We've got another guest author this week! Muffy Fenwick joins us to bring us the story of Sergeant Murphy, his win in the English Grand National, and the family's quest 100 years later..

By Muffy Fenwick

Photos, unless otherwise listed, courtesy of Pierre Manigault

100 years ago, 24-year-old Stephen “Laddie” Sanford and the Sanford family made history when Laddie’s hunter, Sergeant Murphy, became the first American-owned horse to win the English Grand National. This spring, a descendant of the Sanford family will again attempt to claim the trophy at Aintree. The story that led to that crowning moment in 1923 and the events it inspired are almost as thrilling as the race itself.

In Alex M. Robb’s The Sanfords of Amsterdam, he writes,

The Grand National is a sporting event which interests the whole world and in 1923 the fact that a young American had won the great race gave it a romantic fillip it had never had before. The name of Laddie Sanford was emblazoned on pages all over the world – and in languages the recent Cambridge graduate had never heard of.

Sergeant Murphy’s 1923 Grand National victory at Aintree in Liverpool indeed secured both horse and owner a chapter in the pages of history. As the oldest horse to win the race and the first American-owned to do so, their story was rare and special, and it landed Laddie on the cover of Time magazine. However, beyond the victory itself, the event was the pinnacle of a family legacy in steeplechase racing.

The story of Sergeant Murphy’s victory began years before, across the Atlantic, in the town of Amsterdam, New York. There, in 1870, at the urging of his doctor, family patriarch and grandfather to Laddie, Stephen Sanford, began a thoroughbred farm. Writes Barbara D. Livingston in her account of the Sanford Stud Farm, “Stephen began a thoroughbred farm in the same way he did everything: on a grand scale.”

Sanford had already transformed his father’s carpet business into the largest employer in Amsterdam. The town and its livelihood centered around the Sanford mills. When he established his farm, Stephen chose the Mohawk Valley where Amsterdam was located and named it Hurricana Stock Farm after the strong winds indigenous to the region. Hurricana was later incorporated and renamed Sanford Stud Farm.

Recalling its best horses, Livingston refers to the farm’s early years as its “glory days.” At the time, names such as Rockton, La Tosca, Chuctanunda, Caughnawaga, Mohawk II, Molly Bryant, Voter, and Post Guard resonated through horse racing. At the height of their fame, Sanford erected five-foot monuments at Hurricana to immortalize each of these champion thoroughbreds, including hall-of-famer Clifford, who, in the 1890s, posted a record of 42-10-8 from 62 starts before retiring to a successful career at stud.

Upon his retirement in 1897, the New York Times described Clifford as “one of the most brilliant performers the American turf has ever known.”

Clifford's marker at Hurricana Farm (Courtesy of Friends of Sanford Stud Farm)

Read more about Clifford on the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame website.

At times, Sanford’s personal and professional lives bled together. From 1903-1907, during the Saturdays surrounding the Fourth of July, the horse and factory owner shut his carpet mills and held matinee races on Hurricana’s six-furlong track. He invited the townspeople to watch his runners compete. On its final race day in 1907, as many as 15,000 spectators crowded Hurricana to cheer on the contenders. Each summer Sanford would have his string of horses walked the 28 miles from the farm to his stable complex on Nelson Avenue for the Saratoga Race Meet.

Unfortunately, in 1908, New York’s Hart-Agnew law declared a ban on horse race betting and other forms of gambling. By 1911, all New York tracks had closed. The ban lasted until 1913, the same year, ironically, that Stephen Sanford died. Just as they had made the pilgrimage to his farm each July to enjoy the matinee races, the townspeople processed through the town of Amsterdam to pay their respects to its economic and equestrian patriarch. Saratoga Racecourse officials created the Sanford Memorial Stakes in his honor. Now known simply as the Sanford Stakes, the six-furlong race for two-year-olds, which has been won by turf greats such as Regret, Secretariat and Affirmed, is perhaps best known for having served up Man o’ War’s only career loss, to Upset, in 1919. The race is unique, too, in that a member of the Sanford family has personally provided and presented a silver trophy to the winner every year that the race has been run since its inaugural running in 1913.

Upon Stephen’s death, his son, John, assumed ownership of both the business and the farm. He continued his father’s legacy, expanding the Sanford racing stock into France, and then England. On American soil, he bought two-year old George Smith, who went on to win the Kentucky Derby in 1916 in the Sanford silks. 

However, arguably the greatest victory for the purple-and-gold Sanford silks was with Sergeant Murphy, a chestnut gelding, that John purchased for his son Laddie. Livingston notes,

When Laddie’s horse won the Grand National…It was the first American-owned horse ever to win the National, and it was fitting that it be a family with such a strong racing background. This was the height of the Sanford fame, and its crowning moment on the jumping turf.

What led to this moment was truly the story that captivated the racing world and beyond. And, like most noteworthy stories, Sergeant Murphy’s involved a cast of characters and a chain of events that heightened the allure that much more.

