This a very interesting history lesson, Diomed. As I read the description of the Galloways, I was reminded of the Icelandic ponies I had just seen at Equine Affaire, held in Columbus in April. Wow, what a size difference between those ponies and the modern thoroughbred!
Respectfully,
Rick
Early patterns of the TB.
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Also ran across a website that claimed based on genetic markers that the modern TB was most closely related not to the Turkoman warhorse, but to the Turkoman packhorse.
I think I saw that as well.
It would be very interesting if, through more DNA study, they would also test horses of deep Barbary influence and compare it with not only the Thoroughbred but also the Quarter Horse.
What I find very interesting is the dominance of the Thoroughbred over other breeds when crossed with them.
Cross a TB with anything other than an Akhal-Teke and you get a better overall horse.
They even dominate the Arabian strain(Anglo-Arabs).
Yet, the Turkish horse is too pure to cross and improve their breed.
I also find it interesting that only one breed when crossed with the TB does NOT degrade it's speed...The Quarter Horse.
Which, to me, suggests that the "speed" gene is the same with both breeds.
The Thoroughbred, perhaps being mostly Turkish in background, inherited that "dominance" upon other breeds, yet cannot dominate a breed more dominant than itself(Pure Turkish).
This does make sense.
At the same time, the TB inherited a "speed" gene of their own, which cannot be morphed by anything other than common breeds which also inherit this gene.
This "speed" gene perhaps was passed on from the native breeds of England(hobbies, galloways, running horses) and then on the the Quarter Horse and Standardbred from heavy TB influence.
Notice that the flat racing strains of Arabians and Turks(who are faster than Arabs) come nowhere near the natural speed of the TB, QH, or Standardbred for their natural gaits.
I believe that the Turkish blood, which is heavier in TBs, contributed greatly to increase stamina without taking aways from the native speed.
A mutation of some sort that is not only dominant but secured in speed breeds.
Barbary horses where also noted for their stamina and hardiness, which helped develop the tough American frontier QH.
The Hobby was rumored to have come from Spanish Barb blood, as was the running horse.
Great speed developed with these strains, but stamina seemed to be lacking until the multiple Turkish imports.
I really wish more DNA studies would be done.
One thing that has really caught my eye so far is this:
(from TB Heritage)
One intriguing discovery in the Hill study was the "L" haplotype in three of the four horses tested in family 5, The Massey Mare. She was owned by the Earl of Rutland, whose family had been breeding running horses at least as far back as the early 16th century. Historians have long considered the Rutland "Belvoir" strain to be derived from mares long-native to Britain, and not any imported from the "Orient." When compared with other equine mtDNA studies, the "L" haplotype matched with that of a celtic pony, and when placed in a phylogenetic tree in the study, the "L" haplotype is located nearest a horse population derived from Europe--Connemara, Shetland, Lippizan and Belgian haplotypes. . Considering the long span of time represented in the phylogenetic tree, no conclusions can be reached. But in light of the indications in the historic record regarding the Rutlands -- and another early horse breeding family, the Fenwicks (some of whose horses were listed in the 1649 inventory of the Tutbury royal stud) -- and the use of native horses in early races in Great Britain, the genetic sequence information may, at least, suggestion confirmation of the historic record.
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I"d love to see some studies on how slow twitch/fast twitch muscle is inherited. The Turkoman and Arab horses are endurance specialists, lots of long smooth slow twitch muscles. Quarter horses, and sprinters in general have the bulky fast twitch muscle.
In human terms, if you line up 10 shot putters, and 10 distance runners, you are going to see skinny guys with muscles geared for sustained effort, and guys with no necks who have the muscle to produce a quick explosive powerful efforts. Very different muscle types.
The modern classic TB is a balance of both types, and apparently from the historic record, it is hard to keep that balance. Perhaps the Turkoman crosses failed because the crosses were asked for more speed (More fast twitch muscle) not more soundness and distance.
Again to use a human example, dark hair, eyes and skin tend to travel together, as do light hair, light eyes and light skin. It takes a rare cross over event on the chromosome level to produce a fair skinned black hair blue eyed person, or a dark skin, dark eyed blond.
As a point of interest the Nez Perce tribe is trying to produce a new kind of horse by crossing Turnoman horses with spanish type horses carrying the Lp complex. Some of the first generation crosses look very TB to my eye. There was one stallion in particular that looked like St. Simon, and was reported to be able to clear a 6 ft corral rail from a standing start.
In human terms, if you line up 10 shot putters, and 10 distance runners, you are going to see skinny guys with muscles geared for sustained effort, and guys with no necks who have the muscle to produce a quick explosive powerful efforts. Very different muscle types.
The modern classic TB is a balance of both types, and apparently from the historic record, it is hard to keep that balance. Perhaps the Turkoman crosses failed because the crosses were asked for more speed (More fast twitch muscle) not more soundness and distance.
Again to use a human example, dark hair, eyes and skin tend to travel together, as do light hair, light eyes and light skin. It takes a rare cross over event on the chromosome level to produce a fair skinned black hair blue eyed person, or a dark skin, dark eyed blond.
As a point of interest the Nez Perce tribe is trying to produce a new kind of horse by crossing Turnoman horses with spanish type horses carrying the Lp complex. Some of the first generation crosses look very TB to my eye. There was one stallion in particular that looked like St. Simon, and was reported to be able to clear a 6 ft corral rail from a standing start.
I also find it interesting that only one breed when crossed with the TB does NOT degrade it's speed...The Quarter Horse.
Which, to me, suggests that the "speed" gene is the same with both breeds.
That's hardly surprising since the Quarter Horse studbook is open to offspring of Quarter horses x Thoroughbreds and they've been breeding to some of the fastest Thoroughbreds for decades. There's also no 'live cover' rule so artificial insemination and embryo/oocyte transfer are allowed so stallions can sire a WHOLE lot of offspring and mares can have more than one foal per year.
aethervox wrote:I also find it interesting that only one breed when crossed with the TB does NOT degrade it's speed...The Quarter Horse.
Which, to me, suggests that the "speed" gene is the same with both breeds.
That's hardly surprising since the Quarter Horse studbook is open to offspring of Quarter horses x Thoroughbreds and they've been breeding to some of the fastest Thoroughbreds for decades. There's also no 'live cover' rule so artificial insemination and embryo/oocyte transfer are allowed so stallions can sire a WHOLE lot of offspring and mares can have more than one foal per year.
Oh, I know aethervox....
Crazy stuff. Imagine if the TB was allowed to do the same.
What I am getting at is that even if a horse is say, 7/8 thoroughbred, and 1/8 Arabian.....The Arabian will inhibit the "speed" enough to downgrade them. That horse will be much faster than the original Arabian but will never compete with full blooded TBs, yet the QH seems to not do so.
I am convinced that there is a gene for speed they both inherit.
Even before the TB/QH cross breeding, the original native American QH was still as fast if not faster than the TB at short distances.
The background of the QH does go back to Little Janus, a unique TB, so there is something about that to investigate, I think.
It is rumored that his sire's family(Janus)is running horse/galloway since his 2nd dam is a full sister to Bald Galloway.
The descriptions of Little Janus are very much like a Quarter Horse and his ability to sire intense speed was legendary.
I find it very interesting that Little Janus is 3x2 to Points and her full brother Bald Galloway.
Hmmmm.....
Found this interesting article recently.
Web link. [url]http://www.outsports.com/history/georgesvilliers1024.htm
[/url]
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham
Another pioneering racehorse breeder
By Patricia Nell Warren
Outsports.com
It was spring 1657 at Gravesend on the Thames, gateway to London harbor. The young Duke had a lot on his mind as he watched his retainers unloading the horses. After days below deck on the rolling vessel, the animals were shaky. The leggy grey stallion, who had been his veteran mount on battlefields in Europe, almost stumbled off the gangway into the water.
As the Duke remembered a lifetime of fighting, his eyes took on the inward-looking, troubled expression of a combat veteran.
George Villiers 2nd Duke of Buckingham had nervously chosen this moment to come home from nine years of exile. England had just survived 15 years of hideous civil war over whether King or Parliament would rule, and what religion would rule the ruler. Villiers had been raised by the royal family after his father was assassinated. At age 15 he rode off to fight for the King, his surrogate dad. But Charles I had been captured and beheaded by his Protestant enemies in Parliament. George had then fought for his surrogate brother and King-to-be, Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales. At 21 he was promoted to general of the Prince’s cavalry. That effort too had failed. His beloved brother Francis was killed in battle. His mother, Kate Villiers Countess of Buckingham, also died during the war. England was now a republic, ruled by a Protestant dictator, Oliver Cromwell, who styled himself Lord Protector. George and the surviving royals had fled to Europe. Since his properties had been confiscated, he supported himself in exile by selling smuggled family art treasures and serving as a volunteer officer in the French army.
Now 29, George had just had a serious falling-out with Prince Charles. And he was broke. It was time to come home.
So the Duke was slipping back into England, hoping he could wangle an amnesty from Oliver Cromwell. Could he do this without alienating his Prince brother for good? Could he get his properties back? Would his own head wind up in a basket?
When George’s father was murdered, George had inherited the greatest fortune in England. Most of the magnificent estates, with income of nearly £25,000 a year, were appropriated by Cromwell himself. Right now George was trying to figure out how to get two of them back. He planned to approach Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had been Cromwell’s former commander-in-chief. Cromwell had rewarded Lord Fairfax for his wartime services by deeding him George’s London residence plus the Villiers’ famed stud farm, Helmsley, in Yorkshire. Fairfax was a kinsman of George’s, and a fellow Yorkshireman. Maybe, just maybe…
Villiers’ eyes refocused on the grey horse as he stroked the animal’s neck. This stallion had proven fast on the battlefield. Now that peace had come, George could have hoped to win with a fine horse like this at the Newmarket races. But the Puritans who controlled the new regime had clamped a moralistic strictness on English life. Horse racing and wagering were banned, along with other amusements beloved by the English.
If George’s negotiations with Cromwell fell through, he would need a fast horse like this to get away on.
Going Home
The foregoing scene admittedly has a little speculation in it, but it’s based on facts. Earlier in this series I wrote about George’s openly gay father, the 1st Duke of Buckingham, who was long-time lover to King James 1st. George Sr. collected Eastern-bred horses to improve the clunky English racehorse, but he never bred a winner himself. Now his bisexual son, George Jr., would dream of breeding that elusive winner.
