John Hervey, author of Racing in America 1665-1865, (1944) describes Selima’s life and influence in America.
“In Selima we behold one of those majestic matriarchs whose greatness is monumental. She arrived here fifteen years before the Cub Mare and was in every way a greater one. She was the queen of the turf in her day, and when sent to the stud disseminated an influence through a large family of both sexes that makes the history of her descendants synonymous with that of the American turf and breed of horses. A statement that might seem extravagant were it not in broad terms the truth.
Her precise age and maternal pedigree, despite these things, were matters of uncertainty and dispute until but yesterday. At various times four different dams, all wrong, were assigned her by different authorities. Precisely when she arrived in Maryland, precisely how old she then was – these likewise were facts fruitful of misstatement. Not until 1933 did the late C. M. Prior, that indefatigable investigator of old English thoroughbred history, set them at rest. Having turned up the original manuscript stud books kept by Edward Coke, the man who brought the Godolphin Arabian into England from France, and by the Earl of Godolphin, to whom the horse passed after Coke’s death and whose property he remained throughout the rest of his (the stallion’s) life, Mr. Prior discovered in them the authentic entry of her foaling upon April 30, 1745; that her dam was the Shireborn Mare, by Hobgoblin and of the maternal family stemming from Queen Anne’s Moonah Barb Mare; and that she was a bay ‘with a Small Star & a Little of ye near hind Heell white.’ The notation following: ‘This Filly sold to Mr. Tasker into Maryland,’ with the further statement that she was sent there in September, 1750, being plenary verification of her origin and ancestry.
Five years old when she reached Belair, Selima was then supposed to be with foal, but if so, no trace of her producing in 1751 has been found. In 1752, being then seven, she was placed in training and came out at Annapolis, in May, where she defeated Captain Lawrence Butler’s English mare Creeping Kate for a purse of £40. Not long afterward William Byrd III of Westover, prince of the Virginia magnates, issued a challenge to race his English horse Tryal against anything that could be brought against him for 500 pistoles a side. Byrd, a young fellow of twenty-four, had inherited eight years before the enormous holdings of his father, William Byrd II (1674-1755). At the time he was in school in England and remained there until he attained his majority, during which interlude he became celebrated in the circles frequented by the jeunesse dorée for his prodigality; it being gossip that one evening in a West End club he lost £10,000 ($30,000) at a single sitting to H. R. H. the Royal Duke of Cumberland, later to be the breeder of both Eclipse and Herod. This passion for high play, which he was unable to suppress, eventually ruined him, while his Toryism during the Revolution, in which he refused to take part, completed his downfall from the magnificent position which he occupied. His challenge for Tryal illustrated his propensities. He had imported that horse from England in 1751, he had not been a success when raced there, in the spring of 1752 he was ten years old – yet Byrd aggressively challenged the world in his behalf. Not only did Colonel Tasker accept on behalf of Selima, but two Virginians also, Francis Thornton, of Society Hill, whose entry, a grey unnamed mare, has not been further identified; and John Tayloe II, of Mount Airy, who named his English mare Jenny Cameron and stallion Childers. The quintet met at Anderson’s Race Ground, Gloucester, then one of the foremost in Virginia, on December 5, 1752, with the following result:
|
Match, for a stake of 2,500 pistoles (about $10,000); one four-mile heat. |
|
| Benjamin Tasker, Jr.’s b m Selima, 7, by The Godolphin Arabian-Shireborn Mare, by Hobgoblin | 1 |
| William Byrd III.’s ch h Tryal, 10, by The Bolton Looby | 2 |
| Francis Thornton’s gr m | 3 |
| John Tayloe II.’s b m Jenny Cameron, 10, by Quiet Cuddy | 4 |
| John Tayloe II.’s b h Childers, 6, by Blaze | 5 |
This race, in many ways the most important of the Colonial era, being for the largest sum (so far as known), the contestants owned by four of the most eminent breeders and sportsmen north and south of the Potomac, and marking the beginning of the great rivalry between them which subsequently prevailed, closed in a ‘blaze of glory’ the short turf career of Selima, she then being retired to the stud at Belair. There she remained until the death of Colonel Tasker in 1760, when at the dispersal sale of his horses she was bought by John Tayloe II and went into his Mount Airy stud, where she died in 1766, aged twenty-one. She produced six foals at Belair, and four more after going to Virginia. While the exact foaling dates of all the ten are not known, the following list is believed to be in essential details correct:
|
Produce of Selima |
|
| 1754 bl c Ariel | by Traveller |
| 1755 – c Partner | by Traveller |
| 1757 – f (Leonidas’ dam) | by Traveller |
| 1758 – f Stella | by Othello |
| 1759 b c Selim | by Othello |
| 1760 bl f Ebony | by Othello |
| 1761 – c Bellair I (Tayloe’s) | by Traveller |
| 1762 bl c Spadille | by Janus |
| 1763 br c Little Juniper | by Juniper |
| 1765 bl f Black Selima | by Fearnought |
From here forward until noted, the information comes from the Fairfax Harrison book, The Belair Stud, 1747-1761.
