Archer (horse)
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Archer was an Australian thoroughbred racehorse who won the first and the second Melbourne Cups in 1861 and 1862. He won both cups easily, and is one of only four horses to win two Cups.

Background

In 1855 Archer was foaled at "Ballalaba" station near Braidwood in New South Wales. Bred by TJ Roberts and Rowland Hassell, Archer was out of the dam Maid Of The Oaks, and sired by William Tell. ¹

Archer was acquired and trained by Etienne de Mestre (1832-1916) from "Terara" near Nowra in New South Wales. De Mestre who would go on to train four Melbourne cup winners in total, and win five Melbourne Cups, was the son of prominent Sydney businessman Prosper de Mestre.

Legends grow up around many greats, and Archer is no exception. Archer's best known legend is that he was walked overland from Nowra to reach the race at Flemington in the Melbourne Cup, a distance of over 500 miles (over 800 km). Instead newspaper archives of the day reveal that Archer had travelled south from Sydney to Melbourne on a steamboat, together with de Mestre, and two of de Mestre’s other horses Exeter and Inheritor. Before being winched aboard the steamboat for the trip to Melbourne, the horses had arrived in Sydney in September 1861.² A boat ride, in the days before railway facilities linking Melbourne to the other states, was the best way to transport horses over very long distances, especially when they were then expected to race. It just wasn't always the safest way. In 1876 de Mestre's entry in the Melbourne Cup, Robin Hood, and ten other horses were lost at sea when the S.S. City Of Melbourne was struck by a severe storm off the coast at Jervis Bay.³

The legend of Archer is not completely destroyed, however. Without a rail connection between Nowra and Sydney, it was the 100 miles (160 km) to Sydney that Archer and the other horses were walked. Perhaps the walk from Norwa to Sydney is where the myth originated. Walking a horse over these inland distances, however, was the only way in which race horses could compete in the country circuits, and the walk to Sydney was not unusual for de Mestre’s horses, or indeed for the horses of other trainers. Archer's normal racing year was to walk the full country circuit from Nowra up as far as Tamworth and back again, and Dave Power, his strapper, would have camped under the stars all that period.⁴

The other Archer legend is that his jockey for the first two Melbourne Cups, John Cutts, was an Aboriginal. Johnnie Cutts was, according to the legend, born in the area around Nowra, and one of the many Aboriginal males who replaced the bulk of the white stockmen who walked off the land to join the goldrush. Instead John Cutts came from a famous racing family - his father Bill Cutts was a Sydney publican and renowned racing identity, and John and his two older brothers, George and Ted, all went down in racing history as jockeys and/or trainers in Australia and New Zealand.⁵ Though it would be romantic to believe that an Aboriginal jockey had won the first and second Melbourne Cups, the most famous horse race in Australia, history is less than kind in allowing us this certainty.

Even without the legends, the inaugural Melbourne Cup of 1861 was an eventful affair when one horse bolted before the start, and three of the seventeen starters fell during the race, two of which died. Archer went on to win easily from Mormon and Prince. Two days later, Archer won another 2 mile long distance race, the Melbourne Town Plate.

A year later Archer won the AJC Queen Elizabeth Stakes (1862) and was shipped back to Melbourne to win his second Melbourne Cup carrying 10st 2 lb. He defeated a field of twenty starters by ten lengths, with Mormon again running second.

Despite his owner's intention to race Archer for a third Melbourne Cup, he was unable to do so because of a technical error. Archer's acceptance nomination to race failed to arrive in time as delivery was delayed due to a public holiday in Melbourne. As a result, owners scratched many horses, in a show of solidarity. This left a starting field of only seven horses that history shows was to be the smallest field of horses to race in the Melbourne Cup.

In 1865, at ten years of age, Archer fell in a race and was retired to stud at Exeter Stud Farm at Jembaicumbene near where he had been born.

In the 1870s a piece of Archer's tail hair that had been kept was placed in a silver setting after having been woven and coiled to create a horseshoe-shaped plaque. Today this piece of memorabilia can be found at the Australian Racing Museum in Melbourne.⁶

References

• Archer's pedigree and partial racing stats
• Archer at Thoroughbred Heritage.com