This family produced hurdlers, hunters, steeplechasers and flat racers, including winners of such races as the Gimcrack Stakes, the Great Northern St. Leger, the Manchester Handicap, the Northumberland Plate, the Liverpool Cup, the Royal Hunt Cup, the Irish Derby, the Lingfield Grand National, and important races in South Africa, Germany, South America, and elsewhere.
The taproot mare was grey, they only thing known of her, other than her reported produce, all five of which were by Cannon Ball, a son of Sancho, and all of which were winners in provincial races, probably bred by Gilbert Burton in Shropshire. Her best runner was The Post Captain, winner of six races worth £520. Her daughter Mayflower won a farmers' race at age four, ridden by her owner, Burton, and placed in two races at age five. This is the branch which bred on, all of Mayflower's foals bred at Bretby Park, the seat of Lord Chesterfield.
Mayflower's daughter, Miss Lucy, won five races and placed in several others between the ages of two and five, most of them heat races over two miles, and later produced a winner by the Mundig son, Counsellor. Prizeflower, a Mayflower son by the great runner Priam, won the Palatine Stakes and two other races. The family continued through Mayflower's unnamed daughter by Priam who was sold George Ongley of Bedford, and placed second in two small races at ages three and four in the Bedford area. Ongley bred four youngsters from her, three of which were winners. Her son, Bird of Paradise won seven races, and her daughter, Rosaura, by Don John, won a race at Chelmsford.
Rosaura produced six winners, most of them bred by Colonel Towneley, master of Root Stud near Burnley, Lancashire. The best of them was her son New Church, by Newminster, winner of eleven races, and Hesperithusa, by Hesperus (a son of Bay Middleton), winner of the 7 furlong Royal Hunt Cup and seven other races. Three of her daughters continued the family line: Passion Flower, by Chatham (a son of The Colonel); Hesperithusa (see below), and Moss Rose (by Rataplan son Kettledrum).
Passion Flower ran twice as a juvenile, placing third once, and was unplaced running in the Lincolnshire Handicap at age four. In Towneley's stud she produced some good winners by the Velocipede son King of Trumps, including Doeford, a winner of seven flat races and two steeplechases; Harefoot, a winner of twelve races; The Hind, winner of the Bishop Burton Stakes and the Copeland Stakes at Manchester as a juvenile; and her best, daughter Doefoot, a very good runner as a juvenile and later a good stayer (see below).
The Hind won the Bishop Burton Stakes and the Copeland Stakes at Manchester at age two. In the stud of A.G. Ingle and then the Neasdon Stud of W. Burton at Willesden, Middlesex, she produced five winners, her best the filly Fallow Deer, by Mousley, winner of seven races. Three daughters bred on: Ada Cavendish, Vicugna, and Red Hind. Ada Cavendish, a winner of six races at ages two, five and six, the only years she ran, bred six winners, five of them steeplechasers, the best of these being her son Jolly Tar, a son of Hilarious (son of Brown Bread) who won six steeplechases. Vicugna won four races worth £921 between the ages of two and four and later bred six foals for Burton. Red Hind did not run, but bred some winners, including her son Carsethorn, by Argyle (a son of Adventurer), who was sold for 15 guineas and won seven races worth £733; The Fawn (two steeplechases); Rosalind (five steeplechases); Monica II (See Fetlar's Pride below); and The Stalker, winner of first prizes and cups at Buckingham agricultural shows and of one steeplechase. Rosalind, whose wins included the Lingfield Grand National, in which she beat Grand National winner Cloister, later produced some winners over fences. Red Hind also produced a sister to Carsethorn by Argyle, injured as a foal and consequently a non-runner; she bred Royal Stag, by Fitz Roy, who won the Gimcrack Stakes and four other races.
Rosaura's daughter Moss Rose placed in races at ages two and three, and in Ireland won a steeplechase at Baldoyle at age five. In C.J. Blake's Heath Stud, Maryborough (Ireland), she bred seven winners on the flat and over fences, including Black Rose, by Arbitrator, who won ten races. Rosamene, a sister to Black Rose, was a good juvenile, winning the Waterford Testimonial Stakes and two other races, placing second in the National Produce Stakes, and third in the Anglesey and Railway Stakes. She won a race at age three, and a Queen's Plate over two miles and two other races at age five. She bred five winners for Heath Stud, including Gulsalberk, by Gallinule, who won the Irish Derby in 1896. A daughter of hers, Calasay, by Necromander, bred Warlock, a winner of eight races.
