Abernant (horse)

Thoroughbred racehorse infobox
horsename = Abernant


caption =
sire = Owen Tudor
grandsire = Hyperion
dam = Rustom Mahal
damsire = Rustom Pasha
sex = Stallion
foaled = 1946
country = Great Britain flagicon|UK
colour = Grey
breeder = Catherine Macdonald-Buchanan
owner = Reginald Macdonald-Buchanan
trainer = Noel Murless
record = 17-14-2-0
earnings = $75,866
race = Bedford Stakes (1948)
Middle Park Stakes (1948)
Champagne Stakes (1948)
National Breeders' Produce Stakes (1948)
King's Stand Stakes (1949)
July Cup (1949 & 1950)
Nunthorpe Stakes (1949 & 1950)
King George Stakes (1949 & 1950)
awards=
honours = Abernant Stakes at Newmarket Racecourse
updated= February 15, 2007

Abernant (1946-1970) was British Thoroughbred racehorse whom Godolphin Racing [http://www.godolphin.com/big_race_focus59.asp] says is "considered by many as the greatest British sprinter of the 20th century."

Sired by Epsom Derby winner Owen Tudor, whose sire was Hyperion, a son of English Triple Crown winner, Gainsborough, Abernant's dam was a daughter of the very important broodmare Mumtaz Mahal who in turn was sired by The Tetrarch.

Abernant was a dominant two-year-old in English racing, winning five of his six starts. Ridden by jockey Sir Gordon Richards, he was unbeatable at distances of five to six furlongs. At age three he lost the eight furlong 2,000 Guineas by a matter of inches to Nimbus but after being limited to sprints, he won four major races. At age four in 1950, he won the Lubbock Sprint Stakes and repeated as the easy winner of the July Cup, the Nunthorpe Stakes and the King George Stakes. He ended his career that year with fourteen wins from the seventeen races he entered.

His Timeform rating of 142 ties him with Ribot as the third best ever awarded. In the years that followed his retirement, among the many accolades, The Independent newspaper wrote that Abernant "was the best sprinter ever to grace a racecourse." [http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/article309618.ece]

Abernant died in 1970 at age twenty-four and is buried at Egerton Stud in Newmarket. In a recent interview with trainer Mark Tompkins, Julie Murless, the daughter of Abernant's trainer, recalled that the gentle horse loved children and as a child of five she would sit on his back. [http://www.marktompkins.co.uk/archive_folder/archive_june06.aspx]

References

* [http://www.pedigreequery.com/abernant Abernant's pedigree and racing stats]