Frank Giggs, 20th Century
Colombo with Jockey Up in the Colours of Lord Glanely
signed and dated ''1933''
oil on canvas
35.56 x 43.18 cm. (14 x 17 in.)
Price: £800
Provenance : Lord Glanley
Notes
Colombo (1931–1954) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. In a career that lasted from April 1933 to June 1934 he ran eleven times and won nine races. Colombo was an outstanding two-year-old, unbeaten in seven races in 1933 and drawing comparisons with champions such as Isinglass, Persimmon and Bayardo. In 1934 he maintained his unbeaten record by winning the Craven Stakes and the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and then finished third as the favourite in the Epsom Derby. After one more unsuccessful race he was retired to stud, where he had some success as a sire of winners until his death in 1954. Colombo, a large, powerful, lop-eared horse with a ''raking, effortless stride'' was bred by the shipping magnate Sir Alec Black. He was bay with a white star, a white sock on his left foreleg and a white coronet on his right hind leg. Shortly after Colombo was foaled, Black decided to sell off his bloodstock and the colt was bought relatively cheaply for 510 guineas by Lord Glanely at Doncaster in 1932. Colombo was sired by Manna, the winner of the 2000 Guineas and the Epsom Derby, out of Lady Nairne, a mare who was also bought by Glanely at another one of Black''s dispersal sales. Lady Nairne failed to win a race, but had a good pedigree, being a sister of the 2000 Guineas winner Ellangowan. Glanely sent Colombo to his private trainer, Captain Thomas Hogg at Newmarket, Suffolk. The horse who would become known as Colombo began his racing career as an unnamed ''Colt by Manna-Lady Nairne'' at Newmarket in April, winning the Spring Stakes by a head from the future 1000 Guineas winner Campanula.] He appeared as Colombo for the first time on May 17 when he won the Scarborough Stakes at York. In June he was sent to Royal Ascot where he won the New Stakes,
... the race now known as the Norfolk Stakes, and then added the Fulbourne Stakes at Newmarket two weeks later. In July Colombo won the valuable National Breeders'' Produce Stakes at Sandown ''in a canter'' from the filly Silver Araby. At Goodwood later that month he moved up to six furlongs for the first time in the Richmond Stakes in which he was matched against the season''s other leading colt, the Coventry Stakes winner Medieval Knight. Ridden by the ten-times Champion Jockey Steve Donoghue, Colombo went to the front after a furlong and was never in any danger of defeat, beating Medieval Knight by three lengths and proving himself ''vastly superior'' to the opposition. On his final start of the year he ran in the Imperial Produce Stakes at Kempton which he won in course record time by a short head from Valerius, to whom he was conceding seventeen pounds. Donoghue rode with exaggerated confidence, never resorting to the whip even when closely pressed in the final strides. Glanely was dissatisfied with Donoghue''s performance and recruited the Australian rider Rae Johnstone to partner his horse in the following year''s Classics. The press however, were highly impressed, and reports described Colombo as ''one of the century''s wonder horses'' and ''a perfect racing machine''. The Sporting Life described him as the most impressive two-year-old since The Tetrarch and expressed the belief that his pedigree would enable him to be equally effective over longer distances in 1934 Colombo''s earnings of £17,130 made him the second most successful juvenile in British racing history behind Orwell. In the Free Handicap, a ranking of the season''s best two-year-olds, Colombo was rated the best horse of his generation by a record margin of seven pounds. Reports early in 1934 suggested that Colombo had made good progress over the winter and was performing impressively in trial gallops. On his three-year-o
Internal Reference: 3555
Antique Number: SA627429
Dateline of this antique is 1930
Height is 36cm (14.2inches)Width is 43cm (16.9inches)Depth is 1cm (0.4inches)
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