Renowned bloodstock writer Tony Morris with the 25th in his series celebrating 100 horses instrumental in shaping the Thoroughbred.
Fairway, br c, 1925, Phalaris – Scapa Flow, by Chaucer
Britain’s premier owner-breeder in the 20th century, Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, was indebted to the descendants of stock bred by his father, the 16th Earl, for much of the success that attended him over nearly four decades.
But the son also achieved outstanding results from families he introduced to the stud, two notable examples dating from purchases made at Tattersalls in 1912.
At the December auction, he had the final bid at 1,550gns for William Hall Walker’s ten-year-old mare Gondolette, in foal to dual Classic winner Minoru. Inside her was Serenissima, who would became dam of Selene and grand-dam of Hyperion, among much else of serious quality.
Derby had also been a buyer at the much less important auction staged during Newmarket’s second Spring meeting. There his somewhat surprising purchase, for 1,300gns, was Anchora, a 7-year-old racemare by Gold Cup winner Love Wisely.
Anchora had been bred by the celebrated theatre manager George Edwardes, who dabbled in bloodstock while earning renown as the ‘father of musical comedy’. Having started out in selling races, Anchora had run 48 times in her breeder’s colours, collecting eight wins as a modest handicapper most effective between ten and 12 furlongs.
An easy mare to mate
What attracted Derby to her is anybody’s guess. Her pedigree seemed about as moderate as her athletic ability, but she could at least be credited with toughness. As a 6-year-old she had a busy campaign of 15 races, registering two wins at Lingfield and another at Brighton.
Anchora had won a handicap at Birmingham on her first start in 1912, then ran down the field in the City and Suburban Handicap at Epsom’s spring meeting. Next came her sale, followed by three starts in the famous black and white livery. A decent second of thirteen as favourite for a Lingfield handicap perhaps promised better than what ensued – unplaced efforts at Epsom and Ascot.
Anchora’s pedigree background was always going to make her an easy mare to mate, with several of Derby’s own stallions appealing as appropriate choices. For her first covering in 1913, she was matched with Chaucer, who was already exceeding expectations, having got an outstanding son in Stedfast from his first crop, and the outcome was a bonny filly called Scapa Flow, who took some time to persuade her breeder that the cross had been a success.
Her racing career took place in wartime, when Derby had a role to fulfil for his Government and another as a key representative for the breeding industry, arguing – successfully – for the continuation of racing, albeit on a much reduced scale. Such were his responsibilities, one way and another, he never got around to correcting the spelling of his filly’s name. She was Scarpa Flow for the duration of her racing career.
She had two starts as a juvenile in 1916, opening with a dull unplaced effort in a 5-furlong Newmarket seller that attracted 22 runners. Ten days later she reappeared as a surprising 5/2 favourite for a minor race at Gatwick over the same distance in which she finished third, albeit six lengths behind the winner.
The misnamed filly grew a bit over the winter and showed a good attitude in training, so Derby was encouraged to persevere with her, but in her first four runs as a 3-year-old she showed nothing.
Seeking weaker competition, she was sent to Stockton for a 5-furlong seller, and suspecting that she might show to better advantage there, trainer George Lambton asked Scottish-based colleague John McGuigan to put in a friendly claim for her. The request was granted, and the filly, runner-up for the first time in her life, was retained to keep trying for the opportunity to earn a role among the Derby broodmare band.
She needed to become a winner to warrant belief in her as a prospective broodmare in the nation’s leading stud, and that Stockton performance did not bring it any nearer. Scapa Flow ran second in a modest event over Newmarket’s Rowley Mile, then was second again in a 7-furlong seller on the same course.
As she was beaten only a length by the winner, to whom she was conceding 5lb, and he found a buyer at 520gns, how was it that nobody bothered to put in a claim for Scapa Flow? She was disappointing again in her next run over seven furlongs at Newmarket, but she then confounded form students by winning three of her last four starts.