Different historians have handicapped George differently. Some praised him as a statesman, defender of liberties, patron of the arts, gifted poet and essayist – a charming and witty ladies’ man. Others condemned him as a rake, buffoon, murderer, traitor to his King, untalented scribbler -- a heartless and vain sodomite. The Encyclopedia Britannica took a middle road, saying: “Even his critics agree that he was good-humoured, good-natured, generous, an unsurpassed mimic and the leader of fashion. With his good looks, in spite of his moral faults and even crimes, he was irresistible to his contemporaries.”
My take on Villiers is different. He’s a fascinating character -- a mercurial mix of opportunist and idealist, over-achiever and n’er-do-well. Not only did George have passionate convictions in personal and religious freedom in a violent and intolerant time, but he lived out those convictions in a sex life that would stand out today – and he almost got himself executed for it.
Historians do agree on one thing: George Jr.’s contribution to sports history. According to historian John Heneage Jesse, when it came to horsemanship and horse racing, Villiers was “the most accomplished man of his age.”
That spring day in 1657, as George rode into London to find Lord Fairfax, he was ready for compromise. It was unthinkable for a titled peer like himself to work for a living like a tradesman. How could he talk Fairfax into giving his properties back? Fairfax had a daughter, Mary, who was rumored to be “stout and plain, wealthy, virtuous and forgiving.” Mary was already engaged to another. But maybe, just maybe …
George knocked on Fairfax’s door, and turned on the Villiers charm.
It worked. The retired general quickly became a fast friend of George’s. Fairfax hadn’t supported Charles I’s execution, and was turned off by other Protestant excesses. Mary was even plainer than the rumor – short and skinny. But she was swept off her feet by this handsome Cavalier. On September 15, George and Mary were married at the Fairfax estate in Yorkshire.
As a wedding gift, Lord Fairfax signed the two Villiers properties back to his son-in-law. The general had little interest in the Helmsley horses, other than for army use.
Three Days till Death
Yorkshire was the Kentucky of England, a perfect place to breed racehorses, with its brisk climate, grassy moors and mineral-rich soil. Helmsley was already a storied spot – four square miles of rich green fields and ancient trees along the River Rye, with its adjoining villages. There his father, the 1st Duke, as well as his mother’s ancestors, the Manners family, had bred important racehorses for two hundred years. George hadn’t seen the place since he was a kid.
When George did his first inspection, his heart must have sunk as he saw the lingering scars of war. Yorkshire had long been the heartland of Stuart support in England, so it was a major target of Cromwell’s army. With its magnificent 12th century castle, Helmsley had been a key defense in north Yorkshire. Parliamentary troops led by Lord Fairfax had besieged and finally defeated the royalists here. The castle tower and walls were badly damaged by heavy bombardment. Pastures still showed the ruts of cannon wheels. The rugged Tudor-era manor house stood almost intact in its park of elms, but it looked rundown and unlived-in.
Farther on, the Tudor stables and paddocks came into view. Miracle of miracles, life was stirring here, and the equine staff came out to welcome His Grace. The loyal Hesseltine family – studmaster, grooms, riders -- were local professionals who had run the Villiers horse operation since his father’s time. George must have felt a pang as a few familiar horses poked their heads out to sniff him. He stroked the aging Morocco Barb grey stallion that King Charles had given him back in 1637, when he was a little boy. Bald Peg, the chestnut mare with the striking white face, was there too. She was 22 – bred by his mother from his father’s horses after the 1st Duke was assassinated. Finally George looked over Old Peg’s 2-year-old grey daughter by the Barb, that the grooms called Young Peg or Grey Peg.
With income now arriving from tenant rentals on his lands, George had funds to start some restoration at Helmsley. Meanwhile, the young couple found Helmsley a bit rundown for elegant living, so they camped at the Fairfax home with the general and his wife.
George had hoped that Cromwell would leave him in peace. But when news of the wedding reached London, the Lord Protector was furious. Cromwell had learned that George might be secretly working with other royalist sympathizers to undermine the republic, and he saw the marriage as a potentially treasonous alliance between two popular commanders who could turn the army against him. George was arrested and dragged off to the Tower of London. Once again his properties and horses were confiscated!
Lord Fairfax was at risk of arrest too, and tried to calm Cromwell.
As months of imprisonment passed, George lived with the thought that a death sentence for treason meant he’d be hanged, drawn and quartered. But fate stepped in – in 1658, Cromwell fell ill. Through the window of his cell, on September 3, George heard the cannons boom to announce the dictator’s passing. He wrote later: “If Oliver had lived for three more days, I would surely have been put to death.”
Cromwell’s successor, his son Richard, freed the Duke. But George now had to fight with Parliament to retrieve his properties and horses again.
When Richard Cromwell proved unable to carry on his father’s policies he resigned in 1659, and the republic collapsed.
Many English had not enjoyed life under the Puritans. So a group in Parliament invited the refugee Stuart heir, Charles Prince of Wales, to come home and restore the monarchy. In 1660, amidst wild celebration, George Villiers’ boyhood buddy was crowned King Charles II. Theaters and inns opened again. Boys were allowed to play football on Sunday. And Charles legalized horse racing in the first week of his reign.
For a time the King was chilly to Villiers, and Parliament dithered on the property matter. Finally in 1661 Charles and George made up. According to Thoroughbred Bloodlines, Charles issued a warrant for the return of his friend’s properties. The order stipulated “one Turkish horse, one Barbe and five mares.”
Because of the Civil Wars, historical records relating to 17th-century racehorses are often incomplete, unclear or missing entirely, causing today’s racing historians to tear their hair out. That’s the case with these seven Villiers horses, who are a big detective story to gnaw on.
Of the seven, only two can be tentatively identified: one of the two stallions, the Old Morocco Barb, and Grey Peg, later called the Old Morocco Mare in England’s first General Stud Book. The other five are a mystery. Old Bald Peg may or may not have been among the returnees. The other stallion is important because he’s one of the first “Turkish horses” mentioned in English racing history.
Historians spin several theories to explain this Turk’s appearance out of the blue. My own theory starts with the fact that George Villiers saw combat in the French army and surely had a favorite cavalry mount. Bringing your horse home for peacetime sporting use was something that many British officers did. As a peer of the realm Villiers had to keep up appearances, so he wouldn’t have come home afoot.
Mystery Horse
To start solving the mystery, it’s important to know that the terms “Turk,” “Barb” and “Arabian” were mostly understood as a hint about a horse’s geographic origins. The 17th century horse trade was immense and international, with horse markets in major ports. Early racehorse breeders had favored improving their native stock with imported Arabians and Barbs. According to the 1791 General Stud Book, “Barbe” meant that a horse or its immediate ancestors came from Spain. The best Spanish horses had genetic roots in imports from “Barbery” (Morocco) in North Africa. By contrast, “Arabian” denoted horses from the Middle East, with many shipped out of Aleppo in Syria, and some from South Arabian and Egyptian ports. Some “Turks” came out of Aleppo, but most came from elsewhere in Ottoman territory, like Constantinople and Smyrna.
Suddenly, after the Civil Wars, the word “Turk” started popping up on English pedigrees. Arabians and Barbs and Turks all had distinctive characteristics that distinguished them from one another. Was there a trait that suddenly made Turkish horses a hot item?
Indeed there was. The early breeders, including George’s father, had been perpetuating a quirk that Arabs and many Barbs share, namely a short back with a missing lumbar vertebra and a high-set tail. A short-backed horse has a short stride. But a longer-bodied horse has a longer stride. So a longer stride can mean more speed.
Was there a longer-backed speed horse around? Yes indeed. In the Ottoman heartland, the Akhal-Teke (meaning “pure Turkish horse”) was bred for war, long-distance travel and racing. Its speed, toughness and spirit were legendary. It was taller, leggier, wirier, with a longer back than the Arabian or Barb. Even half-bred Tekes inherited these desirable traits. During the last Crusade, Turkish horses had helped the Ottoman cavalry roll over the top of Christian cavalry and advance into eastern Europe. By the 17th century, Europeans had captured a few Tekes and fell in love with the breed’s performance.
How would George Jr. stumble across a Turkish horse? He had spent part of his exile in Holland. The Dutch controlled European commerce with the Middle East and had no scruples about horse-trading with the “heretic enemy” Ottomans. As an experienced horseman, George could have spotted the potential of a fine Teke stallion brought to Holland by the Levant Trading Company, who were major horse brokers. Also in Dutch exile was George’s guardian and riding teacher, William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, a great horseman who may have approved the choice. The Earl thought highly of Turkish horses.
So if my scenario is correct, George brought this Turk home with him in 1657. After Lord Fairfax gave Helmsley back to George, this horse was living at the estate when the confiscation happened later that year.
There’s a tradition, cited by Thoroughbred Bloodlines online, that in 1657 Oliver Cromwell acquired a grey Turkish stallion from the Levant Company. The horse supposedly came from Aleppo by way of Holland, and was kept at Hampton Court, once the royal stud. There he bred mares till after Cromwell’s death. There are enough coincidental connections between this tradition and the theory I propose, that I think the “Cromwell grey” was actually Villiers’ horse. Cromwell was a lover of good horseflesh too, and possibly had no problem grabbing George’s fine cavalry horse as “spoils of war,” along with George’s other property. Cromwell was interested in breeding better army horses.
Subsequent history noted that George Jr. was the long-time owner of a grey stallion dubbed Buckingham’s Turk, aka the Helmsley Turk, parentage unknown. Names were casual in those days – a horse might have an affectionate nickname at the barn, but often a racing calender or breeder’s advertisement simply noted its owner’s name, as in “Mr. Massey’s chestnut mare” or simply “the Leedes Arabian.” Was Buckingham’s Turk the same animal as the horse in the 1661 warrant? If this was the Helmsley Turk, he was still covering mares in 1685, at the impressive age of 33.
So it’s more likely that the Helmsley Turk was a son of that Villiers import that Cromwell grabbed. He may have been foaled there at Helmsley. Since he was grey, the “Cromwell grey Turk” was a likely sire. Grey coat color is a dominant gene; a grey horse must have at least one grey parent.
If my theory is correct, George got back the original “Turkish horse,” and he also got a bonus: one of his mares was already pregnant with a foal got by this horse back at Hampton Court. Later the original grey stallion that George loved so much may have met with some unhappy accident, and he had to pin his hopes on the long-legged baby colt.
This detective story is a good example of the difficulties that Thoroughbred genealogists face, as they try to track individual 17th-century horses who appear and reappear through the mists of changing ownership and changing names. Why do they care so much about these long-ago details? Because centuries of inbreeding has magnified these early horses’ powerful genetic influence on the winners of today.
In any case, the Helmsley Turk would spend his next 20-odd years in the stables and pastures along the River Rye, living a pampered life. While most early racehorses bore the name of their owner, this stallion carried the proud name of his birthplace, where the royalist cause had fought for its life.
