Renowned bloodstock writer Tony Morris with the 27th in his series celebrating 100 horses instrumental in shaping the Thoroughbred breed.
Birdcatcher, ch, 1833, Sir Hercules – Guiccioli, by Bob Booty
Volume IV of the General Stud Book, published in 1840, recorded the births of two colts who were registered with the name Birdcatcher, one in England, the other in Ireland.
The English-foaled version was a bay son of St Leger hero St Patrick, born in 1829. From three to five years he proved a regular winner in the brown and white colours of Sir Richard Williams Bulkeley, recording his best performance when failing by only a length to emulate his sire in the Doncaster Classic. His exploits as a runner earned him a chance as a stallion, but he was to make no mark in that role.
The other Birdcatcher, a foal of 1833, was – literally and figuratively – a horse of a different colour. He was a chesnut by the black Sir Hercules, a son of 1810 Derby winner Whalebone who had arrived in Ireland as an embryo inside Peri, a mare deemed surplus to requirements at Petworth, where the 3rd Earl of Egremont had a stud that had flourished for over 40 years.
Sir Hercules and his Birdcatcher proved to be the principal influences responsible for a rise in the reputation of Irish racing, which had hitherto been regarded as the poor relation of its English counterpart. Before them use of the epithet ‘Irish’ in connection with the Thoroughbred implied an inferior product; the pair’s successes, on the racecourse and at stud, changed all that. The rebranding of Irish Birdcatcher did not just distinguish him from a namesake; it identified him as a superior individual.
Sir Hercules was the unbeaten best two-year-old of 1828 in Ireland, winning three races at the Curragh and walking over for a fourth. He then crossed to England for a three-year-old campaign, which began with a win in a respectable event at York in the spring.
Stud duties in Ireland
In the autumn he reappeared twice at Doncaster, reaching third place in the St Leger and, three days later, collecting another win in a valuable race against two rivals. At four he had a single start, winning the important Claret Stakes at Newmarket in a canter. He ran unplaced for the first time in his career in the Stand Cup at Liverpool as a five-year-old, then returned to Ireland to take up stud duties at Summerhill in Co. Meath.
In September 1833, when his first crop were only foals, Sir Hercules was sent for auction at Doncaster and knocked down to an American purchaser for 750gns. If that deal had been consummated, the history of the Thoroughbred would have developed differently on both sides of the Atlantic. As it happened, the buyer found an excuse to renege on the transaction, and for the 1834 stud season Sir Hercules was advertised to stand at Edmund Tattersall’s Dawley Wall Farm, near Uxbridge.
The horse who was to become Irish Birdcatcher came from the first crop of Sir Hercules, along with two fillies who were to earn distinction in Maria and Water Witch; Cruiskeen, a mare who would surpass the achievements of that pair, came in the second crop conceived at Summerhill.
An indication of the support given to Sir Hercules in his first season at stud may be gauged from the fact that when Birdcatcher made his debut at the Curragh in the valuable Paget Stakes in October 1835, he was one of six by the sire, including the first two home. Birdcatcher was an ‘also ran’ on that occasion, but he was quick off the mark at three, winning the first two of his six starts at that age, all at the Curragh.
He took the Madrid Stakes in May and the Milltown Stakes in June, and was twice second in September, to the Sir Hercules filly Maria in the Wellington Stakes, and to the four-year-old Whim in a second version of the Wellington Stakes three days later. At the October meeting he won a three-runner contest for the Peel Cup, then signed off for the season in November as third in the Mulgrave Handicap, when he was trying to give 17lb to the winner, aforementioned contemporary Water Witch.
Busy campaign
Birdcatcher’s four-year-old campaign was his busiest, and he had mixed results. It began well with an April victory in the Kildare Stakes, and before that week was over he had finished a respectable second to Blackfoot in the Wellington Stakes and was allowed to walk over when Blackfoot’s owner paid forfeit rather than renew opposition on worse terms in the Wellington Stakes Challenge.