She benefited from the conditions for the Bramber Plate over a mile and a half at Brighton and won it by a neck as favourite. Back at Stockton for a handicap over the same distance, she was again a winning favourite, despite the fact that her jockey was obliged to ride at 4lb overweight.
Lambton’s error
Scapa Flow’s last two starts were on her home territory. She faced some obviously superior rivals in the Rutland Handicap, but back in weaker company for the Scarbrough Stakes she gave what was probably the best performance of her life, again over 12 furlongs. Conceding weight to most of her rivals, she won in good style, closing her career with a record of three victories from 14 runs.
A review of Scapa Flow’s racecourse performances inevitably leads one to question why it took her trainer so long to realise that she could stay a mile and a half and, indeed, was most effective at that distance. Had not her poor efforts over sprint distances suggested that longer trips might suit her, as they had suited Anchora?
We have seen how Lambton campaigned Chaucer, an in-and-out performer who tended to win when wanted, most obviously when Lord Derby sought success at Liverpool, his home course. There is nothing to indicate that his training of Scapa Flow was geared to providing his patron with betting opportunities. It seems more likely that Lambton was just not half as cute as some believed him to be and found out his error rather late.
Scapa Flow’s first mating was with John o’ Gaunt, sire most famously of St Leger winner and champion 4-year-old Swynford. The outcome was Spithead, already a gelding when he made an inauspicious debut in a Manchester seller as a back-end 2-year-old. He found better form later in handicap company and at six won a competitive Chester Cup.
In due course, Scapa Flow would produce another who thrived at handicap level in Highlander, a gelded son of Coronach who won for the 21st and last time as a 9-year-old in 1939. But her most successful matings were those with Phalaris, Derby’s 2-time champion sprinter. The pair’s first liaison resulted in Pharos, runner-up in the Derby won by Papyrus, and there would be eight further encounters, three of them fruitless. Only one who ran failed to win, the others including Classic celebrities Fairway and Fair Isle.
High opinion
Pharos’s own story will feature later in this series, so for now let it suffice to mention that, as a runner, he was markedly inferior to his younger sibling, and he was second-best again as a sire, judged on the pair’s overall records at stud. But Fairway had no counterpart to the older brother’s Nearco.
Fairway arrived at racing age in 1927, the year when Frank Butters took charge of the Derby string. The new incumbent at Stanley House soon formed a high opinion of Fairway, earmarking him for a tilt at Royal Ascot’s Coventry Stakes, which in those days was run over five furlongs.
A preliminary run in the Eglinton Stakes at York was supposed to put him straight for his Ascot target, and the public, well aware of the talent he had shown at home, sent him off favourite to make a successful debut. But Fairway was not the first great horse to fluff his lines on his initial experience of racing. He was slow to break, ran green, and was not punished when victory became impossible. Sixth place in a field of 15 was no disgrace anyway.
The York result was no reason to abandon the Ascot plan, and four weeks on from his debut Fairway was ready to deliver in the Coventry the kind of performance that his connections had always believed was in him. He had 19 to beat, and he trounced them – the verdict, three lengths and the same.
Fairway was aimed next for Newmarket’s July Stakes, contested over an interim distance, nearer six furlongs than five. He had a proper test there, and it was only in the very last stride that Tommy Weston conjured a decisive thrust that brought him victory by a head over Charlie Smirke’s mount, the Aga Khan’s colt, Hakim.
In his previous two races, Hakim had won the Spring Stakes at Kempton and the New Stakes at Ascot, and in the two after his clash with Fairway he added commanding triumphs in the Chesterfield Stakes at Newmarket and the Lavant Stakes at Goodwood. He was naturally recognised as a serious rival to Fairway for 2-year-old honours, but broke a leg on the Whatcombe gallops towards the end of August.
Controversial ratings
Fairway won the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster pretty much as he liked by two lengths, but he became lame soon afterwards and had to miss his intended final juvenile target in the Middle Park Stakes. It hardly mattered to Lord Derby, whose improving colt Pharamond broke his maiden in that prestige test.
