Homeward Bound (1961 – after 1982) was a British

Thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are c ...

racehorse and

broodmare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...

. After finishing unplaced on her only appearance as a juvenile she emerged as a top class performer in the following year, winning the

Princess Elizabeth Stakes The Princess Elizabeth Stakes is a Group 3 flat horse race in Great Britain open to fillies and mares aged three years or older. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile and 113 yards (1,713 ...

Epsom Oaks The Oaks Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 6 yards (2, ...

and

Yorkshire Oaks The Yorkshire Oaks is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to fillies and mares aged three years or older. It is run at York over a distance of 1 mile 3 fu ...

. She never won again but was placed in both the

Coronation Cup The Coronation Cup is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to horses aged four years or older. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 6 yards (2, ...

and the

Doncaster Cup The Doncaster Cup is a Group 2 flat horse race in Great Britain open to horses aged three years or older. It is run at Doncaster over a distance of 2 miles 1 furlong and 197 yards (3,600 metr ...

as a four year old. After her retirement from racing she became a broodmare and had some success as a dam of winners.

Background

Homeward Bound was a "lightly-framed" chestnut mare with a small white

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

bred by her owner

Foster Robinson Sir Foster Gotch Robinson (19 September 1880 – 31 October 1967) was an English first-class cricketer, horse owner and businessman. Robinson was born in Sneyd Park, Bristol, the son of Edward Robinson and grandson of Elisha Smith Robinson. ...

at his Wicken Parn Stud near

Wolverton Wolverton is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, England. It is located at the northern edge of Milton Keynes, beside the West Coast Main Line, the Grand Union Canal and the river Great Ouse. It is the administrative seat of Wolverton and Gre ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

. She was sent into training with

John Oxley John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley (1784 – 25 May 1828) was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of British colonisation. He served as Surveyor General of New South Wales and is perhaps best known for his two exp ...

at his Hurworth House stable in

Newmarket, Suffolk Newmarket is a market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. Located (14 miles) west of Bury St Edmunds and (14 miles) northeast of Cambridge. It is considered the birthplace and global centre of thoroughbred hor ...

. Homeward Bound was sired by

Alycidon Alycidon (1945–1963) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse who was described as "one of the greatest stayers in history". In a career which lasted from the autumn of 1947 until September 1949 he ran seventeen times and won eleven races. He w ...

, an outstanding stayer who suffered from low fertility as a breeding stallion but sired several top class performers including Alcide and

Twilight Alley Twilight Alley (1959 – September 1976) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. A series of physical problems restricted him to four races a track career which lasted from July 1962 to July 1963. On his third racecourse appearance he ...

. Her dam Sabie River won four races and produced several other winners. Sabie River's dam Amorcille was a half-sister to Discord, the female-line ancestor of

Mr Dinos Mr Dinos (foaled 14 April 1999) is an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire best known for his win in 2003 Ascot Gold Cup. After finishing second on his only start as a juvenile in 2001 he improved to become a top-class s ...

. Both Alycidon and Sabie River died in 1963, before Homeward Bound had appeared on the track.

Racing career

1963: two-year-old season

Homeward Bound was slow to mature and did not appear until October, when she finished unplaced in the Alington Stakes at

Newmarket Racecourse Newmarket Racecourse is a British Thoroughbred horse racing venue in Newmarket, Suffolk, Newmarket, Suffolk, comprising two individual racecourses: the Rowley Mile and the July Course. Newmarket is often referred to as the headquarters of ...

1964: three-year-old season

On her first start of her second campaign, Homeward Bound contested the Princess Elizabeth Stakes over one mile at

Epsom Racecourse Epsom Downs is a Grade 1 racecourse on the hills associated with Epsom in Surrey, England which is used for thoroughbred horse racing. The "Downs" referred to in the name are part of the North Downs. The course, which has a crowd capacity of 13 ...

in April and won from Feather Bed and Rose Rock. The filly was then moved upin distance for the 186th running of the Oaks at the same track on 5 June in which she started at odds of 100/7 (14/1) in an eighteen-runner field. The Irish filly Patti started the 3/1 favourite ahead of Beaufront and Arnica. Ridden by the talented but eccentric jockey

Greville Starkey Greville Michael Wilson Starkey (21 December 1939 – 14 April 2010) was an English jockey who rode almost 2,000 winners during a 33-year career on the flat. Starkey scaled the heights of his profession during his 33-year career in which ...

Homeward Bound won by two

lengths Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Intern ...

from Windmill Girl with La Bamba a neck away in third. The form of the race was subsequently franked when Windmill Girl won the

Ribblesdale Stakes The Ribblesdale Stakes is a Group 2 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old fillies. It is run at Ascot over a distance of 1 mile 3 furlongs and 211 yards (2,406 metres), and it i ...

and La Bamba took the

Prix Jacques le Marois The Prix Jacques Le Marois is a Group 1 flat horse race in France open to thoroughbred colts and fillies aged three years or older. It is run at Deauville over a distance of 1,600 metres (about 1 mile ...

. After a break of two and a half months, Homeward Bound returned in the Yorkshire Oaks at

York Racecourse York Racecourse is a horse racing venue in York, North Yorkshire, England. It is the third biggest racecourse in Britain in terms of total prize money offered, and second behind Ascot Racecourse, Ascot in prize money offered per meeting. It att ...

in August when she was matched against the

Irish Oaks The Irish Oaks is a Group 1 flat horse race in Ireland open to three-year-old thoroughbred fillies. It is run at the Curragh over a distance of 1 mile and 4 furlongs (2,414 metres), and it is s ...

winner Ancasta. With Starkey again in the saddle, she started at odds of 2/1 and won from Beaufront with Ancasta in third place. On her final appearance of the season she was sent to France for the

Prix Vermeille The Prix Vermeille is a Group 1 flat horse race in France open to thoroughbred fillies and mares aged three years or older. It is run at Longchamp over a distance of 2,400 metres (about 1½ miles), an ...

over 2400 metres at

Longchamp Racecourse The Longchamp Racecourse (french: Hippodrome de Longchamp) is a 57 hectare horse-racing facility located on the Route des Tribunes at the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, France. It is used for flat racing and is noted for its variety of interlaced tr ...

in September but ran poorly and finished unplaced behind Astaria.

