CARBINE - ONE OF A KIND

We have looked at a lot of champions who made their name in the Melbourne Spring over the last couple of months. Some have been that rare type that has been able to win the Victoria Derby and the Melbourne Cup, two of the jewels in the Victorian racing Spring carnival. Others, sometimes for reasons not of their own making, fell just short in the Derby but went on to become outstanding gallopers. Some were champions. And then there is Carbine. We have been spoiled by wonderful horses, and greats like Winx, Makybe Diva and Black Caviar have earned their remarkable places in history. But in Australian folklore, two horses stand head and shoulders above all others. One of course is Phar Lap, about who so much has been written that we have never chosen to tell his story. The other was the horse that started it all. Carbine.

Carbine was foaled in NZ in 1885, a son of the famed stallion, Musket who was three times to lead the Australian champion sires list, a remarkable effort for the time considering he stood across the ditch. He was notably the sire of another great hero of the turf and breeding shed, Trenton, leading sire Nordenfeldt, Martini-Henry, winner of the VRC Derby, St Leger and Melbourne Cup and later sire, and Maxim, a good sire in New Zealand, Australia, and later California. His story was not what we usually associate with a champion stallion. Musket had been a good racehorse in England, racing for four seasons before retiring to the Bonehill paddocks, in Staffordshire, in 1873 to begin stud life. His fee was 40 guineas but in his first season he sired only seven foals. The following year Musket was credited with 14 foals. Inhis third season the Grahams of Yardley sent 10 mares to Musket, and that year he sired 25 foals. Musket served six seasons in England, and was credited with 66 foals, but there were only 20 winners among them. At the end of 1878, Thomas Russell was in England searching for a stallion for the Waikato Agricultural Company in New Zealand with a view to breeding coaching, harness, and utility horses. Russell decided that Musket was of the right type, and was impressed with his size and substance, and his excellent racing record. Musket had been inherited from the Earl of Glasgow, whose will stipulated that the horse could not be sold, so Mr Payne of Bonehill overcame the difficulty by leasing Musket for 99 years for £500. Musket was landed in Melbourne where William C Yuille and Co tried to sell him for 700 guineas but could not find a buyer. Musket went on to NZ on board the steamer Hero in the winter of 1879. He took up duty