Doefoot, bred by Colonel Towneley at the Root Stud in Lancashire, won Manchester's Sapling Stakes and the Bishop Burton Stakes and nine other races her her seventeen starts at age two, placing second four times and third once. At age three she won the 1 mile-2 furlong Liverpool Summer Cup and two other races, and placed second in the Great Northern St. Leger and the Manchester Handicap, and was third in the Northumberland Plate and two other races. At age four she won a Queen's Plate. At age five she won the Salford Borough Cup, bringing her total wins to 16 races worth £2,730. Retired to the stud of Major Stapylton of the Myton Stud near Helperby in Yorkshire, she bred two good winners: a daughter, Star and Garter, won twelve races, and a son, Royal Stag, winner of the Gosforth Juvenile Stakes and five other races; he was destroyed at age four after breaking a bone in his fetlock during the running of the Chesterfield Cup.
Bred by J.G. Bulteel of Sefton Park, Bucks., he won fourteen steeplechases worth £1,310.
His dam, Monica II, was bred by C.M. Prior, author of a number of books on early thoroughbreds and father of the author of the Half-Bred Stud books. She won a steeplechase at the age of five. His sire, Fetlar, was a son of Retreat.
Hesperithusa won four races as a juvenile, and at age three won Ascot's Royal Hunt Cup, a field of twenty-eight that year, by two lengths, and three other races, in all eight races worth £1,055. In Towneley's stud, and later in G.S. Thompson's Moorlands Stud at York, she bred sixteen foals, most of them winners. Her two best were the brothers Hesper and Hesperian, by Speculum, both bred at Moorlands. Hesper, who ran until the age of fourteen, won twenty races worth £5,574, including the Liverpool Cup, the Epsom Cup, and the Cleveland Handicap. He won three good hunters' flat races and seven races over hurdles, including the Grand International Handicap. He was later a successful sire in Ireland. Hesperion won fifteen races, including the St. George's Stakes.
Her daughter Arethusa, by Speculum, was bred at Moorlands. She won a hunters' flat race at age five, and was a prolific broodmare for various owners; her best was her son by Esterling, Alphoeus, winner of thirteen steeplechases.
Hesperithusa's daughter Miss Collingham, a sister to Hesper, Hesperian and Arethusa, placed in some minor events on the flat, and got two winners in the Easton Park stud of the Duke of Hamilton. One was Natica, by Lexington's son, Preakness, who had been brought to England to run and was left there as a sire. She won two races and was sold to Austria in 1883. Another was Dido, by Xenophon, a winner of four small steeplechases, later a winner as a hunter broodmare in the Madresfield show in 1902. Dido produced five steeplechase winners, including Sans Atout, a winner of the Great Shropshire Steeplechase, who in turn produced steeplechase winners.
Hesperithusa's daughter Hesperia, by Cape Flyaway, won five races at ages two and three. She produced eight winners races on the flat and over hurdles, including colt Horizon, by Ocean Wave (see below). Hesperia's daughter Thespia, by Touchet, won three races in England and went to Germany in 1887, where she won a handicap at Hamburg (a flat race) and two hurdle races in Berlin. In Germany, she produced a daughter, Ilias, by Fulmen, who won on the flat, over hurdles, and a steeplechase, and in the stud had a daughter, Vestalin, by Portmarnock, a winner of two races on the flat and 18 hurdle and steeplechases in Germany.
Hesperia's daughter Cape Race, a sister to Thespia, won three races at ages two and three, and was sold to Juan Nelson of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she bred Caprice, a winner in Argentina, who bred some winners for Haras Las Ortigas in Argentina.
Horizon won several races on the flat at age five, including a two mile open flat race at the Ludlow Club Meeting, beating some future good chasers Ben Wyvis,Skedaddle, and Leybourne. In all, he won six steeplechases, includng the Gamecock Steeplechase at Kempton Park (1894) and another at Sandown Park when he beat Manifesto. At age four (1893) he ran twice in one day at Sandown: in the first race, a National Hunt Stakes handicap hurdle he was beaten by a head, and then in a Class C National Hunt Stakes steeplechase he won in a canter, beating Grand National winner Cloister (to be fair, this was the beginning of Cloister's mysterious "troubles," and had he been sound Horizon would not have been anywhere near him). Horizon ran in the 1895 Grand National, won by Wild Man from Borneo, but was knocked over.