“The fastest horse I ever rode,” according to Gordon Richards. Timeform’s top-rated European sprinter since WW2. This was Abernant, a descendant of The Tetrarch, one of the century’s top two-year-olds, on his dam’s side. Though his sire was Owen Tudor, a Derby winner, it was his more distant ancestor’s grey colour and his speed that he inherited. He was bred by Sir Reginald Macdonald-Buchanan.
Although beaten on his racecourse debut in 1948, he won his next five races – all major prizes – showing blistering speed. Winning a minor race over seven furlongs at Bath first time out at three, he took his chance in the 2,000 Guineas but ran out of steam at the very end and was beaten a short head. He reverted to sprinting and won all the big races at three and four, beaten only once more when giving 23 pounds to a good three-year-old. Finishing his career with 14 wins out of 17 races across three seasons, he was retired with trainer Noel Murless admitting, “there is nothing left for him to win.” At stud he sired the winners of over a thousand races. Undoubtedly he was one of the 20th century’s outstanding sprinters.
Owen Tudor (1400-61) was a member of the Welsh aristocracy, so the source of Abernant’s name could be one of two places in Wales. One is a village in the Valleys a few miles from Merthyr Tydfil, and the other a hamlet in Carmarthenshire.
It was a surprise to find that Newmarket’s six-furlongs Abernant Stakes did not begin until the Craven meeting of 1969. Lady Beaverbrook’s Boldboy (qv) won it four times in the 1970s. It is now a firmly established Group 3.