Circuit Parties, 1600s Style
From 1661 till 1670, George was possibly distracted from horse-breeding by the need to blow off war-time steam. The English were relaxing into Restoration peacetime, and a party spirit boiled up everywhere, from the arts to sports.
Charles II was becoming wildly popular as the “Merry Monarch.” He got the country back on its feet, and saw his people through disasters like the Great London Fire of 1666, so he would be remembered as one of England’s greatest Kings. The “merry” part referred to sex. During Charles’ reign, according to historian George S. Rousseau, “Sexual liberty was condoned in ways previously unknown. The Restoration was an age of transformation in philosophy and science….Though the libertinism of the court was overtly heterosexual, underneath resided what we today would call a tolerated bisexuality that had few parallels in prior European history.”
Charles married to a Portuguese princess, but he had dozens of mistresses, including George’s beautiful cousin Barbara Villiers. The King fathered dozens of children outside of marriage. In the spirit of the times, Charles was also rumored to go both ways.
For about 15 years, Charles II was attended by the Merry Gang, a posse of young nobles and gentry, many of whom were clearly gay or bisexual. Naturally the Gang’s leader was George Villiers, whose progressive views included a visible contempt for traditional church morality. According to Rousseau, “The king himself was accused of engaging in overt sodomitical liaisons with the Duke of Buckingham.”
Many conventional biographies about George Villiers refrain from mentioning that he was bi. But historian Howard Love says flatly in his English Clandestine Satire, 1660-1702, that Buckingham “was a bisexual rake who was prosecuted for sodomy.” There was no concept of “coming out” in those days, but the permissive atmosphere of Restoration high society meant that George made no secret of his liking for both men and women. From childhood he would have been aware of his father’s relationship with King James I. In one of his poems, George wrote:
Nothing is harder in the world to do
Than to quit what our nature leads us to
Sometimes George Jr. went for men who were less rugged than himself. Now and then he dallied with actors – he was an amateur playwright himself, owned a playhouse and wrote a hit play, The Rehearsal. Rumor had it that he was intimate with young Edward Kynaston, famed for playing female roles.
Another of George’s BFFs in the theater was playwright George Etheredge. Known as “gentle George” to his friends, Etheredge was fair-haired and slender, beautifully dressed, and probably not at home on a horse’s back. He wrote some of the era’s most sparkling comedy. The Duke mentioned Etheredge in a poem, saying that Apollo had his eye on gentle George – an allusion to the Greek god’s fondness for handsome mortal men.
Yet another “gentle” (code word for gay) favorite was celebrated poet Abraham Cowley. Buckingham had a visibly warm relationship with him ever since they were teen students at Cambridge. It was said that Cowley never spoke a word of love to a woman in his life.
For sporting and macho guy stuff, George’s best bud was John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Another Civil War hero, Wilmot was a good horseman and extreme party animal. Though it was still customary for gentlemen to jockey their own racehorses, Wilmot was probably too drunk most of the time to stay in the saddle, so he hired a professional “boy ryder,” as jockeys were called. In the recent film The Libertine, Wilmot is masterfully played by Johnny Depp. The film skirts LGBT questions, but in real life, the Earl of Rochester wrote witty gay erotica and was clearly bisexual.
Among all these hot men, Etheredge probably came closest to what we might consider a long-time item for Villiers, though it’s a question whether the 2nd Duke ever allowed himself to truly love anyone. All the people he’d loved in the past had died horribly.
The Merry Gang lived by a circuit-party schedule. According to Wilmot, they rose at ten, breakfasted at two, were drunk by five. Wilmot once admitted to being drunk for five years. The booze of choice was imported wine spiked with opium – this drug was making its debut in Europe, thanks to trade with China. Often George had dinner at 2 a.m., washed down with a French beverage that he’d introduced to English high society, called champagne. While under the influence, Villiers and Wilmot loved to pull off mad escapades and practical jokes, often in disguise.
To add spice to their adventures, sodomy laws were still on the books in England. Restoration liberality had reduced punishment from death to a day in the stocks. But sodomy charges could still be used as a political weapon, as we will see.
With most of his pre-war property retrieved, and an income of over £20,000 a year, George was living grandly -- for the moment. In 1666, still considering Helmsley a bit rough-cut for his residence, he built a vast mansion at Cliveden on the Thames and installed his mistress, the Countess of Shrewsbury, there. The couple had scandalized society when her husband challenged the Duke to a duel and the Duke killed him. Dueling was prohibited, but the King pardoned his bro. George’s enemies pegged him as a “murderer” anyway.
His wife Mary, who still found George irresistible, put up with it.
George was not the only sexual nonconformist in his family. Mary Villiers, his sister, was morphing into an influential writer and early feminist. She kept the court buzzing with gossip about her swordsmanship, dueling, fondness for men’s clothes, and the erotic lesbian tinges in her poetry.
It was risky for the King to show political support for a man who was rumored to be his “favorite.” In 1662 Charles did appoint George Jr. as a member of the Privy Council, a body that advised him privately on crucial matters of state. His father the 1st Duke had served King James in this same capacity. George was to prove a less conventional advisor than his father.
Beneath the clink of champagne glasses, there was ominous rumbling of old religious conflicts that had shaken England for centuries. As a Stuart, King Charles II had his quiet Catholic sympathies and personally wanted to see freedom of religion established. But Parliament aimed to restore the Church of England’s supremacy, and passed laws that targeted Roman Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians, Puritans, Quakers. All were required to attend the Anglican Church. They could not legally assemble or talk about their beliefs publicly. Catholics were barred from public office. As head of the Church of England, the King was compelled to go along.
George was horrified by this trend. As a Freemason, he had progressive views on most issues, and contempt for most established churchery. But he was sympathetic to the Quakers, who were being imprisoned, tortured and hung for their refusal to kowtow to Anglican demands. Quaker leader William Penn was a fellow Yorkshireman and friend of George’s.
England’s future, and his own, was looking darker.
Reviving the Sport of Kings
When the Merry Gang weren’t getting high or having sex, they were racing horses. Their Merry Monarch was re-starting the sport from scratch. Charles made a deal with Lord Darcy, a leading Yorkshire breeder and friend of Villiers, to supply him with 12 running horses a year. Lord Darcy was the new Master of Horse.
The center of excitement was Newmarket, a town 65 miles north of London, with miles of rolling open heath all around, where Charles’ grandfather, the gay King James I, had first developed a court gathering place and racecourse. The Puritans had burned down James’ palace, so Charles rebuilt it, and set the tone for an informal social life by walking the streets on foot and chatting with subjects. Newmarket became the red carpet of the Restoration, the place to be seen. Even working-class folk crowded into town for the noisy, festive race meets. At the center of merriment was George Jr. On a Sunday evening he would often entertain the court with what he called a “sermon.” This was actually a bawdy stand-up comedy monologue that had everybody screaming with laughter.
Charles built a huge stable in Newmarket, so turfists could board horses there -- “the oldest training establishment in the world,” according to Newmarket historian John Sutton. Now and then, big fields of horses went pelting around the new oval course, past the new grandstand at the finish post. But the usual event was a match race, with political tensions around who beat whom. Wagering went so sky-high that the King was alarmed by bankruptcies of titled bettors, so he issued a royal decree limiting the size of bets.
Finally in 1665 Charles established the Newmarket Town Plate, a race to be run every year over a 4-mile course, in several heats, with half an hour’s rest between heats. It was the first race ever run under written rules. Some of the stipulations: The rider to be a gentleman. Each horse to carry 12 stone (168 pounds). No whipping each other by the riders. No cruelty to the horses. The first horse to win three heats was the victor. This event was a tough test, something like a national championship.
During this time George trained and raced a string of horses that he borrowed or bought from others and probably stabled at Newmarket. They were fed a special grain bread and raw eggs, and went out for training gallops under blankets to make them sweat off the last extra ounce. To show off his horsemanship skills, George likely served as his own jockey when he could.
But his record of wins was spotty. In 1666, courtier Sir Paul Neile wrote to a friend from Newmarket: “There have been 3 matches more. My Lord Buckingham ran the Parson's Mare, as they call her, with a gelding of Mr. Bar. Howard's, and lost. My Lord Garrett ran his horse with my Lord Buckingham's horse Spavins, and lost."
As the court “progressed” around England each year, George ran horses at other courses as well. Between 1667 and 1672, he served as the King’s Master of Horse. So he now had Darcy’s job of supplying runners to the crown. It was a risky responsibility; the MOH had to front expenses, and often the King didn’t pay his bills. Indeed, by 1667 the Duke was living so splendidly that he was reckoned a ruined man, with debts of 140,000 pounds sterling.
He may have owed other breeders in Yorkshire, and paid in kind. In the early 1670s, his precious Grey Peg (later called the Old Morocco Mare in the first Studbook) was out on a lease to the farm of Edward Leedes. There she produced a filly that was the spitting image of her mother, Old Bald Peg, so they named her Bay Peg. Leedes kept this girl and got winners from her.
Was the Helmsley Turk seen on the track between 1661 and 1670? Historians have torn their hair looking for records of his wins -- he must have run brilliantly somewhere, somehow, to have the reputation he did. Perhaps he was the “Spavins” noted in 1666. As historian Richard Hardiman points out, pedigrees and racing calendars reflected the post-war chaos and a lack of a central registry for racehorses. Hardiman says, “Some would race in the same name for different owners and in different names for different owners. Some raced unnamed under their owner's name or in the name of their sire or dam.” Even in the royal Plates, a winner might be noted simply as “the Milbanke horse” or “Bruce’s horse.”
Not till after 1670, when the Turk might have been nine years old, do his first hoofprints appear on the breeding record. His mares were mostly local, owned by elite Yorkshire breeders who were relatives and cronies of George Villiers. Between 1670 and 1686, he sired a number of important sons and daughters. Among them was Bustler, a big winner at Newmarket owned by Rowland Place. Bustler also sired Newmarket winners, as well as half a dozen outstanding mares who headed several distinctive families of winners.
In short, the Helmsley Turk was emerging as an historic foundation sire. His grey coat coat color was passed down through descendants clear into the 20th century.
Party’s Over
Well into the 1670s, the Merry Gang rode on. But the party was ending. Abraham Cowley died in 1667. George was devastated, and put a monument over the poet’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. In 1679, as the Earl of Rochester’s horse won the Plate race at Woodcock, the Earl himself was fading horribly from the effects of alcoholism and venereal disease. Rochester died in 1680.
Buckingham escaped the addictions that struck down his Merry bro, but years of abuse had damaged his own health. He suffered from rheumatism and liver problems, and was gaining weight. When he passed the 12-stone mark, he probably stopped riding races. Worse, things went bad for him politically, as the Restoration lost its champagne fizz and sank into one of England’s darker times. Lord Fairfax died, so a powerful ally was gone.
