This family had some success at the turn of the twentieth century, and then faltered, and appears to have died out as a registered thoroughbred line. Musket Maid (188-), for which the family is named, was bred by J. Sandy somewhere in the Auckland environs, and raced without success for Yorkshire-born John Lennard, who had runners at Te Aroha before and after the Te Aroha Racing Club was established in 1886, and whose family would be associated with the club for over a century.
Musket Maid's sire, Musket, spent his first season (1879) at stud traveling in the Waikato region of New Zealand, south of Auckland, under the supervision of John Thorpe, servicing half-bred mares, after which he was placed in the Glen Orchard Stud at Auckland, owned by the Auckland Stud Company (principal shareholders were Major Walmsley and the Morrin brothers), and when that property was sold, at Sylvia Park Stud, also at Auckland.
Musket Maid would have been born between 1880 and 1886, the year after Musket died. The New Zealand Stud Book notes her pedigree in her listing as "dam Miss Ariel, by Dainty Ariel - Dam by Pacific -- a NSW mare (imported by an officer of the British Regiment stationed in Auckland) without pedigree." Dainty Ariel (by imported Riddlesworth) was a native-bred successful runner and stallion at William Walters' Glenora Stud at Papakura, south of Auckland. Pacific, a colt bred in England in 1856, by Flatcatcher, was imported into New Zealand in 1858 where, as a stallion, he is seen in various early pedigrees.
Musket Maid bred six live foals for J. Sandy, five by the champion sire St. Leger, and one by Phoebus Apollo. St. Leger spent two years as a traveling stallion for the Auckland Stud Company, and then briefly stood at Sylvia Park until its stock was dispersed in 1891, after which he went to Thomas Morrin's Wellington Park Stud (also Auckland), where the imported St. Simon son Phoebus Apollo soon joined him. Musket Maid's first foal, Waiuku (1890, by St. Leger, see below), was a good stayer, running mostly in Wellington; her next foal, the filly Okoari (1894, by St. Leger), won the Wellington Summer Handicap in 1901. Okoari went on to breed a number of foals for R. Morrow, one of which, Paitonu (1922, by Biscogne), won the Wellington Thompson Handicap in 1930.
Another Musket Maid daughter, Lady Hester (1900, by St. Leger) was retained by Sandy, and for him produced Master Soult (1905, by Soult) and Royal Scotland (1906, by imported Seaton Delaval), after which she was sold to H.R. McKenzie. For McKenzie she bred nine foals, including Prince Soult (1909, by Soult) and Sultala (1912), both by Soult, who stood at stud at Walters' Glenora Park Stud. Master Soult, owned by the Coombe family trustees, won the ARC Cornwall Handicap and the CJC Members Handicap, and the WRC New Zealand St. Leger (14 furlongs), and taken to Australia, the 1910 VATC 11 furlong Eclipse Stakes. Prince Soult won the ARC Royal Stakes and Welcome Stakes as a juvenile, and proved, unlike his brother, to be a sprinter, winning the Short and Flying Handicaps at Auckland in 1914-15. Sultala became a moderately succesful sire of such horses as 1927 New Zealand Cup winner Steeton (1924) and 1928 New Zealand Oaks winner Pride (1925).
|