At the June meeting Birdcatcher received forfeit in a match on Monday, won the King’s Plate over two miles on Tuesday. After a day off he finished second to the rising star Harkaway, who received 20lb, in the Northumberland Handicap. He was on parade again on Friday and Saturday, finishing last of three on both occasions, the first a King’s Plate over three miles (won by Harkaway), the second a King’s Plate over four miles.
By September King’s Plates had been superseded by Queen’s Plates, as Victoria succeeded William IV, but Birdcatcher bypassed that opportunity for an unsuccessful outing in the Challenge of the Wellington Stakes. His career ended in October in the Doric Stakes, a strange race run in heats described as ‘for hunters (race-horses admitted)’. Maria, Cruiskeen and Gipsy – all daughters of Sir Hercules – finished 1-2-3, while Birdcatcher finished unplaced in the first heat and did not turn out for the second.
The Racing Calendar for 1837, in its section devoted to stallions set to cover in 1838, provided extensive details about the racing record of a Birdcatcher who was to stand in Leicestershire at a fee of 10½ guineas. The advertisement read well enough, but was apt to confuse breeders, aware that there was another – at least equally worthy – Birdcatcher set to start out as a stallion in Ireland in 1838.
By the time of the publication of the fifth of the volume of the General Stud Book in 1845, there was need for clarification. The sire of that season’s St Leger winner The Baron was identified as Irish Birdcatcher, and thereafter was often referred to by that name.
Back and forth
He was never going to sire a plethora of important runners in every crop because he shifted bases often between England and Ireland, his reputation – and consequently – opportunities tending to fluctuate. But he had one crop that featured multiple star performers and latterly three consecutive crops delivered Classic winners.
Where was this horse during his innings at stud? He served at home in Ireland from 1838 to 1845, had his first season in England in 1846, then was back in Ireland for 1847 before another residence in England for 1848 and 1849. He stood in Ireland again in 1850 before his longest stint in England from 1851 to 1858, then returned to serve in Ireland in 1859 and 1860, his last two seasons as a stallion.
Birdcatcher was generally admired as a physical specimen, standing nearly 16 hands, with “a strong neck, fine shoulders, good girth and straight thighs and hocks”. He had a blaze and a near-hind that was white halfway to the hock. His tail exhibited a bunch of grey hairs, a feature he had acquired from Sir Hercules, but when they were noticed among any of his descendants they were always referred to as ‘Birdcatcher ticks’.
Reflected glories
There were no runners of real distinction from Birdcatcher’s first three crops, but he was not going to be forgotten while his sire continued to flourish. Sir Hercules had 2000 Guineas winner The Corsair from his second English-conceived crop, and two years later came Derby hero Coronation.
No less significant in Birdcatcher’s rising profile was the 1844 St Leger victory of his full sibling, a colt who raced as Foig-a-Ballagh, but was known as Faugh-a-Ballagh during his stud career.
All those events brought Birdcatcher a degree of reflected glory, but in 1845 he registered a major triumph of his own with the emergence of his son The Baron as a star performer. Unraced at two, that colt from his sire’s fourth crop had four starts at the Curragh, opening as an unexciting third of five in the first class of the Madrid Stakes in April, but he was a winner there three days later and registered a double at the June fixture, giving his owner encouragement for a campaign in England.
The Baron turned out first at Liverpool in July, reportedly as fat as a bull, and unsurprisingly ran unplaced. But his running on that occasion somehow persuaded England’s leading trainer, John Scott, that if the colt were to be transferred to his stable, he would be able to realise his potential as a top-class performer.
The Baron’s owner, Dublin-based veterinary surgeon George Watts, was only too pleased to learn of Scott’s belief, and gladly passed his homebred colt into the Malton trainer’s care.
Leger legend
On his next start at Doncaster eight weeks later The Baron duly became the tenth of Scott’s 16 St Leger winners, then survived an objection by connections of the runner-up, who claimed that he was a four-year-old. Examination of the colt’s mouth on the following day proved that he was the correct age for the Classic.