The Duke’s sex life was becoming a national issue. The Earl of Clarendon, who had pushed for Parliament’s repression of non-Anglican religion, took the position that George was a godless monster. Parliament debate was noisy. At one point the Duke got into it with another peer and they yanked off each other’s wigs. Both were thrown in the Tower to cool off. In 1667 Clarendon got George disbarred from the Privy Council. But Buckingham fought back with icy ruthlessness, and engineered the Earl’s downfall.
Through it all, King Charles managed to stay supportive, and re-appointed George to high office in 1670.
But in 1674, Buckingham was openly attacked in Parliament over his relationship with Lady Shrewsbury. The two were compelled to swear a legal oath that they would stop cohabiting. Parliament put the thumbscrews on Charles II, and convinced him to fire Buckingham from all royal employment “forever.”
George had a cat-like ability to land on his feet, so he “reformed” -- going to church with his wife, making payments on his debts. But he also stepped forward as leader of an opposition party that had formed around religious freedom. This was George’s moment of becoming a real statesman. He was taking a huge risk – countless thousands of English had died at the stake or the headsman’s block over this issue. In 1675 the Duke kept a promise to William Penn and introduced a bill in Parliament that would stop persecution of Quakers and other sects. He also grabbed his goose-quill pen and wrote some commentaries on the subject. But George’s bill was scuttled.
By 1678, the Duke was in even deeper trouble, as England veered into panic over the “Popist plot.” Half the country was sure that Catholic enemies were planning the King’s murder, the downfall of government. A series of state trials chewed up people’s lives. Tower Hill was busy with grisly public executions, including some who turned out to be innocent. Buckingham’s enemies tried to implicate him in these alleged conspiracies. As part of their strategy, they charged that George had engaged in sodomy with a young conspirator named Philip Le Mar. The Duke spent more time in the Tower, was put through a state trial by Parliament, and defended himself with savage wit.
Eventually charges were dropped. On May 21, 1680, George was freed from the Tower for the last time.
But the boyhood bond of family affection between King and Duke, and whatever more intimate relationship might have been there at one time in the past, was finally broken.
A Champion at Last
Right in the middle of this terrifying time, Helmsley produced her greatest winner. It couldn’t have happened without the Hesseltines. As historian David Wilkinson told me, this loyal family “kept things going at the Helmsley estate, especially in times of trouble.”
The mother of this wonderful horse was Grey Peg. In 1674, she was home from her lease, and George wanted another foal out of her. She was now around 20 years old, a matriarch. For some reason the Duke decided not to mate her with the Helmsley Turk. Instead, he had the Hesseltines walk Peg down the road to Lord Darcy’s farm at Sedbury, and breed her to Darcy’s Yellow Turk. This stallion probably had the palomino color sometimes found in Tekes.
The following spring, 1675, Bay Peg dropped a bay colt who was dubbed Spanker. He probably didn’t start till 1680, when he was five -- about the time that the Duke faced his second round of sodomy charges. Racing calenders don’t reveal any wins by a Spanker, so it’s likely that he was entered under other names or another ownership. This might have been done for his safety, because of the raging public controversy around his owner.
But when the first General Stud Book was published in 1791, its authors stated firmly that Spanker was “the best horse at Newmarket in Charles II’s reign.” Turkish genes may have given Spanker the longer stride that was now needed to win. Today the Unofficial Thoroughbred Hall of Fame calls him “the first star of the early British turf.”
Sadly, George might not have seen his horse win. While the silver plate was being awarded, he may have sat sweating in the dock at Parliament, answering a prosecutor’s questions.
Spanker and the Helmsley Turk were the cutting edge of a Turkish trend in racehorse breeding. In 1683 the Ottoman Turks were defeated at Vienna and fell back from their aim of occupying western Europe. As more defeats piled up, enough Turkish horses were captured on the battlefield that it rained Turks on England. The Byerley Turk arrived in the late 1680s, to become a major foundation sire. He was followed by dozens of others. With time, that missing lumbar vertebrae of Arabians and Barbs would virtually disappear from the Thoroughbred, as the breed grew taller and bigger- framed, with a visible Turkish stamp.
Home at Last
In 1681, at age 53, Villiers left public life in disgust. He paid off some of his debts by selling Cliveden and other properties. But he held onto Helmsley, and made it his home for the first time. Income from tenant farmers provided some cash flow. His old retainers had stayed very loyal, so he could even keep a small staff.
There, under the shadow of the half-ruined castle, he and his wife lived a strange recluse life in the antiquated manor house. The once-athletic gentleman whose smile dazzled the world was now a hefty country squire with a few wooden teeth, chugging ale with other squires at the Cock and Bottle Inn. George founded the Bilsdale Hunt, put together the first pack of hounds, and spent pleasant days fox-hunting with his new cronies. Even then, a certain shredded glamour still clung to him. A mistress or two still came and went from Helmsley, along with a boyfriend or two, including George Etheredge, who was still in touch. Finally his long-suffering wife moved out.
The sad day came when George’s racehorses had to be sold to pay bills. The Helmsley Turk went to Lord Darcy’s older brother, the Earl of Holderness. Grey Peg joined the band of royal mares at Lord Darcy’s stud. Spanker was sold to Sir Charles Pelham in Lincolnshire. From then on, the horse was known as Mr. Pelham’s Bay Arabian. He was still alive in the 1690s – siring Newmarket winners and a bevy of foundation mares, thus establishing his own historic sire line. Soon the rundown Helmsley stables sheltered only a few horses for hunting.
In February 1685, word came from London that his estranged brother King Charles had died suddenly. Since Charles had no legitimate children, he was succeeded by his brother James II.
In 1685, the Duke fired one last shot at the church establishment from his stable door. He published a pamphlet asking “whether there be anything more directly opposite to the doctrine and practice of Jesus Christ, than to use any kind of force upon men, in matters of religion?” He accused those who used force of being anti-Christian.
Two years later, in April 1687, while the aging Duke was out hunting one day, he fell ill or had a riding accident – accounts vary. Somebody carried him to the home of a tenant in Kirkbymoorside, six miles from Helmsley. There he lingered for several days. Word went out by galloping messengers that he was dying, and churchmen rushed to his bedside, hoping to get him to repent. Accounts vary on whether he did or didn’t.
On April 16, George Villiers died. He was 59.
The new King, also a friend to tolerance, gave him a state funeral. George joined his father, brother, sister, grandmother and his college love Abraham Cowley among the quiet tombs of Westminster Abbey.
Since George and Mary never had children, the title of Duke of Buckingham reverted to the crown. George’s sister had no surviving children as well. But the family line continued through the 1st Duke’s siblings. The Villiers’ most famous descendent today would be Princess Diana, whose pedigree goes back to the Duke of Grafton, Charles II’s out-of-wedlock son with George’s cousin Barbara Villiers.
George left no will, just a pile of debts. So Parliament passed a measure allowing Helmsley to be sold, and it went to Sir Charles Duncombe, a wealthy banker whose family had done property deals with George’s father. The Duncombes, and their descendants the Fevershams, never lived at the Helmsley manor – indeed, no one lived there again after the Duke died, and the place fell into decay. Instead the family built a new mansion elsewhere on the estate and became horse breeders in their turn. The present Lord Feversham lives there today.
Part of the estate is now a riding school, where David Wilkinson tells me he identified what he believes to be the original Tudor-era stables, where Old Bald Peg and maybe the Helmsley Turk were born. The ruined castle itself, and its manor house, still stand starkly amid the green meadows, now the property of English Heritage and partly restored for the benefit of growing tourism.
Yorkshire itself is still the Kentucky of England. Its tracks and open country stir with the thump of hoofs as racehorses train. One of the big races on the calendar is still the Newmarket Town Plate.
The Legacy
A few years after George’s death, England finally started passing laws that provided a growing measure of religious tolerance. The Duke’s deepest convictions also made hoofprints to the colonies that would become the United States of America, along with the first Thoroughbreds exported there. William Penn and other Quaker settlers would give a major push to establishment of tolerance in the U.S. The sentiments in George’s parting pamphlet would be echoed by Thomas Jefferson.
Recent genetic research on Thoroughbreds reveals that DNA tracing directly back to Old Bald Peg, through her own “family,” can still be found in the breed.
For LGBT people today, the Villiers story raises intriguing questions about human pedigrees. Is there a “gay gene”? What ancestor might have passed a gay gene down to the 1st Duke of Buckingham? Did his son turn out bisexual because of social environment or genetics? Or both? What about George’s sister, Mary? Was she a lesbian, and if so, did she inherit a sexual-orientation gene from a gay father? Today, as in George’s day, the church lobby is quick to hand down its dire Biblical judgment on this question, but science has yet to finish its work here.
Today the sport of Kings seems tolerant of its two sexually unorthodox pioneers, the 17th-century Dukes of Buckingham. Thoroughbred Heritage states online that “horses on the Helmsley estate were central to the evolution of the Thoroughbred.”
This October, the 2007 Breeders Cup gets underway at Monmouth Park in New York State. Millions of fans will be keyed up for two days of world-championship racing that honor the great breeders of our time. The horses will be flown in from all over the world. As they parade to the post, they walk tall, often 16 hands or more at the shoulder. As they spring from the starting gate, their long strides -- 25 feet or more -- will eat up the track with blazing speed.
Maybe, just maybe, one or two are descendants of horses bred by that long-ago father and son.
Further reading:
Books:
George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, 1628-1687: A Study in the History of the Restoration, by Winifred, Lady Burghclere (John Murray, London, 1903).
Memoirs of the Court of England During the Reign of the Stuarts, by John Heneage Jesse (Richard Bentley, London, 1855).
Wits and Beaux of Society, by Grace and Philip Wharton (George Routledge and Sons, London, 1871).
Rochester and Other Literary Rakes of the Court of Charles II, by Thomas De Longueville (1902)
King James & Letters of Homoerotic Desire, by David M. Bergeron (University of Iowa Press, 1999).
Early Horse Racing in Yorkshire and the Origins of the Thoroughbred, by David Wilkinson (Old Bald Peg Publications, York, England, 2003).
The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart England, by Peter Edwards (Cambridge University Press, England, 2002).
The History of Newmarket, and Annals of the Turf, Volumes I-III, by J. P. Hore (London, A. H. Bailey & Company, 1886)[/url]
Web link. [url]http://www.outsports.com/history/georgesvilliers1024.htm
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George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham
Another pioneering racehorse breeder
By Patricia Nell Warren
Outsports.com
It was spring 1657 at Gravesend on the Thames, gateway to London harbor. The young Duke had a lot on his mind as he watched his retainers unloading the horses. After days below deck on the rolling vessel, the animals were shaky. The leggy grey stallion, who had been his veteran mount on battlefields in Europe, almost stumbled off the gangway into the water.