Her first mate was Morton’s Traveller and from him she produced Brent’s Ariel, a black colt born in 1754. It was due to this coat color that there was suspicion over his pedigree, with both sire and dam being bays. However being the only objection, it was soon cast aside.
There is no surviving record of Ariel racing in the colonies, but he does have a long stud record. He stood at Belair until the Tasker dispersal sale of 1761. Ariel is then identified in two Maryland advertisement which placed him at the Richland Stud in Virginia:
[1762, April 15, MG]
“Aerial the famous horse will cover mares this season at Mr. William Digges on Patowmeck, at two guineas this season. Good pasturage for the mares.”
[1763, April 7, MG; ATR, iv, 54]
“Aeriel will cover mares at Mr. William Brent’s in Virginia. He was bred by the late Colonel Benjamin Tasker and got by Mr. Morton’s noted horse Traveller, out of Selima…
John Casburn, groom”
Finally, we may add Cottom’s testimony, probably from a lost Virginia advertisement that Ariel stood in Richmond, Virginia, 1764. In addition, Sir Peyton Skipwith’s statements for his Black-and-all-Black (post s. v. Brent’s Ebony) that that horse, foaled 1773, was got by Ariel, establishes Ariel as still in the stud as late as 1772.
Ariel’s full brother, Armistead’s Lightfoot’s Partner by Morton’s Traveller out of Selima was born in 1755. While he sired Mark Anthony, Rockingham, Fitzpartner and other notable horses and is recorded in no less than 14 annual advertisement still in existance from 1767 to 1781, there is no record of his breeding, his age, his inches or even his coat color. The only explanation is contained in the following advertisement:
[1780, December 30, VG]
“…It is needless to mention [Old Partner’s] pedigree, being so well known. Let it suffice to say that he has got the first colts of any horse in the state, for the turf or for service…
John Hartwell Cocke.”
However, it doesn’t seem to be that we have all the advertisements for Partner. It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that, among others now lost, there was an advertisement of that year, and that from one of them Advocate derived the date contained in his statement which can be checked nowhere else:
[1826, Advocate in Annals]
“Partner, out of colonel Tasker’s imported mare Selima was the best son of Morton’s Traveller, proving to be not only a fine race horse but a valuable stallion. He was foaled about the year 1755.”
The foaling date of 1755 fits into the chronology of the careers of both Selima and Partner while at the same time gives credence to the history of the early years of Partner until he passed into the possession of Armistead Lightfoot, who advertised him in 1767.
This credence goes as follows: Included in the inventory taken in 1767 (VM, xxi, 405) after the death of Philip Ludwell III (1716-1767) of the personal property of that worthy then at Greenspring (near Williamsburg) is an item of a horse Partner valued nominally, as an inventory would, at £30. That horse must have been acquired by Ludwell before 1761, when he went to England never to return; and it may therefore will be that Ludwell acquired this horse from Tasker as (say) a four year old in 1759.