The Jockey Club’s official handicapper went out of his way to be controversial in his Free Handicap ratings, inexplicably placing Fairway only joint-top of his generation with two colts who had dubious claims to recognition and were not to enhance their reputations at three.
Fairway was decidedly the best 2-year-old of 1927, and he proceeded to become the best 3-year-old of 1928 and the best older horse at 4 in 1929.
However, his second season did not begin well. In the early spring, he was plagued with boils around the mouth, and a particularly untimely one appeared just a few days before his planned return in the 2000 Guineas. That soon responded to treatment, but it was followed by an inflamed gland that caused an abscess to form. That did not burst until noon on the day before the Classic, and it was deemed prudent to scratch him.
Pharamond, who would have been the Butters stable’s second string, performed surprisingly well to finish fourth, under two lengths behind the winner, Flamingo. Fairway had always shown himself far superior to Pharamond at home, so the Stanley House team felt sure that he would have won the Guineas if he had run.
Fairway was not out of action for long. Two weeks after the first Classic, he started as even-money favourite for the Newmarket Stakes, and he evidently relished the ten-furlong test, winning in fine style by two lengths and three from a dozen rivals. The manner of that performance seemed to indicate that he was a better bet to stay the Derby distance than his brother Pharos, who had just failed to last home in the 1923 renewal.
Mobbed at Epsom
It was not want of stamina but his nervous disposition that caused Fairway to disappoint at Epsom. His highly-strung nature had never been a secret, and the ordeal he suffered as he walked towards the Derby start effectively cooked his goose. A section of the crowd, totally out of control, mobbed the favourite, some going as far as to pull hairs from his tail.
In such circumstances, it was no wonder that Fairway was sweating profusely and in obvious distress when he came to face the starter. He never promised to get involved at the business end of proceedings and wound up 13th in the field of 19.
Not unnaturally, the Epsom evidence of Fairway’s vulnerability meant that many punters were disinclined to trust him when he reappeared for the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park. Only third in the market at 9/2, he rewarded those who kept the faith with a superb performance that brought him an 8-length victory over Royal Minstrel.
Fairway had two more outings that season. Lingering doubts about his staying capacity meant that he started as a generous 7/4 chance in the St Leger, when one crack of Tommy Weston’s whip sufficed to ensure his success. Punters had to trade at odds-on when the colt ended his season in the Champion Stakes, and his winning margin of a neck over the good 5-year-old mare Foliation clearly under-estimated his superiority.
Fairway had six races as a 4-year-old, winning five of them, demonstrating remarkable versatility in terms of distance. He began with a Newmarket victory over a mile and a half in the Burwell Stakes, then collected Ascot’s Rous Memorial Stakes at a little less than a mile. Next came a ready victory at 4/1 on in the Princess of Wales’s Stakes, beating three rivals back at 12 furlongs.
A second triumph in the Eclipse Stakes seemed a certainty after that, as Royal Minstrel was the only one of seven rivals boasting top-class form, and he had been trounced by Fairway in the previous year. Just why the apparently inevitable did not happen is a mystery for which no solution ever emerged. The 5/2 on favourite simply failed to fire, finishing four lengths behind Royal Minstrel.
That was to be the last defeat in Fairway’s career. He won his second Champion Stakes, defeating a solitary rival in Cyclonic, whom he had beaten twice before, then rounded off his season against two opponents in the Jockey Club Cup, whose distance of two and a quarter miles was supposed to provide a thorough test of his stamina. The public trusted him, sending him off at 6/4 on, and he secured an emphatic win, beating Palais Royal – third in the previous day’s Cambridgeshire – by three lengths.
That result gave encouragement for the plan to keep Fairway in training as a 5-year-old with Ascot’s Gold Cup as his chief objective. He would tune up for that target in the Coronation Cup, and although he had no engagement at Epsom’s April meeting he was taken to the fixture for reassurance that he had forgotten his nerve-racking Derby experience.