As the Duke remembered a lifetime of fighting, his eyes took on the inward-looking, troubled expression of a combat veteran.
George Villiers 2nd Duke of Buckingham had nervously chosen this moment to come home from nine years of exile. England had just survived 15 years of hideous civil war over whether King or Parliament would rule, and what religion would rule the ruler. Villiers had been raised by the royal family after his father was assassinated. At age 15 he rode off to fight for the King, his surrogate dad. But Charles I had been captured and beheaded by his Protestant enemies in Parliament. George had then fought for his surrogate brother and King-to-be, Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales. At 21 he was promoted to general of the Prince’s cavalry. That effort too had failed. His beloved brother Francis was killed in battle. His mother, Kate Villiers Countess of Buckingham, also died during the war. England was now a republic, ruled by a Protestant dictator, Oliver Cromwell, who styled himself Lord Protector. George and the surviving royals had fled to Europe. Since his properties had been confiscated, he supported himself in exile by selling smuggled family art treasures and serving as a volunteer officer in the French army.
Now 29, George had just had a serious falling-out with Prince Charles. And he was broke. It was time to come home.
So the Duke was slipping back into England, hoping he could wangle an amnesty from Oliver Cromwell. Could he do this without alienating his Prince brother for good? Could he get his properties back? Would his own head wind up in a basket?
When George’s father was murdered, George had inherited the greatest fortune in England. Most of the magnificent estates, with income of nearly £25,000 a year, were appropriated by Cromwell himself. Right now George was trying to figure out how to get two of them back. He planned to approach Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had been Cromwell’s former commander-in-chief. Cromwell had rewarded Lord Fairfax for his wartime services by deeding him George’s London residence plus the Villiers’ famed stud farm, Helmsley, in Yorkshire. Fairfax was a kinsman of George’s, and a fellow Yorkshireman. Maybe, just maybe…
Villiers’ eyes refocused on the grey horse as he stroked the animal’s neck. This stallion had proven fast on the battlefield. Now that peace had come, George could have hoped to win with a fine horse like this at the Newmarket races. But the Puritans who controlled the new regime had clamped a moralistic strictness on English life. Horse racing and wagering were banned, along with other amusements beloved by the English.
If George’s negotiations with Cromwell fell through, he would need a fast horse like this to get away on.
Going Home
The foregoing scene admittedly has a little speculation in it, but it’s based on facts. Earlier in this series I wrote about George’s openly gay father, the 1st Duke of Buckingham, who was long-time lover to King James 1st. George Sr. collected Eastern-bred horses to improve the clunky English racehorse, but he never bred a winner himself. Now his bisexual son, George Jr., would dream of breeding that elusive winner.
Different historians have handicapped George differently. Some praised him as a statesman, defender of liberties, patron of the arts, gifted poet and essayist – a charming and witty ladies’ man. Others condemned him as a rake, buffoon, murderer, traitor to his King, untalented scribbler -- a heartless and vain sodomite. The Encyclopedia Britannica took a middle road, saying: “Even his critics agree that he was good-humoured, good-natured, generous, an unsurpassed mimic and the leader of fashion. With his good looks, in spite of his moral faults and even crimes, he was irresistible to his contemporaries.”
My take on Villiers is different. He’s a fascinating character -- a mercurial mix of opportunist and idealist, over-achiever and n’er-do-well. Not only did George have passionate convictions in personal and religious freedom in a violent and intolerant time, but he lived out those convictions in a sex life that would stand out today – and he almost got himself executed for it.
Historians do agree on one thing: George Jr.’s contribution to sports history. According to historian John Heneage Jesse, when it came to horsemanship and horse racing, Villiers was “the most accomplished man of his age.”
That spring day in 1657, as George rode into London to find Lord Fairfax, he was ready for compromise. It was unthinkable for a titled peer like himself to work for a living like a tradesman. How could he talk Fairfax into giving his properties back? Fairfax had a daughter, Mary, who was rumored to be “stout and plain, wealthy, virtuous and forgiving.” Mary was already engaged to another. But maybe, just maybe …
George knocked on Fairfax’s door, and turned on the Villiers charm.
It worked. The retired general quickly became a fast friend of George’s. Fairfax hadn’t supported Charles I’s execution, and was turned off by other Protestant excesses. Mary was even plainer than the rumor – short and skinny. But she was swept off her feet by this handsome Cavalier. On September 15, George and Mary were married at the Fairfax estate in Yorkshire.
As a wedding gift, Lord Fairfax signed the two Villiers properties back to his son-in-law. The general had little interest in the Helmsley horses, other than for army use.
Three Days till Death
Yorkshire was the Kentucky of England, a perfect place to breed racehorses, with its brisk climate, grassy moors and mineral-rich soil. Helmsley was already a storied spot – four square miles of rich green fields and ancient trees along the River Rye, with its adjoining villages. There his father, the 1st Duke, as well as his mother’s ancestors, the Manners family, had bred important racehorses for two hundred years. George hadn’t seen the place since he was a kid.
When George did his first inspection, his heart must have sunk as he saw the lingering scars of war. Yorkshire had long been the heartland of Stuart support in England, so it was a major target of Cromwell’s army. With its magnificent 12th century castle, Helmsley had been a key defense in north Yorkshire. Parliamentary troops led by Lord Fairfax had besieged and finally defeated the royalists here. The castle tower and walls were badly damaged by heavy bombardment. Pastures still showed the ruts of cannon wheels. The rugged Tudor-era manor house stood almost intact in its park of elms, but it looked rundown and unlived-in.
Farther on, the Tudor stables and paddocks came into view. Miracle of miracles, life was stirring here, and the equine staff came out to welcome His Grace. The loyal Hesseltine family – studmaster, grooms, riders -- were local professionals who had run the Villiers horse operation since his father’s time. George must have felt a pang as a few familiar horses poked their heads out to sniff him. He stroked the aging Morocco Barb grey stallion that King Charles had given him back in 1637, when he was a little boy. Bald Peg, the chestnut mare with the striking white face, was there too. She was 22 – bred by his mother from his father’s horses after the 1st Duke was assassinated. Finally George looked over Old Peg’s 2-year-old grey daughter by the Barb, that the grooms called Young Peg or Grey Peg.
With income now arriving from tenant rentals on his lands, George had funds to start some restoration at Helmsley. Meanwhile, the young couple found Helmsley a bit rundown for elegant living, so they camped at the Fairfax home with the general and his wife.
George had hoped that Cromwell would leave him in peace. But when news of the wedding reached London, the Lord Protector was furious. Cromwell had learned that George might be secretly working with other royalist sympathizers to undermine the republic, and he saw the marriage as a potentially treasonous alliance between two popular commanders who could turn the army against him. George was arrested and dragged off to the Tower of London. Once again his properties and horses were confiscated!
Lord Fairfax was at risk of arrest too, and tried to calm Cromwell.
As months of imprisonment passed, George lived with the thought that a death sentence for treason meant he’d be hanged, drawn and quartered. But fate stepped in – in 1658, Cromwell fell ill. Through the window of his cell, on September 3, George heard the cannons boom to announce the dictator’s passing. He wrote later: “If Oliver had lived for three more days, I would surely have been put to death.”
Cromwell’s successor, his son Richard, freed the Duke. But George now had to fight with Parliament to retrieve his properties and horses again.
When Richard Cromwell proved unable to carry on his father’s policies he resigned in 1659, and the republic collapsed.
Many English had not enjoyed life under the Puritans. So a group in Parliament invited the refugee Stuart heir, Charles Prince of Wales, to come home and restore the monarchy. In 1660, amidst wild celebration, George Villiers’ boyhood buddy was crowned King Charles II. Theaters and inns opened again. Boys were allowed to play football on Sunday. And Charles legalized horse racing in the first week of his reign.
For a time the King was chilly to Villiers, and Parliament dithered on the property matter. Finally in 1661 Charles and George made up. According to Thoroughbred Bloodlines, Charles issued a warrant for the return of his friend’s properties. The order stipulated “one Turkish horse, one Barbe and five mares.”
Because of the Civil Wars, historical records relating to 17th-century racehorses are often incomplete, unclear or missing entirely, causing today’s racing historians to tear their hair out. That’s the case with these seven Villiers horses, who are a big detective story to gnaw on.
Of the seven, only two can be tentatively identified: one of the two stallions, the Old Morocco Barb, and Grey Peg, later called the Old Morocco Mare in England’s first General Stud Book. The other five are a mystery. Old Bald Peg may or may not have been among the returnees. The other stallion is important because he’s one of the first “Turkish horses” mentioned in English racing history.
Historians spin several theories to explain this Turk’s appearance out of the blue. My own theory starts with the fact that George Villiers saw combat in the French army and surely had a favorite cavalry mount. Bringing your horse home for peacetime sporting use was something that many British officers did. As a peer of the realm Villiers had to keep up appearances, so he wouldn’t have come home afoot.
Mystery Horse
To start solving the mystery, it’s important to know that the terms “Turk,” “Barb” and “Arabian” were mostly understood as a hint about a horse’s geographic origins. The 17th century horse trade was immense and international, with horse markets in major ports. Early racehorse breeders had favored improving their native stock with imported Arabians and Barbs. According to the 1791 General Stud Book, “Barbe” meant that a horse or its immediate ancestors came from Spain. The best Spanish horses had genetic roots in imports from “Barbery” (Morocco) in North Africa. By contrast, “Arabian” denoted horses from the Middle East, with many shipped out of Aleppo in Syria, and some from South Arabian and Egyptian ports. Some “Turks” came out of Aleppo, but most came from elsewhere in Ottoman territory, like Constantinople and Smyrna.
Suddenly, after the Civil Wars, the word “Turk” started popping up on English pedigrees. Arabians and Barbs and Turks all had distinctive characteristics that distinguished them from one another. Was there a trait that suddenly made Turkish horses a hot item?
Indeed there was. The early breeders, including George’s father, had been perpetuating a quirk that Arabs and many Barbs share, namely a short back with a missing lumbar vertebra and a high-set tail. A short-backed horse has a short stride. But a longer-bodied horse has a longer stride. So a longer stride can mean more speed.
