Family C-3: Cutty Sark

This still-active family descends from a chestnut throughbred mare, Cutty Sark, that arrived in Australia on the Prince Regent in March, 1826, having been shipped out from England with a stallion and four other mares, and sheep, for the Australian Agricultural Company. Three of the mares died enroute, but Cutty Sark, the mare Spaewife, both in foal, and the stallion Peter Fin survived. Unfortunately the pedigree ascribed to Cutty Sark-- by Oxford, and out of a mare by Fidget, her second dam by Dragon, could not be confirmed, despite the efforts of many over the years [Barrie, The Australian Bloodhorse, pp. 207-8, offers a plausible alternative], and she was therefore not admitted to the Stud Book, but when, 140 years after her importation into Australia, the American Stud Book and General Stud Book amended their requirements for admission for colonial families in 1965, the Cutty Sark family finally became eligible for entry into the Australian Stud Book.

The disposition of the Cutty Sark foal imported in-utero is unknown. She was then bred to the imported stallion Herald, producing a colt the following year, 1827, bred by the Australian Agricultural Company, and then advertised for sale, whose fate is likewise unknown. In 1830 she produced a foal of uknown sex by imported Peter Fin. In 1831 or 1832 she bred Bonnie Lass (by imported Bachelor), followed the next year by a sister, Bett Hyatt (1833). These fillies were followed by a foal of unknown sex by imported Skeleton. Cutty Sark and her daughters Bet Hyatt and Bonnie Lass were purchased at the 1834 Australian Agricultural Company dispersal sale by Charles Smith, who bred the rest of her foals: Deception (1836) and Woodpecker (1839) by imported Theorem; Troll (1840, by imp. Lawson's Emigrant); Tros (1842, by imported Tros); Cain (1843) and Marske (1844), both by Vagabond.

According to historian Keith Binney, Charles Smith had been a groom in Shropshire, convicted for pick-pocketing, and transported on the Baring to Sydney, arriving in 1819. In Sydney he did well as a servant for various military officers, and was granted an early Ticket of Leave, and then a conditional pardon, in 1830. He made his money as a butcher in Sydney, which included a government contract to provide sailing vessels with salted meat, and he also built up a good practice in the wholesale cattle business. He became a keen city and bush racing supporter, and in 1832 purchased the 2,000 acre Bungarribee station along Eastern Creek, gradually enlarged by government grants and grazing licenses. He later purchased other properties, including Abbotsbury, near Prospect, Bayly Park, at South Creek, and Clifton, near Windsor, where he moved some of his bloodstock in the early 1840s.

Smith became the most prominent owner and breeder of racehorses in his time. He owned a number of famous runners, and purchased or bred some of the best-known of the early colonial stallions and their progeny. He bought the famous Rous' Emigrant (1822) at an auction held to terminate the syndicate formed by Henry Rous to import the horse in 1834, and the stallion Theorem (1824), who had been imported with Emigrant. The stallion Speculation, imported in 1839, and The Doctor, imported in 1842, were owned by Smith. Emigrant, Theorem, The Doctor, and Emigrant's sons, Zohrab and Gohanna, figure in the development of the Cutty Sark family. Smith was responsible for breeding many important early stallions, including the Rous' Emigrant sons Young Rous' Emigrant and Charles O'Malley; the Speculation sons Speculation and Whalebone; the Theorem son Barefoot; and the famous Sir Hercules, from the imported mare Paraguay and by the imported Cap-a-Pie.

Bonnie Lass, Bet Hyatt, and Deception, from whom the Cutty Sark family descends, were bred by Smith. It is believed that Cutty Sark died in 1844, soon after foaling her last colt, Marske. Smith died in January of 1845, and his bloodstock were disposed of in a dispersal sale in February of that year.

Of Cutty Sark's offspring, the filly Troll and the colt Tros were both sent on the Henrietta to Calcutta, India, in 1844 by Smith, along with nine other horses owned by him, and twelve owned by breeder Charles Roberts, intending to use the sales proceeds to buy exotic animals for a zoo, but Smith died within a year and the plan was never effected. Neither Cain nor Marske made much of a dent on the turf or in the stud. But Cutty Sark's daughters Bonnie Lass, Bet Hyatt and Deception all had an impact on Australian, and later New Zealand, breeding through their tail-female progeny. Bonnie Lass's filly by Zohrab became second dam of the famous race horse Archer and is in the pedigrees of William Tell and Mariner. Bett Hyatt bred three sons: Barefoot won the Clarence Town Cup in 1847, and all three were later sires.

Deception was the Cutty Sark daughter through which the family descended. Her grandaughter, Fair Ellen (1853) produced the famous trio of Sir Hercules offspring -- The Barb, Barbelle and Barbarian. Deception's great-grandaughter, Ouida (1879, by Yattendon), bred by W.A. Long, was purchased by the noted New Zealand owner and breeder Tom Morrin, a principal owner in the New Zealand Stud Company and owner of the famed Wellington Park Stud (later a principal in the Glen Orchard Stud on the same site, and then Sylvia Park Stud), where Ouida was established as a broodmare. Ouida bred four stakes winners -- including daughters CJC Great Autumn Handicap winner Hazel (1887) and Hilda (1885), who won the ARC Easter Handicap Stakes, Auckland Guineas and Great Northern Champagne Stakes and the Hawkes Bay Cup, and sons Artillery (1883), who won the Dunedin Champagne Stakes and the CJC Canterbury Cup, and Strathmore (1888), a top three-year-old in Australia. Ouida produced eight daughters that continued the female line, and it is from her New Zealand offspring that the family, with current stakes winners throughout Australasia, descends.

Notable Descendants