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Bald Charlotte
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Bald Charlotte was a famous Yorkshire-bred race horse of the early 18th century, known for both her speed and her stamina. As a broodmare she produced a Royal Plate-winning daughter, and through a grandaughter had a signficant influence on early American bloodstock.
Bald Charlotte was bred by Captain Francis Appleyard. Appleyard's family's principal estate and residence, since 1609, was the manor Burstwick Garth, later called Old Hall, near Burstwick in the East Riding of Yorkshire, a short distance from Beverley. Appleyard's grandfather, Sir Matthew Appleyard, was a soldier who was knighted on the field by King Charles I, for bravery in the Civil War. After the Restoration, Sir Matthew and his son, also Matthew (the father of Francis), both served as M.P.s for Hedon, Yorkshire, and both received appointments as customs officials for Kingston-Upon-Hull, a post from which Francis also received revenues in latter years. The family had long-term ties with other Yorkshire families that bred running horses: Sir Matthew married Frances Pelham, the daughter of Sir William Pelham of Brocklesby, Lincolnshire, and sister of the important horse breeder Charles Pelham (see Curwen Bay Barb, Old Spot, Spanker, Families 9, 23, etc.).
Captain Francis Appleyard married Ann Taylor, the daughter of William Taylor, who first raced Bald Charlotte. The captain of the local army militia regiment, Francis did not live at Burstwick Garth, preferring to settle at North Newbald, just south of Beverley and about fifteen miles west of Burstwick Garth. He was active in north-country racing in the first few decades of the 18th century, his horses, most of which he bred, running through the 1730s at York and other venues to which he subscribed, and occasionally his horses ran in the name of others at Newmarket.
Charlotte's dam, a brown mare bred by Appleyard's father, Matthew, was by Bethell's Castaway (1704), who won cups and plates at Kiplingcotes and Clifton and Rawcliffe Ings, a stallion at the Bethell stud at Rise Park, not far from Burstwick. The Castaway mare's dam was a grey mare owned by Mathew Appleyard, by Brimmer," or in some pedigrees a grey son of Brimmer's, the latter owned by Hugh Bethell, and also seen in the pedigree of Castaway. Brimmer, who was in the D'Arcy stud at Sedbury, got a good runner and sire Burford Bull, Old Thornton (at the head of Family 2), Musick (the dam of the good sire (Old) Pert), and the mares early or at the head of a number of English foundation mare families. The "son of Brimmer" is recorded in the GSB as getting Bethell's Ruffler, a winner of several cups in north country venues, born in the last few years of the 1690s, whose unnamed sister was the dam of Castaway.
Charlotte's half-brother, Quiet Cuddy (1727, by Fox), was a good runner, winning a royal plate at Nottingham in 1733 and races at York in the early '30s, and later was a useful stallion for Appleyard. Another half-sibling, a mare by (Wharton's) Commoner, was the dam of Grey Childers and second dam of Grenadier (1746), a winner of two King's Plates and other races in which he beat some of the best of his era.
Charlotte's dam had an unnamed sister that was also in the Appleyard stud, and had offspring that won; the division between the produce of the two Castaway daughters in the GSB and Pick's Turf Register conflict. Some of produce of these two mares who cannot be definitively assigned to one sister, as opposed to the other, include Appleyard's (later Thomas Panton's) Conqueror, a famous gelding that won every Royal Plate for which he contested and beat the Duke of Bolton's Looby in a famous match at Newmarket; Lonsdale's Singlepeeper, winner of the Gold Cup at York and other races; and Appleyard's Favourite (1730), a winner of the Royal Plate at Ipswich and other good races.
Charlotte's sire, Old Royal, a useful stallion belonging to Appleyard, was from a mare by Blunderbuss, a D'Arcy stallion. His sire was the Holderness Turk, sent to England in 1704 by William Pagett, the English ambassador to Constantinople. As can be seen from the pedigrees, Charlotte was the product of generations of breedings in the Holderness area of Yorkshire, tracing back to the D'Arcy family.