Was there a longer-backed speed horse around? Yes indeed. In the Ottoman heartland, the Akhal-Teke (meaning “pure Turkish horse”) was bred for war, long-distance travel and racing. Its speed, toughness and spirit were legendary. It was taller, leggier, wirier, with a longer back than the Arabian or Barb. Even half-bred Tekes inherited these desirable traits. During the last Crusade, Turkish horses had helped the Ottoman cavalry roll over the top of Christian cavalry and advance into eastern Europe. By the 17th century, Europeans had captured a few Tekes and fell in love with the breed’s performance.
How would George Jr. stumble across a Turkish horse? He had spent part of his exile in Holland. The Dutch controlled European commerce with the Middle East and had no scruples about horse-trading with the “heretic enemy” Ottomans. As an experienced horseman, George could have spotted the potential of a fine Teke stallion brought to Holland by the Levant Trading Company, who were major horse brokers. Also in Dutch exile was George’s guardian and riding teacher, William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, a great horseman who may have approved the choice. The Earl thought highly of Turkish horses.
So if my scenario is correct, George brought this Turk home with him in 1657. After Lord Fairfax gave Helmsley back to George, this horse was living at the estate when the confiscation happened later that year.
There’s a tradition, cited by Thoroughbred Bloodlines online, that in 1657 Oliver Cromwell acquired a grey Turkish stallion from the Levant Company. The horse supposedly came from Aleppo by way of Holland, and was kept at Hampton Court, once the royal stud. There he bred mares till after Cromwell’s death. There are enough coincidental connections between this tradition and the theory I propose, that I think the “Cromwell grey” was actually Villiers’ horse. Cromwell was a lover of good horseflesh too, and possibly had no problem grabbing George’s fine cavalry horse as “spoils of war,” along with George’s other property. Cromwell was interested in breeding better army horses.
Subsequent history noted that George Jr. was the long-time owner of a grey stallion dubbed Buckingham’s Turk, aka the Helmsley Turk, parentage unknown. Names were casual in those days – a horse might have an affectionate nickname at the barn, but often a racing calender or breeder’s advertisement simply noted its owner’s name, as in “Mr. Massey’s chestnut mare” or simply “the Leedes Arabian.” Was Buckingham’s Turk the same animal as the horse in the 1661 warrant? If this was the Helmsley Turk, he was still covering mares in 1685, at the impressive age of 33.
So it’s more likely that the Helmsley Turk was a son of that Villiers import that Cromwell grabbed. He may have been foaled there at Helmsley. Since he was grey, the “Cromwell grey Turk” was a likely sire. Grey coat color is a dominant gene; a grey horse must have at least one grey parent.
If my theory is correct, George got back the original “Turkish horse,” and he also got a bonus: one of his mares was already pregnant with a foal got by this horse back at Hampton Court. Later the original grey stallion that George loved so much may have met with some unhappy accident, and he had to pin his hopes on the long-legged baby colt.
This detective story is a good example of the difficulties that Thoroughbred genealogists face, as they try to track individual 17th-century horses who appear and reappear through the mists of changing ownership and changing names. Why do they care so much about these long-ago details? Because centuries of inbreeding has magnified these early horses’ powerful genetic influence on the winners of today.
In any case, the Helmsley Turk would spend his next 20-odd years in the stables and pastures along the River Rye, living a pampered life. While most early racehorses bore the name of their owner, this stallion carried the proud name of his birthplace, where the royalist cause had fought for its life.
Circuit Parties, 1600s Style
From 1661 till 1670, George was possibly distracted from horse-breeding by the need to blow off war-time steam. The English were relaxing into Restoration peacetime, and a party spirit boiled up everywhere, from the arts to sports.
Charles II was becoming wildly popular as the “Merry Monarch.” He got the country back on its feet, and saw his people through disasters like the Great London Fire of 1666, so he would be remembered as one of England’s greatest Kings. The “merry” part referred to sex. During Charles’ reign, according to historian George S. Rousseau, “Sexual liberty was condoned in ways previously unknown. The Restoration was an age of transformation in philosophy and science….Though the libertinism of the court was overtly heterosexual, underneath resided what we today would call a tolerated bisexuality that had few parallels in prior European history.”
Charles married to a Portuguese princess, but he had dozens of mistresses, including George’s beautiful cousin Barbara Villiers. The King fathered dozens of children outside of marriage. In the spirit of the times, Charles was also rumored to go both ways.
For about 15 years, Charles II was attended by the Merry Gang, a posse of young nobles and gentry, many of whom were clearly gay or bisexual. Naturally the Gang’s leader was George Villiers, whose progressive views included a visible contempt for traditional church morality. According to Rousseau, “The king himself was accused of engaging in overt sodomitical liaisons with the Duke of Buckingham.”
Many conventional biographies about George Villiers refrain from mentioning that he was bi. But historian Howard Love says flatly in his English Clandestine Satire, 1660-1702, that Buckingham “was a bisexual rake who was prosecuted for sodomy.” There was no concept of “coming out” in those days, but the permissive atmosphere of Restoration high society meant that George made no secret of his liking for both men and women. From childhood he would have been aware of his father’s relationship with King James I. In one of his poems, George wrote:
Nothing is harder in the world to do
Than to quit what our nature leads us to
Sometimes George Jr. went for men who were less rugged than himself. Now and then he dallied with actors – he was an amateur playwright himself, owned a playhouse and wrote a hit play, The Rehearsal. Rumor had it that he was intimate with young Edward Kynaston, famed for playing female roles.
Another of George’s BFFs in the theater was playwright George Etheredge. Known as “gentle George” to his friends, Etheredge was fair-haired and slender, beautifully dressed, and probably not at home on a horse’s back. He wrote some of the era’s most sparkling comedy. The Duke mentioned Etheredge in a poem, saying that Apollo had his eye on gentle George – an allusion to the Greek god’s fondness for handsome mortal men.
Yet another “gentle” (code word for gay) favorite was celebrated poet Abraham Cowley. Buckingham had a visibly warm relationship with him ever since they were teen students at Cambridge. It was said that Cowley never spoke a word of love to a woman in his life.
For sporting and macho guy stuff, George’s best bud was John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Another Civil War hero, Wilmot was a good horseman and extreme party animal. Though it was still customary for gentlemen to jockey their own racehorses, Wilmot was probably too drunk most of the time to stay in the saddle, so he hired a professional “boy ryder,” as jockeys were called. In the recent film The Libertine, Wilmot is masterfully played by Johnny Depp. The film skirts LGBT questions, but in real life, the Earl of Rochester wrote witty gay erotica and was clearly bisexual.
Among all these hot men, Etheredge probably came closest to what we might consider a long-time item for Villiers, though it’s a question whether the 2nd Duke ever allowed himself to truly love anyone. All the people he’d loved in the past had died horribly.
The Merry Gang lived by a circuit-party schedule. According to Wilmot, they rose at ten, breakfasted at two, were drunk by five. Wilmot once admitted to being drunk for five years. The booze of choice was imported wine spiked with opium – this drug was making its debut in Europe, thanks to trade with China. Often George had dinner at 2 a.m., washed down with a French beverage that he’d introduced to English high society, called champagne. While under the influence, Villiers and Wilmot loved to pull off mad escapades and practical jokes, often in disguise.
To add spice to their adventures, sodomy laws were still on the books in England. Restoration liberality had reduced punishment from death to a day in the stocks. But sodomy charges could still be used as a political weapon, as we will see.
With most of his pre-war property retrieved, and an income of over £20,000 a year, George was living grandly -- for the moment. In 1666, still considering Helmsley a bit rough-cut for his residence, he built a vast mansion at Cliveden on the Thames and installed his mistress, the Countess of Shrewsbury, there. The couple had scandalized society when her husband challenged the Duke to a duel and the Duke killed him. Dueling was prohibited, but the King pardoned his bro. George’s enemies pegged him as a “murderer” anyway.
His wife Mary, who still found George irresistible, put up with it.
George was not the only sexual nonconformist in his family. Mary Villiers, his sister, was morphing into an influential writer and early feminist. She kept the court buzzing with gossip about her swordsmanship, dueling, fondness for men’s clothes, and the erotic lesbian tinges in her poetry.
It was risky for the King to show political support for a man who was rumored to be his “favorite.” In 1662 Charles did appoint George Jr. as a member of the Privy Council, a body that advised him privately on crucial matters of state. His father the 1st Duke had served King James in this same capacity. George was to prove a less conventional advisor than his father.
Beneath the clink of champagne glasses, there was ominous rumbling of old religious conflicts that had shaken England for centuries. As a Stuart, King Charles II had his quiet Catholic sympathies and personally wanted to see freedom of religion established. But Parliament aimed to restore the Church of England’s supremacy, and passed laws that targeted Roman Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians, Puritans, Quakers. All were required to attend the Anglican Church. They could not legally assemble or talk about their beliefs publicly. Catholics were barred from public office. As head of the Church of England, the King was compelled to go along.
George was horrified by this trend. As a Freemason, he had progressive views on most issues, and contempt for most established churchery. But he was sympathetic to the Quakers, who were being imprisoned, tortured and hung for their refusal to kowtow to Anglican demands. Quaker leader William Penn was a fellow Yorkshireman and friend of George’s.
England’s future, and his own, was looking darker.
Reviving the Sport of Kings
When the Merry Gang weren’t getting high or having sex, they were racing horses. Their Merry Monarch was re-starting the sport from scratch. Charles made a deal with Lord Darcy, a leading Yorkshire breeder and friend of Villiers, to supply him with 12 running horses a year. Lord Darcy was the new Master of Horse.
The center of excitement was Newmarket, a town 65 miles north of London, with miles of rolling open heath all around, where Charles’ grandfather, the gay King James I, had first developed a court gathering place and racecourse. The Puritans had burned down James’ palace, so Charles rebuilt it, and set the tone for an informal social life by walking the streets on foot and chatting with subjects. Newmarket became the red carpet of the Restoration, the place to be seen. Even working-class folk crowded into town for the noisy, festive race meets. At the center of merriment was George Jr. On a Sunday evening he would often entertain the court with what he called a “sermon.” This was actually a bawdy stand-up comedy monologue that had everybody screaming with laughter.
Charles built a huge stable in Newmarket, so turfists could board horses there -- “the oldest training establishment in the world,” according to Newmarket historian John Sutton. Now and then, big fields of horses went pelting around the new oval course, past the new grandstand at the finish post. But the usual event was a match race, with political tensions around who beat whom. Wagering went so sky-high that the King was alarmed by bankruptcies of titled bettors, so he issued a royal decree limiting the size of bets.
Finally in 1665 Charles established the Newmarket Town Plate, a race to be run every year over a 4-mile course, in several heats, with half an hour’s rest between heats. It was the first race ever run under written rules. Some of the stipulations: The rider to be a gentleman. Each horse to carry 12 stone (168 pounds). No whipping each other by the riders. No cruelty to the horses. The first horse to win three heats was the victor. This event was a tough test, something like a national championship.