He passed that test and his preparation was proceeding well until trouble with a foreleg tendon developed. In mid-May came the announcement that his racing career was over, and within three weeks he was fully booked at 400gns for his first season at Woodland Stud in 1931.
The demand for his services came as no surprise. He had been a champion in each of three seasons, was arguably unlucky not to have become a Triple Crown winner, and as a 4-year-old he was widely acclaimed as the best racehorse on the planet. In addition, he was full brother to a Derby runner-up and highly regarded stallion – Pharos – who had been based in France since 1929.
Star of the first crop
In keeping with tradition, Fairway was not kept busy in his first stud season. He covered only 20 mares and there were just 13 live outcomes. From that mini-crop, four colts showed high-class form, Hairan being the first to excel with his juvenile double in the Coventry and Dewhurst Stakes. He went on to win the Sussex Stakes in the following year, setting a trend for his sire’s stock, who usually improved on their 2-year-old performances at 3.
The real star turn among the 1932 foals was Fair Trial, who did not start at 2, but who had Royal Ascot victories to his credit at 3 (Queen Anne Stakes) and 4 (Rous Memorial Stakes). In his only defeat at 3, he claimed a good third place behind Windsor Lad and Theft in the Eclipse Stakes.
He went on to meet with notable success at stud, the first of many sons to prove Fairway’s merit as a sire of sires. Branches of his male line thrived, especially through Court Martial and Petition. The latter’s line peaked with the exceptional Brigadier Gerard.
With his first 3-year-olds in action, Fairway reached second place on the sires’ list, and in the following season he was at the top for the first of four occasions. Among the chief contributors to the title success from his second crop were Pay Up and Tide-way, winners of the 2000 and 1000 Guineas respectively. Taj Akbar, second in the Derby and winner of the Princess of Wales’s Stakes, was another prominent performer, while Ettore Tito became his sire’s first notable winner on the continent with his victory in the Gran Premio d’Italia.
The 2-year-olds from the third crop also excelled, ensuring that the 1936 earnings of Fairway’s stock at home were almost double those of runner-up Solario.
His best runner
Newmarket’s most coveted juvenile prizes, the Cheveley Park and Middle Park Stakes, were won respectively by Celestial Way and Fair Copy, while Kempton’s Imperial Produce Stakes fell to Lover’s Path and Sandown’s National Breeders’ Produce Stakes to Full Sail. Fair Copy would claim a sires’ championship in France in 1952, while Full Sail earned two such titles (1946 and 1948) in Argentina.
Solario, with the winners of Derby and Oaks, relegated Fairway to second place in 1937, but the latter was again represented by a leading 2-year-old. That was Portmarnock, ranked best of his crop in the Free Handicap after victories in the National Breeders’ Produce Stakes and Champagne Stakes.
He was to disappoint as a 3-year-old, and there was no headline act among the Fairway colts of that generation in 1938, though a filly from that crop, Joyce W, made her mark with success in the Yorkshire Oaks. But a couple of juveniles did themselves credit, Meadow with his win in the New Stakes at Ascot, Seaway with her triumph in the Cheveley Park Stakes. The colt would enjoy a successful spell as a sire in Argentina.
That relatively moderate season, which had Fairway down in fifth place, was followed by a return to the top, thanks largely to the achievements of the best runner he ever got. That was Blue Peter, who had failed to win as a 2-year-old, with a second in the Middle Park Stakes as the better of two efforts. He was a different proposition at 3, when he ran undefeated in four starts. He began with a 4-length victory in Epsom’s Blue Riband Trial Stakes, then took the 2000 Guineas in a field of 25, and added a wide-margin Derby success against 26 rivals. Tested for the first time against his elders, he notched a comfortable win in the Eclipse Stakes.
