Page 20 - August 2015

THE BELLE MEADE STUD
SPEEDLINES
story by Larry Thornton • lead photo © Belle Meade Plantation Archives
One of the things you will notice about the study of pedigrees is a line of succession that develops down through the generations. One breeder will develop a family of horses, and the next generation of breeders will utilize that line to form branches of that family. This line of succession will develop because good breeders know that the best way to succeed is to use the best bloodlines available.
An example of this succession would
be the King Ranch, George Clegg, and the Little Grove Stock Farm. The King Ranch bought the horse that became known as Old Sorrel from George Clegg. Old Sorrel became the foundation sire of the King Ranch line of Quarter Horses. Old Sorrel was sired by Hickory Bill. Clegg had bought some of his horses from the estate of the great breeder Samuel Watkins of the Little Grove Stock Farm of Petersburg, Illinois.
Hickory Bill was one of the great horses Clegg bought from the Little Grove Stock Farm. Clegg was at one time the owner of Little Joe, the grandsire of the great King P-234. Clegg always professed that when he bought Hickory Bill and crossed him on his Little Joe mares, he produced his best horses. Hickory Bill was sired by Peter McCue and out of Lucretia M. Lucretia M, Hickory Bill and Peter McCue were bred by the Little Grove Stock Farm.
Well, the next question in this line of succession would be - where did the Little
Grove Stock Farm get their horses? Since we are talking about over 100 years ago, it is difficult to pin down just exactly who Samuel Watkins bought his horses from at any given time. But as you will see, some of the key horses Samuel Watkins used were influenced by several stallions that stood at the Belle Meade Stud of Nashville, Tennessee.
The Belle Meade Stud was started
around 1816 as a branch of the Belle Meade Plantation. The enterprise that became the Belle Meade Plantation and Stud was founded by John Harding in 1807. The booklet,
Belle Meade Bloodlines by Ridley Wills II (a descendant of John Harding) tells us that, “John Harding provided customers who had mares to be bred with excellent pasturage, good fences, grooms, and other amenities.”
Wills goes on to explain, “Except for
one stallion, which he apparently had a partial interest in, Harding did not own the sires that stood at his stable.” The idea that Harding didn’t own the stallions he stood has carried down through the years, as many of the modern stud farms stand stallions for syndicates and private owners. The practice of standing stallions owned by others would continue, but the Belle Meade Stud also started buying top race stallions to stand
at stud. So through Harding’s foundation, the Belle Meade Stud started on the road to success as a prominent stallion station.
John Harding turned the management
of the Stud over to his son William Giles Harding in 1839. The younger Harding was a newly named Brigadier General in the Tennessee Militia. He was referred to as General Harding. Wills tells us that the younger Harding came by his love of the “blood horse” naturally and he followed in his father’s footsteps as a president of the Nashville Jockey Club. The term “blood horse” was a commonly used name for the Thoroughbred during this time.
An interesting note on General Harding has to do with the fact that he would not gamble or bet on horse races. As Wills put it,
Peter McCue (shown here), who
was bred by the Little Grove Stock Farm, was the famous Quarter Horse foundation sire of horses such as Hickory Bill and Badger.
18 SPEEDHORSE, August 2015