This hypothesis develops on consideration of other dates. The eldest identified son of Old Partner was Mark Anthony. There is no record of his foaling date earlier or more authentic than Advocate’s “about the year 1763;” but there is contemporary evidence that Mark Anthony made his appearance on the turf in 1766, when he must have been four years old, and again he raced at Williamsburg in 1768 against “Captain Littlebury Handyman’s Partner,” a horse unknown to the stud books and subsequent records, but probably, like Mark Anthony, a son of Old Partner.
From these testimonies it is therefore argued that Old Partner was in the Ludwell stud on James River before 1762 and was sold thence in 1767. At all events, the documented record of Old Partner begins, as noted, in 1767, immediately after the settlement of the Ludwell estate and his owner in that year was Ludwell’s near neighbor.
Tabulated from the Virginia Gazette, the extant advertisements for Old Partner record his successive owners and stands as follows:
| Year | Advertised By | Stood At |
|---|---|---|
| 1767 | Armistead Lightfoot | [his plantation in] Brunswick |
| 1768 | “ “ | “ “ |
| 1769 | “ “ | “ “ |
| 1770 | “ “ | ‘Tuckahoe’ in Goochland |
| 1771 | “ “ | “ “ |
| 1772 | [Advertised for sale by the Sheriff of York at A. Lightfoot’s ‘manor plantation in Goochland’] | “ “ |
| 1772 | Thomas Mann Randolph | “ “ |
| 1773 | “ “ “ | “ “ |
| 1774 | [no record] | |
| 1775 | Robert Skipwith | ‘Rowanty’ in Dinwiddie |
| 1776 | “ “ | “ “ |
| 1777 | John Hartwell Cocke | ‘Swan’s Point’ in Surry |
| 1778-1779 | [no record] | |
| 1780 | John Hartwell Cocke [who then offered the horse for sale] | “ “ “ |
| 1781 | Robert Bolling jr. | Bolling-brook near Petersburg |
If ‘Old Partner’ was foaled in 1755 as Advocate stated, he was 26 years of age in 1781. It does not appear when or where he died.
Finally, in 1757, Selima delivered a full sister to Ariel and ‘Old Partner’ named Sharpe’s Traveller mare or Leonidas’ dam. She was acquired from Belair Stud by Governor Sharpe’s Whitehall stud where she was bred to *Othello and to *Juniper. When the Whitehall Stud was dispersed, she was bought by Edward Lloyd, who bred her to Lloyd’s Traveller. She eventually became the property, with her colt Leonidas of John Parke Custis (son of Mrs. George Washington). He bred her to Lindsey’s Arabian and produced General Washington’s horse Magnolia.
[1785, March 31, Va. Journal & Alexandria Advertiser; ATR, iii, 255]
‘Magnolia stands at Mount Vernon. He is a chestnut colour, near 16 hands high, five years old June 5 next [i.e., foaled 1780].’
‘He was got by Ranger [i.e., Lindsey’s Arabian]: his dam by Othello, son of Crab; her dam by Morton’s Traveller: and her dam was Selima, by the Godolphin Arabian.’
‘March 21, 1785’ Lund Washington
Next, Selima was bred to Governor Sharpe’s *Othello and they produced the filly Hamilton’s Stella in 1758. Judge Duvall (ATR, i, 480) said she “was never trained but was the best brood mare of her time.” There is a voucher which establishes her foaling date; namely, an advertisement for sale at Schoolfield of sundry horses and mares:
[1767, June 25, MG]
‘Among them is a mare nine years old, full sister to Mr. Galloway’s Selim. She suckles a very beautiful filly foal [?Harmony] got by Figure; and is covered by the same horse this season.
‘Also two fine fillies [?Thistle & Primrose] from the same mare; one three, the other two years old this grass, both got by Dove…
Thomas Hamilton’
Bruce’s entry for this Stella (ii, 330) bears out Judge Duvall by showing that she produced the mares, Thistle, Primrose and Harmony, which distinquished Dr. Hamilton on the Maryland turf during the years from 1768 to 1774 (See ATR, vi, 55, & Culver, pp. 61, 62, 64, 66). Before the middle of the nineteenth century her recorded progeny had become so numerous as to crowd the stud books. In Edgar alone may be noted 57 Virginia horses and mares tracing to *Selima through this Stella. Among them was a son of the Primrose mentioned above, for whom there is contemporary evidence in an advertisement by General Alexander Spotswood, as follows:
[1779, February 26, VG]
‘Don Carlos, a beautiful bay, 15 hands high, the property of Col. Baylor and myself, stands at Col. Baylor’s estate in Caroline, and will cover mares from the 25th day of March until the 20th of July at 12 £ 12 s. each mare . . .