Scott was wont to say that The Baron required more work than any other horse he had trained. He had two more races as a three-year-old, carrying a 10lb penalty in both the Cesarewitch and the Cambridgeshire. He won the first cleverly by a length, but was out of the money in the shorter event. He ran in different colours in competitive races at four without adding to his tally of victories, then was sold to William Theobald who would start him out at his Stockwell Stud at a fee of 12gns.
Theobald had only limited success trying to persuade other breeders to support The Baron as a stallion, and in 1850 he decided that his best course of action was to accept an offer of £4,000 for him from France. Fortunately he had used The Baron on his mare Pocahontas in both 1848 and 1849, and those covers produced Stockwell and Rataplan, top-class runners, important afterwards for the breed in England.
Stockwell, successful in the 2000 Guineas and St Leger, would earn distinction as the ‘Emperor of Stallions’, winning seven sires’ titles in eight years. Rataplan also met with success at stud, with Derby hero Kettledrum among his progeny.
The Baron’s achievements in 1845 advertised his sire to English breeders, and in the following spring Birdcatcher was available at Barrow’s Paddocks in Newmarket. Nothing of major significance came from his spell there, but there were exceptional results from his first season’s covers at Easby Abbey Stud in Yorkshire. Among his 1849 products were Derby hero Daniel O’Rourke and the first three home in the Oaks – Songstress, Bird On The Wing and Gossamer. Another filly born that year was Mrs Ridgway, who would become the dam of Vedette, a 2000 Guineas winner and important sire.
Birdcatcher, who had just scraped into the top 20 in the 1850 Anglo-Irish sires’ table, reached fourth place in 1851 and ranked top in 1852. Fourth, fifth and third in the next three campaigns, he claimed his second title in 1856 and never ranked lower than eighth in the four seasons that followed.
The last of Birdcatcher’s notable Irish-bred performers was Knight Of St George, foaled in 1851. That colt’s maternal granddam was the afore-mentioned Water Witch, so his pedigree showed inbreeding to Sir Hercules in the second and third generations. He won the National Breeders’ Produce Stakes on the Curragh at two and earned a berth at stud by virtue of his 1854 St Leger victory.
Birdcatcher was back in Newmarket for the 1851 breeding season, his services available for no more than £15, and for that bargain basement price the 7th Duke of Bedford bred a filly, Habena, who would win him the 1000 Guineas and a prize of £2,400 in 1855.
Leased to Easby Abbey Stud again in 1852 and covering at 25gns, Birdcatcher served one of the largest books of his career, and among the outcomes were a second 1000 Guineas heroine in Manganese and a second victor of the St Leger in Warlock.
Birdcatcher’s last products of any real note were Saunterer, a foal of 1854, and Oxford, who arrived three years later. Saunterer won the Goodwood Cup as a four-year-old and because he seemed to be the closest physical model to his sire, he was granted excellent chances at stud. His patrons were generally disappointed, while Oxford, a winner of just two modest races, became a surprising success with an outstanding son in Sterling, who excelled over a variety of distances.
Significant contribution
Two branches of Birdcatcher’s male line have prospered, more notably that through Stockwell which led to the all-conquering Phalaris. Sterling headed the branch which included Triple Crown hero Isinglass and would continue to thrive through Blandford, champion sire on both sides of the English Channel.
Birdcatcher made a significant contribution to the breed, something already evident in his own lifetime, but that did not ensure him a happy ending. In March 1860 the 27-year-old senior citizen of a stallion proved unable to cover a mare named Queen Bee who was herself a grand-daughter of Birdcatcher.
William Disney was not a sentimental soul. He had owned the horse from his days in training, and he had earned substantial sums from that association over a quarter of a century. Now he had a useless horse, incapable of covering, so he sent a message to the local police station, requesting the presence of an officer with a loaded shotgun.
Birdcatcher was stood up on the edge of a sandpit and summarily executed.
• Read previous articles in Tony Morris’s 100 Shapers of the Breed
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Sir Mark Prescott: educated, erudite, refreshingly eccentric – and eyeing Arc success with Alpinista
‘A lightning strike of a racehorse’ – Jay Hovdey on the tragically brilliant Lost In The Fog
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