Family C-24: Sound

This family, along with that of Slyph (C - 21) and Josephine (C- 19), was readmitted to the Australian Stud Book in 1952, due to the excellence of its winners in the preceding years. It is still producing stakes winners today.

The family descends from a bay mare that was probably bred by Richard Rouse, or his neighbor, Charles Smith, both among the most important Australian thoroughbred breeders in the mid-19th century. Charles Smith owned the famous Bungarribee Stud, outside of Sydney, where many famous thoroughbreds were lodged, including the stallions Steeltrap, Rous' Emigrant, and the important mares Spaewife and Cutty Sark (Family C - 3). In 1840 Smith established Clifton Stud, near Windsor, NSW, and a number of Smith mares were purchased by and used in Rouse's Rouse Hill Stud, a 450 acre grant near Windsor. Rouse, who emigrated from Oxfordshire to Australia in 1801, began breeding thoroughbreds around 1816, and had a stable of famous runners, including Jorrocks (Family C-15), and bred many others. The Rouse property at Biraganbil, in the Bathurst district, encompassing around 4,000 acres, became the premier site of Rouse breeding with the establishment of Biraganbil Stud there, later managed by Rouse's son, George Rouse (1816-1888).

In 1836 Richard Rouse purchased the colt St. John (1834, by St. Nicholas-mare by Thunderbolt), that had just been imported. At Rouse Hill St. John had a significant influence on Australian breeding, getting a number of sire sons, including Little John II, Van Tromp, Plover, and Ravenswing, among others, and a number of influential broodmares, as well as many good runners, bred by Rouse and his neightbor Smith, and others. St. John's daughter, Lucretia, from the bay mare of unknown breeding, but probably thoroughbred, was bred by Richard's son, George Rouse, and was the dam of Beatrice, the taproot mare of this Colonial family.

Lucretia passed into the hands of Charles Baldwin, who owned Durham Court Stud at the Baldwin family's 30,000 plus acre Diniwarindi station at Manilla, where, to the cover of imported Pitsford (1847, by Epirus - Miss Horewood), she dropped Beatrice in 1862. Pitsford, a Herod-line sire, was imported from England in 1857 by Charles Tindal, owner of Ramornie Station at Copmanhurst, and his partners John and Thomas Mylne of Eatonswill Station. He had won Newmarket's Two Thousand Guineas Stakes, the Racing Stakes at Goodwood and other good races, and has run second to Voltigeur in the Epsom Derby. As a sire in Australia he was extremely influential in the mid-19th century.

In Baldwin's stud Beatrice bred Prince Charlie (1872, by Yelverton), Sound (1877, by The Drummer, imported by Baldwin in 1874), and Laverna (1879, by Wilberforce). Prince Charlie, whose, sire, Yelverton, had been imported from England by Baldwin in 1862, became a regional sire. Sound, a filly, was by The Drummer (1866, by Rataplan - My Niece), another Baldwin import from England, who got many good runners and breeding stock. Laverna was by another imported stallion, Wilberforce (1868, by Oxford - Corsica), who arrived in 1878. Laverna's branch of the family bred on for several generations.

Virtually all of the present-day family descended from Sound, who was sold to John Finnie of Drayton, Queensland, and from that time forward, the family was largely Queensland-based, although it produced many winners of important races in other states. Sound produced fourteen foals, among them some grand runners, including the gelded Megaphone (by native sire Newbold, by imp. Kelpie), a brilliant juvenile in Queensland, then sent south to win many stakes races, from 7 to 24 furlongs, including the 12 furlong AJC Spring Stakes and the 24 furlong AJC Randwick Plate; the filly Telephone (by native-born Ormond, by imp. Epigram), who won the QTC Exhibition Handicap over 8 furlongs in 1893, and her sister Harmony, winner of the QTC Sires' Produce Stakes over 7 furlongs.

It was Megaphone's sister, Microphone, born in 1893, who continued the family line through her excellent producing daughter, Microbe (by native sire Warpaint, by Chester), who, in the famous Lyndhurst Stud of J.G. McDougall at Warwick, Queensland, ensured the family's continuation. Microbe bred three stakes winners in Star Robe, winner of the QTC Sires' Produce Stakes, and her sister Molly's Robe, who won six stakes, including the 11 furlong QTC King's Plate, twice, and the gelded Vaccine, who won the AJC Breeders Plate at age two and Tattersall's NSW Tramway Handicap at age five. The family continued through Microbe's daughter Molly's Robe, another good runner and excellent producer, and her half-sister Merle's Robe (1922, by Chantemerle). Present day winners include CJC Easter Cup winner Mi Galleon (1993, by Al Khawaaneeg) and the stakes winning Royal Mask (2000) -- the latter bred at Canning Downs Stud, near Warwick, Queensland -- whose family had been developed there for many generations.

Notable Descendants