‘Don Carlos was got by [Hamilton’s imported] Old Figure, who won four King’s plates, out of the Doctor Hambleton’s bay mare Primrose, who was got by Dove out of Old Stella, who was got by Othello, out of Old Selima, the property of Col. Tasker of Maryland.
A. Spotswood.’
A further identification of Stella, with especial reference to her relationship to Brent’s Ebony, is noted in the advertisement by John Thornton Woodfoord of ‘Windsor’ in Caroline of his Young Mexican, a grandson of Don Carlos:
[1796, February 23, Fredricksburg, Virginia Herald]
‘. . . Don Carlos was got by Dove (imported by Dr. Hamilton of Maryland) out of Stella, a full bred sister to Ebony. . .
John Thornton Woodford.’
The next foal of the mating between *Selima and *Othello was the most famous of them all. In 1759, they produced the bay colt Selim who would come to be owned by Samuel Galloway of Tulip Hill in Anne Arundel County. This was noted by Judge Duvall who had grown up as Selim’s neighbor and saw him run in 1772 (ATR, i, 17).
[ATR, i, 488] Selim was got by Othello out of Selima and was foaled in the year 1759 at Bell-air within three miles of my residence [Marietta]. He was not imported. Mr. [Samuel] Galloway [of Tulip Hill in Anne Arundel County] purhcased him at venue when one or two years old, at a sale of the blooded stock of Mr. Tasker [i.e., the dispersal sale of 1761] for 183 pounds sterling. The late Benjamin Galloway, Esq. Gave me this information a year or two ago [1832] a few months before his decease and I know it may be relied on.’
[ATR, i, 480] Selim was foaled in 1759 and beat every horse of his day until after he was nine years old. In 1763 he won the purse at Annapolis, beating Dr. Hamilton’s imported horse Dove, and others. At that time there was no course near Annapolis, and the horses ran two miles out, on the main road towards Baltimore, and returned. In 1764 and 1765 he won the purse at Philadelphia, beating the best horses in that neighbourhood. It was in 1765, or 1766, that he beat True Briton at Philadelphia, in a match for £500, (or pistoles) four miles and repeat. In [November] 1766 he was winner over the course at Chestertown [Kent co.], beating the celebrated Yorkick, from Virginia, a noted horse called Hero, and others [See John Tayloe’s comment on this match, s.v. Yorick in The Equine F.F.Vs.] In October, 1767, he won the purse of one hundred guineas at Philadelphia, distancing three others [See the comments by eye witnesses, with analyses of the speed on this occasion, AF, xi, 125; ATR, i, 17, 62]. His superiority as a racer was so notorious in Maryland that he was frequently excepted, and not permitted to run. In 1768, for the first time, he was beat by the imported horse Figure. In 1772, when thirteen years old, he ran second to Mr. DeLancey’s Nettle, beating the justly celebrated horses [McCarty’s] Silverlegs from Virginia, [Sims’ of Md.] Wildair, and others – four mile heats. He was never trained afterwards.’
When checked by contemporary newspaper racing notes (ATR, i, 466; iii, 95, 96; vi, 56, 58; all collected by Culver) this is not complete, particularly as to Selim’s defeats; but it is substantially so and serves to give colour to the contemporary statement of MG that the Selim-Yorick match of 1766 was arranged ‘with a view of bringing together the two most celebrated horses on the continent.’
The earliest record of Selim in the stud is in 1764 when he was fresh from his earliest victories and would have been five years old; and thereafter he was advertised only occasionally until the Revolution. In 1777, being eighteen years old, he was sent to Virginia to end his career on the Southside, whither the great Virginia horses (Jolly Rober, Janus, Fearnought) went also to die. The vouchers follow:
[1778, May 8, VG]
‘Selim, the high bred horse formerly the property of Samuel Galloway Esq; of Maryland, stands at my stable in Sussex county, to be let to mares the ensuing season at 10 dollars the cover and 20 the season; the money to be paid before the mares are taken away.