During this time George trained and raced a string of horses that he borrowed or bought from others and probably stabled at Newmarket. They were fed a special grain bread and raw eggs, and went out for training gallops under blankets to make them sweat off the last extra ounce. To show off his horsemanship skills, George likely served as his own jockey when he could.
But his record of wins was spotty. In 1666, courtier Sir Paul Neile wrote to a friend from Newmarket: “There have been 3 matches more. My Lord Buckingham ran the Parson's Mare, as they call her, with a gelding of Mr. Bar. Howard's, and lost. My Lord Garrett ran his horse with my Lord Buckingham's horse Spavins, and lost."
As the court “progressed” around England each year, George ran horses at other courses as well. Between 1667 and 1672, he served as the King’s Master of Horse. So he now had Darcy’s job of supplying runners to the crown. It was a risky responsibility; the MOH had to front expenses, and often the King didn’t pay his bills. Indeed, by 1667 the Duke was living so splendidly that he was reckoned a ruined man, with debts of 140,000 pounds sterling.
He may have owed other breeders in Yorkshire, and paid in kind. In the early 1670s, his precious Grey Peg (later called the Old Morocco Mare in the first Studbook) was out on a lease to the farm of Edward Leedes. There she produced a filly that was the spitting image of her mother, Old Bald Peg, so they named her Bay Peg. Leedes kept this girl and got winners from her.
Was the Helmsley Turk seen on the track between 1661 and 1670? Historians have torn their hair looking for records of his wins -- he must have run brilliantly somewhere, somehow, to have the reputation he did. Perhaps he was the “Spavins” noted in 1666. As historian Richard Hardiman points out, pedigrees and racing calendars reflected the post-war chaos and a lack of a central registry for racehorses. Hardiman says, “Some would race in the same name for different owners and in different names for different owners. Some raced unnamed under their owner's name or in the name of their sire or dam.” Even in the royal Plates, a winner might be noted simply as “the Milbanke horse” or “Bruce’s horse.”
Not till after 1670, when the Turk might have been nine years old, do his first hoofprints appear on the breeding record. His mares were mostly local, owned by elite Yorkshire breeders who were relatives and cronies of George Villiers. Between 1670 and 1686, he sired a number of important sons and daughters. Among them was Bustler, a big winner at Newmarket owned by Rowland Place. Bustler also sired Newmarket winners, as well as half a dozen outstanding mares who headed several distinctive families of winners.
In short, the Helmsley Turk was emerging as an historic foundation sire. His grey coat coat color was passed down through descendants clear into the 20th century.
Party’s Over
Well into the 1670s, the Merry Gang rode on. But the party was ending. Abraham Cowley died in 1667. George was devastated, and put a monument over the poet’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. In 1679, as the Earl of Rochester’s horse won the Plate race at Woodcock, the Earl himself was fading horribly from the effects of alcoholism and venereal disease. Rochester died in 1680.
Buckingham escaped the addictions that struck down his Merry bro, but years of abuse had damaged his own health. He suffered from rheumatism and liver problems, and was gaining weight. When he passed the 12-stone mark, he probably stopped riding races. Worse, things went bad for him politically, as the Restoration lost its champagne fizz and sank into one of England’s darker times. Lord Fairfax died, so a powerful ally was gone.
The Duke’s sex life was becoming a national issue. The Earl of Clarendon, who had pushed for Parliament’s repression of non-Anglican religion, took the position that George was a godless monster. Parliament debate was noisy. At one point the Duke got into it with another peer and they yanked off each other’s wigs. Both were thrown in the Tower to cool off. In 1667 Clarendon got George disbarred from the Privy Council. But Buckingham fought back with icy ruthlessness, and engineered the Earl’s downfall.
Through it all, King Charles managed to stay supportive, and re-appointed George to high office in 1670.
But in 1674, Buckingham was openly attacked in Parliament over his relationship with Lady Shrewsbury. The two were compelled to swear a legal oath that they would stop cohabiting. Parliament put the thumbscrews on Charles II, and convinced him to fire Buckingham from all royal employment “forever.”
George had a cat-like ability to land on his feet, so he “reformed” -- going to church with his wife, making payments on his debts. But he also stepped forward as leader of an opposition party that had formed around religious freedom. This was George’s moment of becoming a real statesman. He was taking a huge risk – countless thousands of English had died at the stake or the headsman’s block over this issue. In 1675 the Duke kept a promise to William Penn and introduced a bill in Parliament that would stop persecution of Quakers and other sects. He also grabbed his goose-quill pen and wrote some commentaries on the subject. But George’s bill was scuttled.
By 1678, the Duke was in even deeper trouble, as England veered into panic over the “Popist plot.” Half the country was sure that Catholic enemies were planning the King’s murder, the downfall of government. A series of state trials chewed up people’s lives. Tower Hill was busy with grisly public executions, including some who turned out to be innocent. Buckingham’s enemies tried to implicate him in these alleged conspiracies. As part of their strategy, they charged that George had engaged in sodomy with a young conspirator named Philip Le Mar. The Duke spent more time in the Tower, was put through a state trial by Parliament, and defended himself with savage wit.
Eventually charges were dropped. On May 21, 1680, George was freed from the Tower for the last time.
But the boyhood bond of family affection between King and Duke, and whatever more intimate relationship might have been there at one time in the past, was finally broken.
A Champion at Last
Right in the middle of this terrifying time, Helmsley produced her greatest winner. It couldn’t have happened without the Hesseltines. As historian David Wilkinson told me, this loyal family “kept things going at the Helmsley estate, especially in times of trouble.”
The mother of this wonderful horse was Grey Peg. In 1674, she was home from her lease, and George wanted another foal out of her. She was now around 20 years old, a matriarch. For some reason the Duke decided not to mate her with the Helmsley Turk. Instead, he had the Hesseltines walk Peg down the road to Lord Darcy’s farm at Sedbury, and breed her to Darcy’s Yellow Turk. This stallion probably had the palomino color sometimes found in Tekes.
The following spring, 1675, Bay Peg dropped a bay colt who was dubbed Spanker. He probably didn’t start till 1680, when he was five -- about the time that the Duke faced his second round of sodomy charges. Racing calenders don’t reveal any wins by a Spanker, so it’s likely that he was entered under other names or another ownership. This might have been done for his safety, because of the raging public controversy around his owner.
But when the first General Stud Book was published in 1791, its authors stated firmly that Spanker was “the best horse at Newmarket in Charles II’s reign.” Turkish genes may have given Spanker the longer stride that was now needed to win. Today the Unofficial Thoroughbred Hall of Fame calls him “the first star of the early British turf.”
Sadly, George might not have seen his horse win. While the silver plate was being awarded, he may have sat sweating in the dock at Parliament, answering a prosecutor’s questions.
Spanker and the Helmsley Turk were the cutting edge of a Turkish trend in racehorse breeding. In 1683 the Ottoman Turks were defeated at Vienna and fell back from their aim of occupying western Europe. As more defeats piled up, enough Turkish horses were captured on the battlefield that it rained Turks on England. The Byerley Turk arrived in the late 1680s, to become a major foundation sire. He was followed by dozens of others. With time, that missing lumbar vertebrae of Arabians and Barbs would virtually disappear from the Thoroughbred, as the breed grew taller and bigger- framed, with a visible Turkish stamp.
Home at Last
In 1681, at age 53, Villiers left public life in disgust. He paid off some of his debts by selling Cliveden and other properties. But he held onto Helmsley, and made it his home for the first time. Income from tenant farmers provided some cash flow. His old retainers had stayed very loyal, so he could even keep a small staff.
There, under the shadow of the half-ruined castle, he and his wife lived a strange recluse life in the antiquated manor house. The once-athletic gentleman whose smile dazzled the world was now a hefty country squire with a few wooden teeth, chugging ale with other squires at the Cock and Bottle Inn. George founded the Bilsdale Hunt, put together the first pack of hounds, and spent pleasant days fox-hunting with his new cronies. Even then, a certain shredded glamour still clung to him. A mistress or two still came and went from Helmsley, along with a boyfriend or two, including George Etheredge, who was still in touch. Finally his long-suffering wife moved out.
The sad day came when George’s racehorses had to be sold to pay bills. The Helmsley Turk went to Lord Darcy’s older brother, the Earl of Holderness. Grey Peg joined the band of royal mares at Lord Darcy’s stud. Spanker was sold to Sir Charles Pelham in Lincolnshire. From then on, the horse was known as Mr. Pelham’s Bay Arabian. He was still alive in the 1690s – siring Newmarket winners and a bevy of foundation mares, thus establishing his own historic sire line. Soon the rundown Helmsley stables sheltered only a few horses for hunting.
In February 1685, word came from London that his estranged brother King Charles had died suddenly. Since Charles had no legitimate children, he was succeeded by his brother James II.
In 1685, the Duke fired one last shot at the church establishment from his stable door. He published a pamphlet asking “whether there be anything more directly opposite to the doctrine and practice of Jesus Christ, than to use any kind of force upon men, in matters of religion?” He accused those who used force of being anti-Christian.
Two years later, in April 1687, while the aging Duke was out hunting one day, he fell ill or had a riding accident – accounts vary. Somebody carried him to the home of a tenant in Kirkbymoorside, six miles from Helmsley. There he lingered for several days. Word went out by galloping messengers that he was dying, and churchmen rushed to his bedside, hoping to get him to repent. Accounts vary on whether he did or didn’t.
On April 16, George Villiers died. He was 59.
The new King, also a friend to tolerance, gave him a state funeral. George joined his father, brother, sister, grandmother and his college love Abraham Cowley among the quiet tombs of Westminster Abbey.
Since George and Mary never had children, the title of Duke of Buckingham reverted to the crown. George’s sister had no surviving children as well. But the family line continued through the 1st Duke’s siblings. The Villiers’ most famous descendent today would be Princess Diana, whose pedigree goes back to the Duke of Grafton, Charles II’s out-of-wedlock son with George’s cousin Barbara Villiers.
George left no will, just a pile of debts. So Parliament passed a measure allowing Helmsley to be sold, and it went to Sir Charles Duncombe, a wealthy banker whose family had done property deals with George’s father. The Duncombes, and their descendants the Fevershams, never lived at the Helmsley manor – indeed, no one lived there again after the Duke died, and the place fell into decay. Instead the family built a new mansion elsewhere on the estate and became horse breeders in their turn. The present Lord Feversham lives there today.
Part of the estate is now a riding school, where David Wilkinson tells me he identified what he believes to be the original Tudor-era stables, where Old Bald Peg and maybe the Helmsley Turk were born. The ruined castle itself, and its manor house, still stand starkly amid the green meadows, now the property of English Heritage and partly restored for the benefit of growing tourism.