Bald Charlotte on the Turf
Charlotte first raced under the name Lady Legs, in the ownership of William Taylor, who ran and won with other horses at York in the '20s, mostly galloways, and had sold his winning galloway gelding, Now-or-Never, to Appleyard. Charlotte's first recorded race is in the 4 mile Ladies' Gold Cup, woth 60£, for five year old horses in August of 1725. Four year olds were allowed entry in this race, and two others, besides Charlotte, took part. In a field of seventeen, over heavy ground, she ran eighth; the winner, Cuthbert Routh's Surley, "won with great difficulty."
The next year, 1726, she won the King's Plate for five year old mares at Hambleton in August, beating a field of 24 that including the good runner Milbanke's Doll (Family 21). She then was purchased by David Colyear, Lord Mislington, the eldest son and heir of the (1st) Earl of Portmore, and taken to Newmarket to run in the "Contribution Stakes," where she beat seven others. She also beat the Duke of Bolton's Camilla (by Bay Bolton) in a 300 guineas match, giving away five pounds.
In April the following spring, 1727, also at Newmarket, she won the King's Plate for mares, beating Proserpine and one other, carrying 10 stone, and three days later, carrying 18 stone, beat Ashby's Swinger (17 st-7lb.) over four miles for 200 guineas. In her Newmarket match against Swinger she ran in the name of George Vane (of Long Newton), a supporter of north-country racing, whose family was related by marriage to the well-known thoroughbred breeding families of Pelham and D'Arcy, but she was still in Colyear ownership. In August she went to Winchester, winning the King's Plate for six year olds there in the name of the Portmore groom, Henley, and in September, running for Mislington's brother, Captain Charles Colyear (later 2nd Earl Portmore), she was second in the first heat for the King's Plate at Lincoln, and was withdrawn from further heats after a fall.
In 1728 the only record found shows Mislington paid a forfeit to the Duke of Bolton's Sloven for a scheduled match at Newmarket April. Her owner, Viscount Mislington died in 1729, and at Newmarket in April, 1729, she won another match (carrying 9 st.) for 300 guineas, beating Sir Robert Fagg's Fanny (8 st-7 lb), in the name of a Mr. Cook. At Newmarket October, running again in Vane's name, she lost a match to the gelding Bonny Batchelor. For all her celebrity as a runner, Charlotte's recorded race record may be incomplete, as noted by her subsequent biographers.
Bald Charlotte in the Stud
Racing calendars and portraits of Charlotte say she was a broodmare in the stud of the Duke of Somerset: "In 1741 she was 20 Years Old and a Brood Mare in the Duke of Somerset's stud." Four of her foals listed in the General Stud Book attribute the Duke as breeder. He was Charles Seymour (1662-1748), the sixth Duke, who served as Master of the Horse for both Queen Anne and George I (to 1716), and owned the great estate, Petworth, which he had built with some of the funds brought to him by Elizabeth Percy, his first wife. Charlotte's fifth known foal, Juliet (c.1743), was probably bred by Seymour and sold to the wealthy banker Josiah Childs.
Charlotte's first recorded foal in the General Stud Book was CHIDDY, a bay filly born in 1733, by the Hampton Court Childers (1725, by Flying Childers). Chiddy raced for the Duke, and won the King's plate at Newmarket in 1739. The only foal assigned to Chiddy in the GSB is a daughter by Babraham, born in 1754; this Babraham mare was a prolific producer of eleven foals. Of these her best were the brothers Coxcomb (1771) and Dorimant (1772), both bred by John Fitzpatrick, Earl of Upper Ossory from his stallion Otho. Coxcomb was beaten once in his nine races, and won the Forescue Stakes and the 1400 Guineas at Newmarket. Dorimant ran for five seasons and was unbeaten in his first two years, winning all ten of his races at age four, mostly over the 4 plus mile Beacon Course at Newmarket; in all he won 18 of his 26 starts and was later a useful sire and broodmare sire.