‘Selim is a fine dark bay, upwards of 15 hands high, fat, sound and healthy; was got by Black-and-all-Black, whose sire was Old Crab, his dam was the beautiful Selima, got by the Godolphin Arabian, and full sister to Old Babram. His performance as a racer, I believe, have not been equaled by any horse that ever started on the continent.
Richard Parker.’
[1780, March 25, VG]
‘Old Selim, the noted horse, now in high perfection, stands at the subscriber’s stable in Southampton county near Taylor’s bridge on Meherrin river, about 15 miles below Hick’s ford, and will be let to mares the ensuing season at 25 l. the leap (ready money), and 50 l. the season . . .
William Blunt.’
And so, at the age of 21, ends the record of a great horse.
Selima’s last foal with *Othello was the black filly Brent’s Ebony, so called because she was purchased at the Tasker dispersal sale by William Brent of Richland in Stafford County, Virginia, who soon thereafter also acquired her half brother Ariel. That she was trained and raced appears from the references to her, in the advertisements to be cited, as a ‘running mare’; to which Judge Duvall (ATR, i, 53) adds that she was remarkable for speed and bottom.’ No evidence for her career on the turf has, however, come to light. She was known to posterity by her progeny. The testimonies may begin with the identification of her in the description of a grandson offered at the Brent dispersal sale:
[1786, March 29, VG or Am. Advertiser]
‘[William Brent’s] Ebony’s sire was Col. Tasker’s (of Maryland) Othello: her dam the noted Selima, both imported . . .
Daniel Caroll Brent.’
[1778, April 24, VG]
‘[Sir Peyton Skipwith’s] Black-and-all-Black [bl.h. Foaled 1773] was got by Ariel; his dam Mr. Brent’s noted full blooded mare Ebony. Ariel’s sire Morton’s imported horse Traveller; his dam Col Tasker’s fine imported mare Selima. Ebony came out of Selima by the high blooded imported horse Othello. . .
Robert Skipwith.’
[1796, February 23, Fredericksburg, Virginia Herald]
‘Young Mexican [b. h. foaled 1787] was got by the imported horse Mexican out of Young Ebony, who was got by Don Carlos [q.v.s.v. Stella]; out of [Brent’s] Young Selima [by Fearnaught]: his great grandam was Mr. Brent’s noted mare Old Ebony, who was got by the imported horse Othello; out of Col. Tasker’s famous imported mare Selima: whose sire was the Godolphin Arabian.
John Thornton Woodford.’
Selima’s next offspring was produced by her first mate, Morton’s Traveller, a colt named Tayloe’s Bellair I born in 1761. There has survived no contemporary voucher for this Bellair. He left his name as a cross in a few ante-revolutionary pedigrees, to puzzle the earliest equine genealogists by confusion with a later and greater horse of the same name.
There has, however, recently come to light an interesting late eighteenth century voucher for this horse, which not only establish his identity but stimulates a deduction as to his foaling date:
[1795, February 26, Fredericksburg Virginia Herald]
‘. . .Lucy Locket, the dam of Whistlejacket, was got by Bell-Air (bred by the hon. John Tayloe) a son of Morton’s Traveller and Selima. . .
John Thornton.’
As this Bellair was thus reputed to have been bred by John Tayloe II, he must have been foaled after the Tasker dispersal sale of May, 1761 and so have crossed the Potomac from Belair to Mount Airy in his dam’s belly; his name standing as a souvenir of the place of his origin.
Selima’s next colt is the controversial black colt Willie Jones’ Spadille [i.e., Ace of Spades], by Booth’s *Janus. The attribution of this colt to *Selima has not been proved by a contemporary voucher; but that lack hardly justfied Wallace’s dogmatic statement that ‘Selima never had a foal by Janus.’ It is indeed, more difficult to prove that negative than the affirmative, for it appears that there was opportunity and motive for such a mating, and a year in Selima’s chronology in which it might have been accomplished.
