In her twenty-five years, Marguerite’s nine foals included more than one overachiever of the first half of the 20th century, including a Triple Crown winner and a Travers victor, her impact so great that she was buried intact, a high honor for a horse. Best known for her first foal by Sir Gallahad III, this daughter of Celt is not only the mother of Gallant Fox but also one of William Woodward’s favorite mares, a light chestnut recognized by Horse and Horseman magazine in 1939 as “America’s most eminent broodmare.”

Claiborne Through and Through

When Fairy Ray arrived in the United States, her new American owner Frederick Johnson thought she was a poor specimen of a broodmare. Yet her pedigree, laden with English classic winners, promised much, even if her looks left something to be desired. Johnson sold the mare and her yearling by Cock o’ the Walk at a dispersal sale, and, as luck would have it, Arthur B. Hancock, master of Claiborne Farm, came away with the daughter of Radium, twice winner of the Jockey Club Cup in England. Hancock bred Fairy Ray to Celt, one of Claiborne’s flagship stallions of the early 20th century.

Celt was one of those horses whose potential on the racetrack was never quite realized owing to circumstance and injury. He happened to be a stablemate of the undefeated Colin, himself rated alongside Man o’ War in the estimation of turf writers of the day. Though Celt could not prove himself in the same ways Colin had, injury preventing him from racing more than his scant six starts, he proved to be a much better sire than his stablemate. By 1919, he already had a Futurity winner in Dunboyne and a Coaching Club American Oaks winner in Polka Dot. The choice to breed him to Fairy Ray was a fortuitous one: the result was Marguerite.

Belair’s Beginnings

At the Saratoga yearling sales in 1921, William Woodward, master of Belair Stud, spotted Marguerite and purchased her for $4,700, adding her to his burgeoning broodmare band. Though Belair was an ample estate with plenty of land, Woodward kept his broodmares at Claiborne, so, when it was time for Marguerite to transition to that phase of her life, she returned to her place of birth and became one of his owner’s best producers, a foundational mare for this dynasty of the 1930s.

Her first cover was Wrack, the imported stallion who had won on the flat and over the jumps. The result was Petee-Wrack, 1928 Travers winner who later added the Suburban and Metropolitan Handicaps to his resume. In Sir Gallahad’s first season at stud, 1926, Woodward sent Marguerite to the newly imported stallion and produced a bay colt with a blaze and a precocity that gave his owner great hopes. That was Gallant Fox.

The Fox was the first of her seven foals by Sir Gallahad III, their pairing producing Flying Fox and Foxbrough, both stakes winners, as well as daughters like Marguery and Marigal, who also had stakes winners of their own. From Gallant Fox came Granville, Flares, and, of course, Omaha. Down the line from Omaha came Nijinsky II, the last of the English Triple Crown winners.

From Marguerite came a long list of winners, helping give rise to the Belair dynasty of the 1930s.

A Life of Consequence

Marguerite’s impact as a broodmare merited her inclusion in historian Edward Bowen’s book Matriarchs as well as a stakes race at Pimlico Race Course from 1945 to 1965. You can read more about her in The Foxes of Belair: Gallant Fox, Omaha, and the Quest for the Triple Crown, coming soon from the University Press of Kentucky.