Childe Harold was no ordinary beast.

A son of the Hambletonian 10 horse Harold (sire also of the great trotting champion Maud S. and of the dams of 138 winners in all), he was from Young Portia, by Mambrino Chief.

Young Portia was later to become famous as the dam of Emblem, who became the second dam of the last of the high-wheeled champions, Arion as well as of a pacing champion, Flying Jib.

Bought by Hendrie from A. J. Alexander’s Woodburn Farm, Kentucky, as a two-year-old in 1873, Childe Harold began his remarkable competitive career the following year.

Making his debut in the International Handicap Stakes at Liverpool, England, Childe Harold capitalised on being very favourably placed by the assessor and defeated a field of aged horses, first in two preliminary heats and then in the best two of three final heats over two miles.

His fastest time for the distance was 5:04.

He then won the Champion Stallion race in London in 2:05 = the fastest mile time on any track outside the United States.

Later in that year, Childe Harold was beaten by the Russian trotter Zouberney in the Government Prize in Paris, and then suffered another defeat, at Wolverhampton, on his way home.

After that campaign, he was never again beaten.

Sent to Paris in 1879, Childe Harold won there, and then went on to Germany, where he prevailed in three events at Hamburg.

Two winning performances in Russia on that trip made the Muscovites believe that the American trotter was better than the Orloff.

On the way back to Scotland, he stopped off to win again at Glasgow.

His final start of the season was in Ireland, and he prevailed in a feature at Dublin.

The following year, 1880, Childe Harold again won in Paris.

He then showed lameness and was sent home.

In 1881, he trotted a public exhibition at Alexandra Park in London in 2:19, after which he won a number of slow races at home.

That year he was shown in the Glasgow Horse Show, not only winning his class but being declared Grand Champion.

Childe Harold repeated this performance in the Royal Show in London where he was paraded in action before Queen Victoria.

John Hendrie must surely have loved that horse.

And so it says volumes for the character and persuasiveness of Robert Wilkin that he was able to secure him for Andrew Town.

In his nine active years, Childe Harold had travelled thousands of miles on railroads, sailing vessels and steamboats.

Wherever he landed he achieved results no American-bred stallion had managed before.

Childe Harold was accompanied throughout his career in America, Europe and England by his American trainer Alec White.

When White came to Australia with the horse, he brought with him the first set of hopples seen in the colony.

They were to be used as cross-hopples to educate young trotters.

Such apparatus was used on trotters long before becoming conventional gear for pacers.

During his seven years at stud, Childe Harold did service that led to him becoming hailed as the ‘Hambletonian 10’ of Australia.

Sydney’s Harold Park perpetuates his name.

He was one of the main reasons for Australian standardbreds proving, apart from odd exceptions, a good deal superior to their New Zealand counterparts at the end of the old century and the start of the new.

New Zealand was eventually to be repaid for Robert Wilkin’s contribution to the Childe Harold saga by the great horse’s greatest string son, Rothschild, crossing the Tasman and in his turn becoming the nation’s ‘Hambletonian 10’.

Meanwhile, direct from Kentucky, Wilkin imported Blackwood Abdallah (by Homer, a son of Mambrino Patchen) and the yearling colt Vancleve (by Harold) to join Berlin at his up-to-date Holmwood Stud stable in Fendalton, Christchurch, as well as the mares Blue Grass Belle, Messenger Maid, Fannie Belle, Jeanie Tracey, Queen Emma and Woodburn Maid.

That same year (1882), Nelson sportsman John Kerr imported from America the stallions, Irvington, Fitz James, Bill Allen, Newland’s Hambletonian, and Pinole Patchen, plus the mares Fanny, Lady Allen and Lady Sylvia – all from California.

In 1884, Vancleve was shipped to Australia, where he was to become a champion trotter and sire.

The remainder of the Wilkin and Kerr importations – the first of the already firmly established American harness breed of racehorses to come here – were the stock which laid the foundation of the light-harness breeding industry of New Zealand.

Of this group, Fred Thomas and Karl Scott, in their chapter ‘Earliest Trotting Importations’ in Turf Tufts and Toe Weights, wrote: ‘…the influence of the majority of them became imperishable’.

Named no doubt not for the capital of Germany but for the small town in Kentucky near where he was foaled in 1870, Berlin was by Woodford’s Mambrino, son of Mambrino Chief and Woodbine, the latter by the thoroughbred Woodford.

Sue Dudley, dam of Berlin, was by Edwin Forrest from Madam Dudley, by The Bashaw Horse from a mare by May Day.

Like Childe Harold, he was secured from Woodburn Farm.

At the stud in Canterbury, Berlin was an immediate success as a sire.

His get included 60 winners (a considerable achievement in those early days) and numbered among them the champion trotting stallion Kentucky and top-class racehorse Stonewall Jackson.

Berlin’s son Kentucky joined the immortal names of harness history by siring Thelma, the greatest colonial-bred broodmare of all, whose hundreds of descendants are still producing high-class winners.

Other successful sires by Berlin included Lexington, General Tracey, Berlin Mac, Berlin Abdallah, Jay Gould, Wilkin and Emerson.

Daughters of Berlin, notably Puella and Fraulein, were big stud successes.

Puella was the dam of two champion pacers, Belmont M. and Almont, the latter’s Australasian record of 6:50 for three miles remaining intact when the distance was no longer attempted.

And the Puella family bred on down through the years.