The primary evidence for the existence of a Spadille consists of two late Southside advertisements:
[1770, April 19, VG]
‘Spadille stands at Oliver Day’s in Occoneechy neck [i.e., Mecklenburg], and will over at 3 l. proc. the season, 20 s. a leap or 5 l. ensurance.
[Allen Jones].’
[1776, April 19, VG]
‘Spadille stands this season at Craddock Vaughan’s, near Lunenburg courthouse, to cover mares at 20 s. the leap, ready money, and 50 s. for the season.
Douglas & Wilkins.’
Cottom (1830) knew this horse and recorded that he was ‘by Janus, dam an imported mare’ ; but it remained for Edgar to specify that mare.
Edgar’s entry is convincing in part. His statements that Spadille was a CAQRH (that being, in Edgar’s cabalistic vocabulary, the symbol for a noted quarter horse) and was ‘formerly the property of the late Willie Jones of Halifax County, N.C.’ are credible; for Edgar knew the tale of the border quarter horses and moveover, had access to the Stud Book of Willie Jones. But doubt is justifiable when Edgar goes on and describes Spadille as ‘got by Old Janus: imported mare Selima by the Godolphin Arabian,’ with an extension of the breeding of Selima which had been propounded in ATR (iv, 102) a few months before Edgar’s books was published. We may, then, either dismiss Edgar’s testimony on the ground that the witness bears a bad character, or we may attempt to explain it.
On that last alternative there is ground for the attribution to Selima of a foal by Janus. As to motive and opportunity it may be argued that when Selima came to Mount Airy in 1761 she had never been bred except to Morton’s Traveller and Othello; and her new owner, John Tayloe II, is shown by the records of Selima’s subsequent matings to have determined to essay new crosses of her blood. In 1761 neither Juniper nor Fearnaught was yet available, but Janus was then still resident in the Gloucester stud of his importer, an easy day’s journey from Mount Airy; and, the peer of Selima in breeding, had already made his reputation as the sire of speedy racers.
To this may be added the colour which Edgar’s entry takes from the attribution of Spadille’s ownership to Willie Jones, the most distinguished horseman of North Carolina in the ante-revolutionary period, who is proved by other records to have made a practice of going periodically to the Rappahannock Valley to refresh his stable, and there always to have bought the best: it was he who removed from Virginia two of Mary Grey’s filly foals.
It may be, therefore, that the explanation of the lack of pedigree testimony for Spadille means no more than that his historical record was atrophied by his early removal from Virginia and separation from the society in which his brothers and sisters moved.
In 1763, John Tayloe II brought in new blood to cross with Selima, mating her with Syme’s Juniper to produce Tayloe’s brown colt Little Juniper. He ran unsuccessfully at Annapolis in October 1769 (Culver, p. 62) and thereupon , so far as the record goes, disappeared from the turf. He is picked up again and identified after he had left the Mount Airy Stud by the following advertisements:
[1778, April 24, VG]
‘Little Juniper to cover this season at my house in Hanover. . . was got by Old Juniper, one of the highest bred and fleetest horses ever imported to America. Old Juniper was got by Babram, a high bred son of the Godolphin Arabian, and half brother to Old Fearnaught’s sire. Old Selima, formerly the property of Col. Tasker, was the dam of Little Juniper: she was half sister to Old Fearnaught’s sire, and got by the Godolphin Arabian. . .
Isaac Winson.’
[1779, April 9, VG]
‘Little Juniper stands at my house in Albermarle. . . [He] was got by Old Juniper, whose sire was Babram, a high bred son of the Goldolphin Arabian and half brother to Old Fearnaught’s sire: his dam was Selima. She was half sister to Old Fearnaught’s sire, and was got by the Goldolphin Arabian.
John Coles.’
Bruce gives this colt a foaling date of 1761, which is impossible because his sire, Syme’s Juniper was not imported into Virginia until the autumn of 1761.