All that remained for Blue Peter was to complete the Triple Crown, and for a while the St Leger was billed as a great international showdown, with England’s best set to be challenged by undefeated Pharis, overwhelmingly the pick of the French 3-year-olds. But on September 3 Britain declared war on Germany and the prospect of an intriguing Classic three days later suddenly counted for nothing. The St Leger, a fixture in the calendar since 1776, would not take place in 1939.
Unresolved debate
There would never be a resolution of the Blue Peter – Pharis debate, and neither colt ran again. Most form analysts rated the son of Pharos more highly, and though Blue Peter had his moments as a sire, notably with a Derby and Gold Cup-winning son in Ocean Swell, the French horse compiled a far better stud record.
Even the best of stallions tend to experience a lull in their success rate, and the first two wartime seasons proved uneventful for Fairway’s progeny. He ranked 17th in 1940 and 15th in 1941, his only impact on the Classic scene being the third place for Firoze Din in Owen Tudor’s Derby. And he won nothing bar a Newbury maiden.
Fairway’s eighth crop, the foals of 1939, showed up better, and he was back up to second, behind Hyperion, in the sires’ list. There was a daughter who excelled as a miler, ten-time winner Lady Electra, and a colt in Watling Street who travelled the Triple Crown route, taking second place in the Guineas, winning the Derby, and finishing runner-up in the St Leger. There were high hopes for him as a sire, but he was to prove disappointing, both in Europe and the U.S.
Fairway’s 3-year-olds were instrumental in bringing him a third sires’ title in 1943. He had the winner and the third – Kingsway and Way In – in the 2000 Guineas and a first Irish Classic success through Solferino in the Curragh’s St Leger. But there was tough luck for the filly Ribbon, who had won the Middle Park Stakes in her first season. She finished second by a neck in both 1000 Guineas and Oaks, and by a short-head in the St Leger.
The crop foaled in 1941 included three fillies of note. First to the fore was Fair Fame, who registered wins in the Queen Mary and Cheveley Park Stakes, but Annetta would outrank her by reason of her win in the Irish 1000 Guineas, and Garden Path – full-sister to Watling Street – came to overshadow both of them by winning the 2000 Guineas and starting favourite against the colts again in the Derby.
Free sweaters
Honeyway was not a major contributor to his sire’s fourth and final title in 1944, but his form as an older horse made him stand out as the best and most versatile of his crop. He finished first, second and third in three bids for the July Cup, and confirmed his speedster status with a string of other fine displays in high-grade sprints, but at 5 he also collected the Champion Stakes at ten furlongs over top-class middle-distance performers. His 16th and final victory at 6 came in a minor race over a mile and a half at Thirsk. Through his son Great Nephew he would become grandsire of Grundy and Shergar.
There were no real stars among the last five crops by Fairway, but there was an Irish Derby hero in Piccadilly in 1945, and the fine record of his sons ensured demand for prospective stallions overseas. The Yuvaraj, a 9-time winner foaled in 1943, emulated Meadow as a successful sire in Argentina, and his year-younger brother Ranjit won six races in England and five more in South Africa, where his stud record was good.
Dogger Bank, out of dual Classic heroine Herringbone, was the best from his sire’s final crop. He won the Princess of Wales’s Stakes to earn a berth at stud in New Zealand, where he achieved impressive results.
Fairway stamped his stock, few of his products carrying much flesh, and many were generally free sweaters. Among his fillies who raced prominently at 2 were a significant number who failed to train on, their nervous energy dissipated early through their tendency to sweat.
Although Fairway appeared 11 times among the leading ten sires of broodmares, and headed that table in 1946 and 1947, it was the quantity of the winners that they produced, rather than their quality, that brought him notice in that respect. It is a remarkable fact that none bred the winner of an English Classic.
Fairway was 20 years old when Lord Derby called a halt to his stud career. From 1946 the horse was troubled by a gradually worsening paralysis of the hind quarters, and he was put out of his misery in November 1948, nine months after the death of his owner-breeder.