Yorkshire itself is still the Kentucky of England. Its tracks and open country stir with the thump of hoofs as racehorses train. One of the big races on the calendar is still the Newmarket Town Plate.
The Legacy
A few years after George’s death, England finally started passing laws that provided a growing measure of religious tolerance. The Duke’s deepest convictions also made hoofprints to the colonies that would become the United States of America, along with the first Thoroughbreds exported there. William Penn and other Quaker settlers would give a major push to establishment of tolerance in the U.S. The sentiments in George’s parting pamphlet would be echoed by Thomas Jefferson.
Recent genetic research on Thoroughbreds reveals that DNA tracing directly back to Old Bald Peg, through her own “family,” can still be found in the breed.
For LGBT people today, the Villiers story raises intriguing questions about human pedigrees. Is there a “gay gene”? What ancestor might have passed a gay gene down to the 1st Duke of Buckingham? Did his son turn out bisexual because of social environment or genetics? Or both? What about George’s sister, Mary? Was she a lesbian, and if so, did she inherit a sexual-orientation gene from a gay father? Today, as in George’s day, the church lobby is quick to hand down its dire Biblical judgment on this question, but science has yet to finish its work here.
Today the sport of Kings seems tolerant of its two sexually unorthodox pioneers, the 17th-century Dukes of Buckingham. Thoroughbred Heritage states online that “horses on the Helmsley estate were central to the evolution of the Thoroughbred.”
This October, the 2007 Breeders Cup gets underway at Monmouth Park in New York State. Millions of fans will be keyed up for two days of world-championship racing that honor the great breeders of our time. The horses will be flown in from all over the world. As they parade to the post, they walk tall, often 16 hands or more at the shoulder. As they spring from the starting gate, their long strides -- 25 feet or more -- will eat up the track with blazing speed.
Maybe, just maybe, one or two are descendants of horses bred by that long-ago father and son.
Further reading:
Books:
George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, 1628-1687: A Study in the History of the Restoration, by Winifred, Lady Burghclere (John Murray, London, 1903).
Memoirs of the Court of England During the Reign of the Stuarts, by John Heneage Jesse (Richard Bentley, London, 1855).
Wits and Beaux of Society, by Grace and Philip Wharton (George Routledge and Sons, London, 1871).
Rochester and Other Literary Rakes of the Court of Charles II, by Thomas De Longueville (1902)
King James & Letters of Homoerotic Desire, by David M. Bergeron (University of Iowa Press, 1999).
Early Horse Racing in Yorkshire and the Origins of the Thoroughbred, by David Wilkinson (Old Bald Peg Publications, York, England, 2003).
The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart England, by Peter Edwards (Cambridge University Press, England, 2002).
The History of Newmarket, and Annals of the Turf, Volumes I-III, by J. P. Hore (London, A. H. Bailey & Company, 1886)[/url]
The First Nick?
Godolphin Arabian/Barb x Bald Galloway and/or Bald Galloway's family.
I did some research about this years ago and published an article about it.
At the time, I was using my updated Tesiopower database.
http://www.pedigreepost.net/archives/SiblingsAndreaHoogendoorn.html
Excuse the rather poor sentence structure in some of the paragraphs. I seem to recall being in a bit of rush at the time and didn't give it the adequate edit over. LOL!!
Anyways, I find it ironic that our boy Little Janus(the father of the American QH) is also inbred to this family that I highly suspect is a pure running horse female line.
Perhaps this is where the fast twitch gene comes from?
Pure speculation of course, but it does make you wonder.
Godolphin Arabian/Barb x Bald Galloway and/or Bald Galloway's family.
I did some research about this years ago and published an article about it.
At the time, I was using my updated Tesiopower database.
http://www.pedigreepost.net/archives/SiblingsAndreaHoogendoorn.html
Excuse the rather poor sentence structure in some of the paragraphs. I seem to recall being in a bit of rush at the time and didn't give it the adequate edit over. LOL!!
Anyways, I find it ironic that our boy Little Janus(the father of the American QH) is also inbred to this family that I highly suspect is a pure running horse female line.
Perhaps this is where the fast twitch gene comes from?
Pure speculation of course, but it does make you wonder.
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xfactor fan
- Breeder's Cup Winner
- Posts: 2212
- Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:46 pm
Interesting take on the early years of the TB.
I can see three elements:
Sprinter muscle--Hobbie
Large Frame--Turkoman
Increased Cardio--Arab
Lots of sprinter muscle on a large frame with normal heart function=Sprinter
Large Frame, without the sprinter muscle=slow
Large frame, with increased cardio=distance horse
The classic distance horse needs to have as much fast twitch sprinter muscle as the cardio can support on a large frame.
Eclipse hit the trifecta with this combination. Secretariat in this century.
Now the question is how is each of these elements inherited, and how can breeders hit their own trifecta??
I can see three elements:
Sprinter muscle--Hobbie
Large Frame--Turkoman
Increased Cardio--Arab
Lots of sprinter muscle on a large frame with normal heart function=Sprinter
Large Frame, without the sprinter muscle=slow
Large frame, with increased cardio=distance horse
The classic distance horse needs to have as much fast twitch sprinter muscle as the cardio can support on a large frame.
Eclipse hit the trifecta with this combination. Secretariat in this century.
Now the question is how is each of these elements inherited, and how can breeders hit their own trifecta??
Secretariat and his maternal QH relative Dash For Cash has always had me wondering if there is a speed connection in that mtDNA line.
I mean, it could be total coincidence but the two biggest freaks of two different breeds both come from the mare Imperatrice?
Awfully BIG coincidence if you ask me.
Bold Ruler did contribute many valuable genes but most believed this is where Secretariat got his speed and Somethingroyal contributed the stamina.
Perhaps momma gave a potential double whammy for both and something in Bold Ruler "turned-on" both the fast twitch and cardio?
Cardio stamina from Pricequillo?
Anyways, this female line has always fascinated me...to say the least. LOL!
I mean, it could be total coincidence but the two biggest freaks of two different breeds both come from the mare Imperatrice?
Awfully BIG coincidence if you ask me.
Bold Ruler did contribute many valuable genes but most believed this is where Secretariat got his speed and Somethingroyal contributed the stamina.
Perhaps momma gave a potential double whammy for both and something in Bold Ruler "turned-on" both the fast twitch and cardio?
Cardio stamina from Pricequillo?
Anyways, this female line has always fascinated me...to say the least. LOL!
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xfactor fan
- Breeder's Cup Winner
- Posts: 2212
- Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:46 pm
The mtDNA adds another element to the mix. According to some of the research, different lines of mtDNA have different energy aptitudes, and it does influence distance preferences.
I really wish that the Jockey Club would mtDNA all horses registered for a couple of years. Would sort out the stud book in short order.
I really wish that the Jockey Club would mtDNA all horses registered for a couple of years. Would sort out the stud book in short order.
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Bill from WA
- Breeder's Cup Contender
- Posts: 1936
- Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 11:20 am
- Location: Mountlake Terrace, WA
HI
This is not new, but I found it interesting. Forgive me if you have already read it.
http://biocomplexity.indiana.edu/jglazi ... thesis.pdf
Bill
This is not new, but I found it interesting. Forgive me if you have already read it.
http://biocomplexity.indiana.edu/jglazi ... thesis.pdf
Bill
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is like a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
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Pan Zareta
- Breeder's Cup Winner
- Posts: 2074
- Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:55 am
- Location: west TX boonies
Diomed,
If you're a member of tbpedix you may recall discussion of Harrison & Turrion-Gomez's 2006 study that identified a correlation between some mtDNA haplotypes and distance aptitude. The aspect of that report I found most intriguing was that variation in 'coding' mtDNA was found within individuals whose D-loop ('non-coding') was identical. Since D-loop should be able to sustain more mutations that suggests, at least to me, that neither that study nor Hill's (2002) sequenced enough D-loop to fully discriminate among the mtDNA haplotypes present in their sample populations.
Dash For Cash & Secretariat's branch (2-s) of family 2 is quite populous & has spawned winners at all distances. Hill sequenced 7 individuals identified by stud book record as members of family 2 (tho' undidentified as to branch designation). All were found to have the haplotype identified in that study as 'F', which was also found in all sampled members of families 7,8,17,&22, as well as in some sampled members of families 1 and 16. Additional sequencing might well allow refinement of that finding.
Identifying female families/branches that have been successful in both the TB and QH is of particular interest to me. In tabling some of the small, unnumbered, families I ran across the line designated Family a86 for research purposes. It was and is marginal in the TB but has really flourished in the QH. Can't help but wonder if the mtDNA haplotype had something to do w/ that.
If you're a member of tbpedix you may recall discussion of Harrison & Turrion-Gomez's 2006 study that identified a correlation between some mtDNA haplotypes and distance aptitude. The aspect of that report I found most intriguing was that variation in 'coding' mtDNA was found within individuals whose D-loop ('non-coding') was identical. Since D-loop should be able to sustain more mutations that suggests, at least to me, that neither that study nor Hill's (2002) sequenced enough D-loop to fully discriminate among the mtDNA haplotypes present in their sample populations.
Dash For Cash & Secretariat's branch (2-s) of family 2 is quite populous & has spawned winners at all distances. Hill sequenced 7 individuals identified by stud book record as members of family 2 (tho' undidentified as to branch designation). All were found to have the haplotype identified in that study as 'F', which was also found in all sampled members of families 7,8,17,&22, as well as in some sampled members of families 1 and 16. Additional sequencing might well allow refinement of that finding.
Identifying female families/branches that have been successful in both the TB and QH is of particular interest to me. In tabling some of the small, unnumbered, families I ran across the line designated Family a86 for research purposes. It was and is marginal in the TB but has really flourished in the QH. Can't help but wonder if the mtDNA haplotype had something to do w/ that.
Pan Zareta,
I haven't participated in TBPedix in quite some time due to various factors that have contained my time for study and research.
I have just recently started back into the fray, and although I am still a member, I rarely participate in discussion lately because I have noticed that certain members are no longer participating.
Thanks for the info on that recent study.
Is there anything published I could read?
The female lines are my obsession in this field.
I just can't help myself. There are so many more of them!! Male lines are boring!
I haven't participated in TBPedix in quite some time due to various factors that have contained my time for study and research.
I have just recently started back into the fray, and although I am still a member, I rarely participate in discussion lately because I have noticed that certain members are no longer participating.
Thanks for the info on that recent study.
Is there anything published I could read?
The female lines are my obsession in this field.
I just can't help myself. There are so many more of them!! Male lines are boring!