Selima’s last foal was the black filly, Tayloe’s Black Selima by Baylor’s *Fearnaught. The vouchers for this mare are contemporary certificates for her four foals:
[1787, Fredericksburg Virginia Herald, March 4, 1796]
‘I do hereby certify that the black stud colt [Federalist], sold Major John Prior, was got by Lath, his dam by Old Fearnaught, out of Col. Tasker’s famous imported mare Selima; who was got by the Godolphin Arabian, and judged to be the finest mare that was ever imported into America. The above stud was bred on the estate of the honorable John Tayloe [II] deceased.
William Beale, jun.
’11th December, 1787.
‘Tests, William Fitzhugh,
Landon Carter, jun.’
[1790, ATR, ii, 355]
‘Polyphoemus was got by the Hon. John Tayloe’s noted running horse, Yorick: his dam by Old Fearnaught upon the celebrated imp. mare Selima, who was got by the Goldophin Arabian.
‘As witness my hand this 15th day of November, 1790.
John Thornton.’
[1796, March 18, VG & Petersburg Intelligencer]
‘Bell-Air [II] was got by the surprising little horse Old Medley, imported into America by Malcomb Hart: his dam [Tayloe’s Young] Selima, got by Yorkick: his granddam Black Selima, got by Old Fearnaught: his great grandam Col. Tasker’s famous imported running mare Selima, got by Lord Goldolphin’s Arabian. . .
John Tayloe [III].’
[1806, from the Stud Book of John Tayloe III, AF, vi, 50; ATR, ii, 305]
’10. Virginia Sorrel, s. m., 1790 by [Conway’s] Virginia Sorrel: Black Selima by Fearnaught. See No. 1 [i.e., the entry for Bellair II, where the dam of Black Selima is stated to be ‘Col Tasker’s famous imported Selima’]. Never trained. Sold 1799 [after producing four foals] to John Daingerfield, Esq.’
Bruce’s entry (i, 245) for this mare is defective. The assignment to her of 1762 as a foaling date is (like Wallace’s 1763) impossible because her sire, Fearnaught, did not stand in Virginia until 1764. Moreover, Bruce credits Black Selima with only two foals (Y. Selima and Virginia Sorrel), omitting Federalist and Polyphemus, although he entered both of those colts elsewhere (i, 745; ii, 470).
Returning to John Hervey, author of Racing in America 1665-1865, like most other English mares of her era, Selima was mated only with English stallions and those the most celebrated. We have already noticed Traveller, Othello, Janus and Fearnought. Juniper, her remaining consort, was a son of Babraham, by the Godolphin Arabian, imported in 1761. He was a grand race horse in England, winning fourteen out of eighteen starts, second in the four he lost. He stood in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania and his cross appears in many of their best pedigrees. Selima’s foal by him was the nearest a blank of her entire brood – perhaps because of rather close inbreeding. Every one of the other nine was a celebrity.
They may be calendared as follows:
(1) Ariel – had no turf career but was a very successful and popular sire and an ancestor of Lexington;
(2) Partner (Lightfoot’s) – a high-class race horse and sire of Mark Anthony, Fitz-partner, Rockingham and many others famed upon the course and is the ‘Old Partner’ appearing in a host of pedigrees;
(3) Leonidas’ dam – this mare was also the grandam of Washington’s stallion Magnolia and a distinguished matriarch, from whom, in tail-female, many noted horses descend;
(4) Stella – dam of two famous daughters, Primrose and Thistle, brilliant performers, Primrose winning five races and was to have been sent to England to run for the Guineas but for the pre-Revolutionary troubles; Primrose also established a brood-mare line of enduring strength and is an ancestress of Lexington and many historic American horses;
(5) Selim – ‘the terrible Selim,’ greatest American racer of his day; bought as a yearling in 1760 for £183 sterling by Samuel Galloway, of Tulip Hill, near Annapolis and raced by him from the ages of four to thirteen years; never beaten until nine years old, and winner over many tracks, including the two great matches against True Briton, at Philadelphia, and Yorick at Chestertown, Md., later a popular sire in both Maryland and Virginia;
(6) Ebony – a fast and stout race mare and fertile brood mare, the dam of Figure, Black-and-all-Black, Chatham, etc., and ancestress of numerous great ones, among them, it is believed, being Timoleon, the sire of Boston and grandsire of Lexington;
(7) Tayloe’s Bellair I, never raced and died young but a cross in several famous pedigrees;
(8) Spadille – bought and taken to the Southside and North Carolina by Willie Jones, where, true to his paternity, he became a celebrated quarter-horse and favorite sire of them;
(9) Black Selima – Selima’s last foal, never trained, a superior brood mare, that when bred to Yorick produced Young Selima, the dam of the renowned Tayloe’s Bellair II and his great sister Calypso.
