Nearco was an odd choice for a race name at Sandown. He was the champion racehorse in Italy in 1937-38 and retired undefeated after his 14th victory, his sole start away from his homeland, in the Grand Prix de Paris. Italian form must have been stronger in those days, for even the British newspapers referred to him as the best horse in the world.
He was sired by Pharos, the winner of 14 of his 30 races for the 17th Earl of Derby in the first half of the 1920s.
The threat of a European war spurred his breeder Federico Tesio to sell him without further ado and – for a record sum – he was bought by Martin Benson (born Henry Gottschalk), who had made his fortune as a bookmaker trading as Douglas Stewart.
Nearco went to Benson’s Beech House Stud at Newmarket and made him another fortune. He was a leading stallion for 15 years, getting Derby and Oaks winners and, even more importantly in the long run, other horses that became influential stallions. Nasrullah is perhaps the best known, but one of the others, Nearctic, was the sire of Northern Dancer – hence Sadler’s Wells – hence Galileo. It’s thought that most of today’s thoroughbreds have some Nearco blood in their ancestry.
Tesio’s scientific approach to breeding brought him a total of 22 winners of the Italian Derby, and he bred another world-class horse, Ribot, in the 1950s.
Commendable though Nearco’s record was, there was no obvious reason for Sandown to honour him. He had died in 1957, so it might have been a tardy tribute. The Nearco Stakes, to begin with a handicap, and later a maiden of no great significance, began in June 1959 at the meeting the weekend before Royal Ascot. It ended 25 years later.