1965: four-year-old season

Homeward Bound failed to win as a four-year-old but ran well against male opposition in at least two of her starts. In June she returned to the scene of her Oaks victory for the

at Epsom and came home third behind Oncidium and Soderini. After a lengthy break she returned in September for the

over two and a quarter miles and finished second to Prince Hansel.

Breeding record

At the end of her racing career Homeward Bound was retired to become a broodmare for her owner's stud. When Foster Robinson died in 1967 the mare was auctioned and exported to the United States. She produced twelve foals and five winners: *Prime Abord, a brown filly, foaled in 1967, sired by Primera. She was born with a

club foot Clubfoot is a birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. Congenital clubfoot is the most common congenital malformation of the foot with an incidence of 1 per 1000 births. In approximately 50% of cases, clubfoot aff ...

and was reportedly bought by

Nelson Bunker Hunt Nelson Bunker Hunt (February 22, 1926 – October 21, 2014) was an American oil company executive. He was a billionaire whose fortune collapsed after he and his brothers William Herbert and Lamar tried to corner the world market in silver ...

only because his agents visited the farm during a snowstorm and failed to notice the deformity. She nevertheless became a successful racehorse and broodmare who won the

Prix de Royallieu The Prix de Royallieu is a Group 1 flat horse race in France open to thoroughbred fillies and mares aged three years or older. It is run at Longchamp over a distance of 2,800 metres (about 1 mile an ...

and whose foals included

Super Concorde Super Concorde (20 April 1975 – 1987) was an American-bred French-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He was the highest-rated two-year-old in France in 1977 when he won Prix de Cabourg and Prix Morny over sprint distances before defe ...

. *Lucky Traveler, bay filly, 1968, by

Derring-Do Derring-Do (1961–January 1978) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He was one of the leading British two-year-olds of 1963 when he won two of his three races including the Cornwallis Stakes. In the next two seasons, he developed i ...

. Won seven races including the

Test Stakes The Test Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race open to three-year-old fillies and run each summer at the Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York. It is contested at a distance of seven furlongs on the dirt and is an influential ...

. *Faithful Son, chestnut colt, 1969, by

Graustark Graustark is a fictional country in Eastern Europe used as a setting for several novels by George Barr McCutcheon. Graustark's neighbors, which also figure in the stories, are Axphain to the north and Dawsbergen to the south. Description Gra ...

*Beaufort Sea, chestnut colt, 1970, by

Nashua Nashua may refer to: * Nashaway people, Native American tribe living in 17th-century New England Places In Australia: * Nashua, New South Wales In the United States: * Nashua, California * Nashua, Iowa * Nashua, Minnesota * Nashua, Kansas City ...

. Won two races. *Aeropasser, bay colt, 1972, by

Buckpasser Buckpasser (1963–1978) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who was the 1966 Horse of the Year. His other achievements include 1965 Champion Two-Year-Old, 1966 Champion Three-Year-Old, 1966 Champion Handicap Horse, and 1967 Champi ...

. Unraced. *Redstart, chestnut filly, 1973, by

Raise A Native Raise a Native (April 18, 1961 – July 28, 1988) was an undefeated Thoroughbred Horse racing, racehorse that was named 1963 champion two-year-old colt in the Turf and Sport Digest poll and was the highest rated juvenile in the Experimental Free ...

.Unraced. *After the Flag, bay filly, 1974, by Hoist the Flag. Won one race. *Aluminum, bay or brown colt, 1975, by

Hail to Reason Hail to Reason (April 18, 1958 – February 24, 1976) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse and an influential sire. In a racing career cut short by injury, he was named the American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt of 1960 after winning seven stakes ...

. Unraced. *Swift Swallow, bay colt, 1977, by

Northern Dancer Northern Dancer (May 27, 1961 – November 16, 1990) was a Thoroughbred who, in 1964, became the first Canadian-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby. He then became one of the most successful sires of the 20th century. He is considered a Canad ...

. Unraced *Ilheus, chestnut colt, 1978, by Northern Dancer. Unraced. *Magellan, chestnut colt, 1981, by

Master Derby Master Derby (April 24, 1972 – January 22, 1999) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 1975 Preakness Stakes. Background He was bred by Robert E. Lehmann at his Golden Chance Farm in Paris, Kentucky. Master Derby wa ...

. Won 11 races from 99 starts. *A Far, chestnut filly, 1982, by

Vaguely Noble Vaguely Noble (1965–1989) was an Irish-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who competed in the United Kingdom and France. The colt is best known as the winner of the 1968 Group One Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe when he defeated the best horses from Engla ...

. Failed to win in three races.

Assessment and honours

In 1964 Homeward Bound was given a rating of 126 by the independent

Timeform Timeform is a sports data and content provider located in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Founded in 1948, it provides systematic information on form to punters and others involved in the horse racing industry. The company was purchased by ...

organisation, making her three pounds inferior to La Bamba who was their top-rated three-year-old filly. In their book, ''A Century of Champions'', based on the Timeform rating system, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Homeward Board an "average" winner of the Oaks.

Pedigree

References

{{Epsom Oaks Winners 1961 racehorse births Racehorses bred in the United Kingdom Racehorses trained in the United Kingdom Thoroughbred family 3-l Epsom Oaks winners