From this extremely condensed résumé the influence of Selima can be seen to have been demonstrated from the first. With each succeeding generation it broadened, deepened and spread so widely as to suffuse the entire American breeding fabric. In her own lifetime she was already cited with an accent of finality as ‘the best of the best either as a taproot or collateral cross.’ Today her name occurs, often again and again, in the pedigrees of most American thoroughbreds not of exclusive foreign blood lately imported. The most famous of her descendants in the direct female line was Hanover. Almost equally illustrious was Foxhall.
In tribute to her Mr. Woodward has erected a bronze tablet at Belair; while in 1926 the Maryland State Fair, which operates Laurel Park, about half-a-dozen miles away, inaugurated the Selima Stakes, for two-year-old fillies, the richest annual event in America for female thoroughbreds, with a value of about $30,000.”
Abbreviations:
[AF] The American Farmer newspaper. ed. J.S. Skinner, Baltimore, 1819-1829
[Annals] Annals of the Turf by ‘An Advocate for the Turf’ (George W. Jeffreys of Person County, N.C.), first published in the Petersburg Intelligencer newspaper, 1826; immediately reprinted and continued in AF & ATR, and finally collected in Cottom, 1830 ff. These papers were the first documented studies of the American horse, and remain of historical significance.
[ATR] American Turf Register newspaper, ed. J.S. Skinner, Baltimore, 1829-1835.
Among the many contributors to this clearing house of equine genealogy, those herein cited by name were:
Advocate. See Annals.
D, was Gabriel Duvall (1752-1844) of ‘Marietta’, Prince George’s County, Maryland, who was at once a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a lifelong follower of the turf. He knew Galloway’s Selim in the flesh.
Observer, was Benjamin Ogle Tayloe (1796 – 1868) of the Octagon House, Washington, the inheritor of the breeding tradition of the Ogle, Tasker, and Tayloe studs.
Panton, was Judge William Williams of Nashville, who migrated from North Carolina to Tennessee at the beginning of the nineteenth century, taking with him personal memories of Mark Anthony and other eighteenth century horses, and lived to correspond with ‘Frank Forester’ in 1856.
[Bruce] The American Stud Book, by S.D. Bruce, 6 vols., Chicago & New York, 1868-1894.
[Cottom] The Gentleman’s New Pocket Farrier. . . Annals of the Turf & American Stud Book, published by Peter Cottom, Richmond, 1830, 1833, 1935 & by J.S. Skinner, Philadelphia, 1848.
[Culver] Blooded Horses of Colonial Days [a Racing Calendar] by Francis Barnum Culver, Baltimore 1922.
[Duvall] See ATR.
[Edgar] The American Race-Turf Register. . . by Patrick Nisbett Edgar of Granville County, N.C., New York, 1833.
[GSB] The General Stud Book. . . ed. Weatherby, vol. One [Fifth of Centennial edition], London, 1891.
[MG] Maryland Gazette newspaper, Annapolis, 1732 ff.
[Newspapers] Miscellaneous late eighteenth century newspapers of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, cited by name.
[Prior] Early Records of the Thoroughbred Horse, by C.M. Prior, London, 1926.
[TR] Thoroughbred Record newspaper, Lexington, Kentucky, 1875 ff.
[VG] Virginia Gazette newspaper, Williamsburg, 1736 ff. Most of the files of this newspaper, for the crucial years of the early history of the American horse, 1753-1765 are lost.
[VM] Virginia Historical Magazine, Richmond, 1894 ff.
[Wallace] American Stud Book, by J.H. Wallce, New York, 1867.
Maryland's Thoroughbred Legacy 