Fraulein, like Puella a daughter of Berlin and Woodburn Maid, went as a yearling filly to New South Wales along with the three-year-old Harold colt Vancleve, to join the breeding stock of Andrew Town.

Vancleve developed the reputation of a ‘man-eater’, hopeless in harness and a shy foal-getter.

With Town, he lived in the shadow of Childe Harold.

On the death of Wilkin (who had leased him to Town), which virtually coincided with the tragic break-up of Hobartville, Vancleve was up for sale.

His faults known, there were no takers.

Vancleve was hawked around for some time until finally sold for the gift price of 55 guineas.

His luck had changed, because he could not have found a more patronising owner – J. A. (John) Buckland.

Born in 1858, Buckland was one of a well-to-do family.

His father, Thomas, was one-time president of the Bank of New South Wales, a position also held at one time by a nephew, Sir Thomas Buckland.

Forsaking medical studies for the land, John Buckland took over Wonbobbie Station at Warren and, later, Pine Ridge at Dunedoo.

Vancleve had come into good hands, and as a 12-year-old, at the 1893 Dubbo Show, became Australia’s first 2:30 trotter with a 2:28 mile.

Vancleve is also credited with a 2:16 ‘trial’, in Volume One of the Australian Trotting Stud Book published in 1910.

Buckland had also acquired Fraulein (Berlin – Woodburn Maid).

Aware of Wilkin’s intention to mate Berlin mares with Vancleve, Buckland began breeding Fraulein to Vancleve when she was four in 1888.

Her first colt foal, who was gelded and aptly named Fritz, became what still many still claim to have been the greatest trotter Australia has seen.

And Fritz was no fluke, as Vancleve became one of the most successful sires identified with Australian (and several New Zealand) champions to the present day.

Apart from immortal Fritz, Vancleve sired Durbar (a New Zealand Cup winner), Van Dieman (an Auckland Cup winner) and Quincey (winner of the Dominion Handicap for trotters), while numerous others of his get crossed the Tasman to win races in this country.

Though he did not serve a mare in New Zealand, Vancleve is credited with a remarkable 101 individual winners, 64 of whom won in New Zealand.

A big band of Vancleve mares came to New Zealand studs, the most celebrated of these being Vanquish, grand-dam of Worthy Queen – the Australasian trotting record-holder from 1934 to 1962.

Other Vancleve mares who set up most successful families in New Zealand included Verity, Daybreak, Archangel, Doris M., Hush, Cling, Ella G. and Whisp.

Wilkin’s other stallion import from America, Blackwood Abdallah was foaled in 1878.

He was by Homer (son of Mambrino Patchen and Dolly Chorister) from a Blackwood mare.

Bred by Bryant Hurst, of Lexington, Kentucky, he passed to B. J. Tracey before Carter secured him for Wilkin.

Neither in appearance nor pedigree did he compare with Berlin, but he was well patronised at the Fendalton stud and later at Ashburton, and sired 57 winners. After Wilkin’s death in 1887, Blackwood Abdallah was bought by Prussian-born Max Friedlander, who with his brothers Hugo (master of the noted Kelbourne Stud) and Rudolph established in the Ashburton district one of New Zealand’s largest grain agencies.

Of the other Blackwood Abdallah mares, Miss Poole founded a line of top trotters and Miss Tracey (daughter of the imported Jeanie Tracey) is the taproot of a fine pacing family.

Other Blackwood Abdallah mares to establish dynasties of note included F.B., Mermaid, Fanny Wood, Murmur, Silver Bell, Miss Kate, Maggie L., and Rosewood.

Another claim to fame for Blackwood Abdallah is that his son Duncan Abdallah sired Wisconsin, the grand-dam of the racecourse idol of the 1930s, Harold Logan.

No less successful and influential on the New Zealand harness sport than the stallions secured by John Carter for Robert Wilkin were the six mares that came out from America in 1882.

Jeanie Tracey was by Tom Stamp (son of Abdallah and Blandina) from an unnamed daughter of Bourbon Chief (son of Mambrino Chief) and Lutie Rogers, whose grandsire was a thoroughbred. Jeanie Tracey produced seven winners: Kentucky, Mambrino King, General Tracey, Victor C., Rosengall, Oakland, and Miss Tracey.

Kentucky, a champion trotter, sired the great Thelma and 45 other winners, among them sires and mares who were stud successes. Mambrino King, General Tracey and Miss Tracey likewise founded branches of the family that bred on.

Messenger Maid was bred in Kentucky by H. C. Mock. She was by Messenger Chief from an unnamed mare by Davey Crockett Junior from a daughter of Mambrino Chief. Messenger Maid left three winners including Jessie Palm (by Rothschild), who ranks as one of the greatest juvenile trotters bred in New Zealand.

Other Messenger Maid daughters whose families included good winners were Warlass, (a surviving twin by Berlin) and Mersey (by Jersey).

Queen Emma, by Eric from Sue Dudley, left three colts – Boston, Emerson and Albert Chevalier – who all sired winners. She died before producing any fillies to carry on her line.

Blue Grass Belle was by Vanderbilt (son of Sentinel and grandson of Hambletonian 10) from Lady Patriot (also known as The Hughley Mare) by Edwin Forrest.

She left two winners and many more trace to her. Numerous winners also trace to Fannie Belle (by Mambrino King from Fannie Cloud, by Flying Cloud) and Woodburn Maid (by the Belmont grandson Sterling from Brown Bread).