Matchem And The Demise Of His Famous Sire Line

The Matchem Stakes is named after a famous horse who carried through the sire line of one of the three founding stallions of the thoroughbred breed.

The three founding stallions were the Darley Arabian, the Byerley Turk and the Goldolphin Barb and their sire lines were carried through by the famous racehorses Eclipse, Herod and Matchem respectively.

And yet it looks likely that only the the Darley Arabian/Eclipse sire line will survive due to the modern dominance of this line through the like of Nearco, Northern Dancer and Mr Prospector.

In South Africa today there is not a single sire still standing which does not come from the Eclipse sire line.

The last SA-based sire to not be from that line was the recently late Irish-bred KZN-based stallion Linngari, who was by the last major stallion of the Byerley Turk/Herod line i.e. Indian Ridge.

The demise of the Goldolphin Barb/Matchem line is surprising in that it produced the horse who is generally regarded as one of the two greatest thoroughbreds in history i.e. Man ‘O War, who generally competes for that title with Secretariat.

Man O’ War’s owner limited his coverings and he only produced 386 registered foals, although 64 of them were stakes winners, including the great War Admiral.

War Admiral was the leading American sire in 1945, the leading juvenile sire in 1948 and he sired 40 stakes winners. However, his infuence was to ultimately come through his daughters and his sire line faded.

There was recent hope that the Man O’War sire line would survive due to the great racehorse Tiznow, the only horse to have won the Breeders Cup Classic twice. He hails from a son of Man O’ War called War Relic.

Tiznow proved to be a great stallion, siring over 80 black type winners, including 14 Gr 1 winners. However, he was retired in 2020 and his only stallion sons, Tourist, Colonel John and Tizway, stand in Turkey, Korea and Turkey respectively having not made it in the USA.

So the Matchem line looks likely to be buried with Tiznow, who is still enjoying his retirement.

With Indian Ridge having failed to produce a top stallion the Herod line also looks unlikely to survive.

Matchem himself won ten of his 12 races and was  Leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland from 1772 – 1774.