1924 - 2024
The story was later told. Spearfelt’s Victorian breeder, John Vincent Smith, had decided to dispose of most of his classy horses. In 1921 he sold a well-bred mare, Lady Champion, with her new Spearhead foal at foot, to the Thompsons at Widden Stud. Alas, on the ship’s voyage to Sydney, Lady Champion died. The little foal survived, hand-reared, later put to foster mothers at Widden. As a yearling, the colt was undersized. Superstition about orphaned foals deterred potential buyers. Not Grant. Spearfelt grew. He showed promise as a two-year-old: second at Caulfield to Heroic at his first start before winning good races at Flemington and Randwick. In those early contests, Grant appeared as owner in race books as ‘Mr D.C. Kamesburgh’, in partnership with O’Neill. His ‘nom-de-course’ was a tribute to the name of the mansion on North Road, Brighton which became Anzac Hostel for recuperating soldiers. The racehorse’s success story nearly came unstuck at the end of that three-year-old season when Spearfelt fell heavily in the 1925 Sydney Cup at Randwick. He recovered but for a year his confidence deserted him. Grant bought out O’Neill’s share in 1926, just before those most lucrative wins in Spearfelt’s career. O’Neill persisted as trainer, Hughie Cairns the winning rider. When Spearfelt retired with over £28,000 in earnings—a huge sum for the times—Grant sold him to Queensland studmaster, Tom Jennings, for a further 1300 guineas.
Finish of the 1926 Melbourne Cup
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