I seem to have strayed from the path of the great Geelong stud itself and its story after William Wilson’s death.  It was on Wednesday, November 7^th, 1900, the day after Clean Sweep won the Melbourne Cup that the sale of the famous St Albans Estate itself took place at Scotts Hotel, Melbourne.

The celebrated sire, Bill of Portland, was purchased by William Allison for the Cobham Stud in England for 4900 guineas, and thus returned to his native soil.  Jack Smith of Bundoora Park tried hard to buy Bill but the English money was unlimited, and he had to compromise with Wallace for 750 guineas instead.  Some compromise!  Havoc, the future sire of an A.J.C. Derby winner in Belah went for 730 guineas to Charles Baldwin of Durham Court.  The St Albans Estate found a new owner for £14,900 in Mr R. Govett, a Queensland pastoralist who hailed from the Barcoo River country.  Govett was to use the place for purposes other than horse breeding, and by 1909 the land was being sub-divided.  James Scobie briefly considered it as a training establishment around this time but upon inspection found that both the boxes and training track practically wanted re-making.

And so, the golden epoch of St Albans was over. Although the place enjoyed a brief resurgence under Guy Raymond’s stewardship some years later, most notably when Phar Lap was spirited away there, after the clumsy and melodramatic shooting attempt on the eve of the 1930 Melbourne Cup, effectively it ceased to matter in Australian racing from the time of William Wilson’s passing.  A visit to those once sacred acres today is an unrewarding and somewhat melancholy pilgrimage.  The property is now a housing development with streets and houses named after the very people and horses that made St Albans famous; but such was the haste of the developers in their quest for a quick quid, they couldn’t even manage to spell some of the names correctly.  Little of historical importance lingers, although the gatehouse still stands as a private residence and James Wilson senior’s homestead, dating from 1873, may yet be found at the end of Homestead Drive.  Mersey, the dam of Carbine and Carnage, lies buried in a marked grave under a gum tree, while the only other recognised burial sites are those of James Wilson’s foundation mares, Mischief and Musidora.