When we think of black racehorses, it’s often Lonhro and Octagonal (NZ) that spring to mind. However, long before this pair there was a colt the colour of coal from the first crop of Todman, which appeared in the spring of 1961.
He was as finely bred a thoroughbred as the times would allow, a son of a Golden Slipper winner from a VRC Oaks winner. In fact, Eskimo Prince, bred at Baramul Stud by Sir Gordon McArthur, was from Chicquita (Blank {GB}), who completed a clean sweep of the Australian fillies’ Classics in 1949.
The union of Todman and Chicquita was perfect on paper. In practice, it was glorious. It produced the jet-black, 16-hand Eskimo Prince, who emulated his sire in 1964 by winning the Golden Slipper, the race, at that point, only eight years old.
Todman at stud in the 1960s | Image courtesy of 'The Star Kingdom Story' by Peter Pring
Eskimo Prince, trained first by Cec Rolls in Sydney, was the outstanding colt of his era, winning the Breeders’ Plate, Silver Slipper S. and AJC Sires’ Produce S. He was brilliant enough to train on too, winning the Canterbury S., Rosehill Guineas and Hill S., in all tallying nine victories and five placings from 18-lifetime starts.
As a 1963 yearling, Eskimo Prince was sold to the notorious but warm-hearted Sydney punter Perce Galea. He cost 6200 guineas in the Newmarket sale ring where the underbidders were steely Jack Denham and ‘Demon Darb’ Munro.
In the words of author David Hickie, ‘Galea was to Sydney what John Wren was to Melbourne’, a scurrilous, underground gambler but a man of the people, and therefore always guaranteed good press.
Perce Galea on the front cover of Turf Monthly, July 1963, with yearling Eskimo Prince (right) | Image courtesy of Graham Caves
Broken Hill-born Galea won very big on Eskimo Prince’s Golden Slipper, so big that he tossed £10 notes over the Rosehill grandstand into the crowd below. It was gestures like this that earned him the title of ‘prince of punters’ (which is how Eskimo Prince got his name), even if Galea was the king of illegal casinos.
He had a particular soft spot for Eskimo Prince, but Galea was also a lucky man. He won the lottery three times during his life, so it probably was no surprise to him that he owned a top-liner like Eskimo Prince.
Galea enjoyed and accepted the idiosyncrasies of his lightly framed black horse, including his fussiness with food and his awkward legs. Eskimo Prince wore hock boots for much of his career, which were supposed to curtail his over-reaching, and he seemed to breathe through only one nostril.
Later in his career, the colt was trained by Fil Allotta at Randwick, but the spark was gone and Sydney’s brilliant track veterinarian, Percy Sykes, inspected the horse, finding partial paralysis in his throat.
Eskimo Prince and Athol Mulley return to scale in 1964
On this news, Galea, ever an economist, put the horse up for sale, and the son of Todman went in a package deal with 20 Woodlands mares to Californian Rex Ellsworth of Chino Ranch. He was brought back into training, but when it was additionally discovered that he had only one functional lung, Eskimo Prince was retired.
His stallion career was obscure and ordinary. It's reported he got 137 foals of which 96 raced, and only one earned anything of merit. Nevertheless, Eskimo Prince was looked after until the age of 18, when he died on an Oklahoma farm.
Though he had no staying tenacity, the lovely horse had outstayed his colourful Australian owner by exactly a year. Perce Galea died in 1977, and it was truly the end of an era in Sydneytown.
