Samuel Spode (1798-1872)
Harkaway
Oil on canvas, 71 x 94cm (28 x 37'')
Signed, Inscribed with title

 

Harkaway was a chesnut horse by Economist out of Fanny Dawson, by Nackbocklish out of...

Samuel Spode (1798-1872)
Harkaway
Oil on canvas, 71 x 94cm (28 x 37'')
Signed, Inscribed with title

 

Harkaway was a chesnut horse by Economist out of Fanny Dawson, by Nackbocklish out of his Miss Tooley, by Teddy the Grinder. He was bred at Sheepbridge, Co. Down and was one of the few top class horses bred in Ulster. He was powerfully, even coarsely built, but had a wonderfully light action.

Harkaway raced only in Ireland at two and three years of age. He gained the first of his victories in November as a two year old, when he beat older horses in a canter over 1 mile at The Curragh. As a three year old, when he won nine races, all at The Curragh, including three King's Plates, the Royal Whip and the Northumberland Handicap, in which he beat Birdcatcher.

After Harkaway's three year old season his owner, the hot tempered Tom Ferguson, decided to send him to England to take on the best horses of the day.

Ferguson's faith in the horse was so great that he once replied to a would be purchaser: 'The price is 6,000 guineas' (an unheard of sum at the time) 'and I hunt him twice a week.' Harkaway indeed was an extremely tough stayer, and he justified his owner's faith by winning the Goodwood Cup, one of most coveted prizes in England, in 1838 and 1839.

 

Ferguson did not live long after Harkaway's retirement from racing. 'The great Irish chestnut', as he was called, was sold to Mr. David Robertson, at whose stud in Berwickshire he died in 1859. He was not in general a successful sire, but he did make one valuable contribution to the progress of the breed by siring King Tom, who became the maternal grandsire of St Simon.

(Biographical Encyclopedia of British Flat Racing. Mortimer, Onslow Willett, p. 236)

 

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