Charlotte's next foals were the black CUPID (1736) and his grey unnamed sister (no date), both by the Somerset Arabian. Cupid was sold to a Mr. Craven, and ran at age three at Bridgenorth, second in a plate worth 50 guineas. The unnamed SOMERSET ARABIAN MARE later produced Trooper, by Blank, and a grey colt by Buff Coat (1753), and, probably, Kitty Fisher, that became an important American matriarch (see below). The last foal listed by the GSB out of Charlotte was YOUNG PRETENDER, a chestnut colt of 1740, by a brother to Fearnought (the brother to Fearnought possibly the colt called Herbert's Horse). A fourth foal, Juliet, born between 1841 and 1846, was also by the brother to Fearnought, and raced as late as 1752, where she is noted in Pond's Sporting Kalendar.
The extremely influential American broodmare, Kitty Fisher (1756, by Cade) was out of Charlotte's daughter by the Somerset Arabian, but confirmation of the daughter's identity has troubled pedigree analysts for years. In 1759, age three, Kitty Fisher was purchased at Newmarket by Carter Braxton of Elsing Green, located along the York River in Virginia. According to the certificate published in an advertisement for her son King Herod, published in the December 30, 1780 Virginia Gazette:
King Herod was got by Old Fearnought, out of a mare called Kitty Fisher, who was got by Cade, a horse of Lord Godolphin's, by his Lordship's Arabian; her dam was got by Cullen Arabian; out of Bald Charlotte, one of the finest mares in England. Kitty Fisher was the property of the Marquis of Granby when she was sold, and was engaged in sweep stake for 3,600 l. sterling; his Lordship being abroad and the mare bought by me at 3 years old.--Carter Braxton
John Manners, the Marquis of Granby, was a hero of the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and an M.P. for Cambridgeshire. He was the eldest son of John, 3rd Duke of Rutland, and had married Frances Seymour, the Duke of Somerset's eldest daughter by his second marriage, which supports the connection to Bald Charlotte, but does not help in identifying her daughter; there is no record in the GSB of Charlotte being put to the Cullen Arabian, whose first offspring appear in the GSB in 1747, when Charlotte would have been age 26. In addition he was bay, as was Cade, which means the grey Kitty Fisher had to have been out of a grey mare by a grey stallion, because Charlotte was a chestnut. By the 1930s pedigree historians had agreed that Kitty Fisher must have been out of the grey filly by the Somerset Arabian listed in the GSB under Charlotte's produce, despite the contradiction with the certificate (testified to by Braxton over thirty years after he bought her, and admittedly "at this distance of time I cannot be so particular as may be required to give her pedigree.")
Kitty Fisher, after running and winning "easily several matches" in Virginia, was a broodmare in Braxton's stud, and, was famous in her time as a producer of fine stock. According to the ASB, she produced thirteen foals, but the noted historian Fairfax Harrison (Early American Turf Stock, V.I) winnowed the list down to seven foals that could be authenticated. Regardless, her daughters were extremely successful producers, and included a filly, Young Kitty Fisher (c.1764, by imported Jolly Roger), that was the dam of Syme's Wildair (1776), an important early stallion in the U.S., seen in pedigrees through his daughters. Another proven North American line descending from Kitty Fisher included the outstanding American handicapper, Ramapo (1890, by Runnymede) and Joseph Seagram's "Bonnie" line that included many royal plate winners in Canada, among them the great Inferno (1902, by Havoc). The iconic American racehorse and sire, Boston, and his relatives, which include the late nineteenth and early twentieth century stakes winners Flora Pomona, Batts, and Dodge, have traditionally been considered descendants of Kitty Fisher, but a crucial link in the female line is unproven.
--Patricia Erigero
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