A gelding by General Symons out of Rose Graft, Sergeant Murphy was bred in Ireland in 1910. At the time of his death at age 16, he had tallied seven Grand Nationals, although one of these was run at Gatwick where the race was moved during the war years. While the 1923 victory placed his name in history books, the fact that he completed Aintree’s four-and-one-half-miles and endured its 31 formidable fences six times is remarkable.

Before this feat, however, Sergeant Murphy was a hunter with the Westmeath Foxhounds in Ireland. According to Robb, Laddie was interviewed in 1947 by legendary sports columnist Red Smith about his acquisition of the horse. He told Smith,

I saw a horse named Sergeant Murphy in a steeplechase. He didn’t win but I liked his looks. I bought him and hunted him with the Cambridge hounds during the term.

The antics of Laddie and Sergeant Murphy would amplify the lore surrounding both the horse and owner. Beyond his racing lineage, Laddie was a colorful character whose natural charisma, devilish personality and uncanny athleticism drew people to him. As Robb describes, “He was always in trouble, for one prank or another, but one always forgave the likeable Laddie.”

His antics traced through his time at St. Mark’s boarding school, Yale, and Magdalen College at Cambridge. There, Robb notes, Laddie “played polo and hunted and did just about everything else that a virile, athletic, good-looking, rich undergraduate could do.”

It was Laddie’s facility on a horse, specifically, that led to Sergeant Murphy’s purchase.  

However, the acquisition of that particular horse was not met without significant doubt.

In his account, Robb recalls the words of Douglas Stuart, a prominent London bookmaker and Sergeant Murphy’s owner at the time of his purchase. Knowing that Laddie’s father intended the horse as a hunter for his son, Stuart was quoted as saying,

Candidly, I was not very optimistic about an average amateur restraining the forceful Sergeant, and I fancy that Mr. Sanford had begun to think seriously about the lad’s neck when he took the horse away from the hunting field after a bit and sent it into training again with George Blackwell.

Despite Stuart’s suspicions, there was no question that Laddie did, at one time, prove a match for the powerful thoroughbred. It is also possible that in this moment, the thoroughbred proved his match for the infamous race in Liverpool.

The moment occurred during a Boxing Day fox hunt which Laddie himself noted was second only to the thrill of winning the Grand National. As the story goes, he and Sergeant Murphy were following some distance behind the field when Laddie noticed riders and horses held up by “an innocent looking fence.” Confused but unfazed, he charged forward before realizing, too late, that a 25-foot open quarry lay on the other side. At this point, neither the horse nor rider could stop.  

“With one mighty leap, the Sergeant cleared the gaping hole and landed with just inches to spare on the other side,” writes Robb.

Furthermore, once dismounted, Laddie had to wait over an hour for the rest of the field to cross the quarry on foot.

To highlight the connection between horse and rider, Livingston notes, “While Laddie was indeed the third generation in his racing family, he was easily the most accomplished on horseback. He had a way around a horse, and a self-assurance that often accompanied children of wealth.”

Laddie would go on to become one of the top-ranked polo players in the country. A seven-goal competitor, Laddie and his team, the Hurricanes, won the U.S. Open five times over three decades. In 2015 Laddie was inducted into the Polo Hall of Fame. With the means and motivation to buy the finest ponies, he rightfully earned the reputation as being among the best-mounted players in the world. Two of his ponies joined him in the Hall of Fame: Fairy Story was inducted in 2013 and None So Pretty in 2023.

Sergeant Murphy, too, was destined for greater things than the hunting field. True to Stuart’s recollection, the horse was turned over to Newmarket trainer George Blackwell with the famous Grand National Race at Aintree in mind.

Blackwell chose jockey Captain Geoffrey Harbord “Tuppy” Bennett for the big race. The 28-year-old amateur jockey was a war veteran and veterinary surgeon by profession. His first experience in the Grand National was in 1921 aboard Tuzzy Buzzard. Despite falling four times, the horse and rider finished a respectable fourth.

At the completion of his famous 1923 National trip, Bennett described,

“I rode the horse in a gallop this morning, and I don’t think I was ever on one so fit in my life.”

This was not Sergeant Murphy’s first Grand National; in fact it was his fifth start. However, it was only his second time carrying Laddie’s purple-and-gold silks. The year before he had finished fourth after being remounted. But on that March day in 1923, “The Sergeant” was the oldest in a field of 28, carrying 157 pounds over the four-and-one-half mile course. In the end, only six starters completed the race. A March 24, 1923 article in The Sporting Mail announced,

At long last! At the age of thirteen and after several previous failures, Sergeant Murphy, the daddy of the field yesterday, added his name to the illustrious list of winners of the world’s most famous steeplechase – The Grand National. Jumping in irreproachable style throughout, he was always in the picture – never out of the first three, in fact, and at the Canal Turn, Captain Bennett his rider, took him to the front and never again being headed, won by three lengths.

For Laddie, it was the ultimate triumph, punctuated by a personal congratulations from King George V. Over the next five years, he would go on to try to recapture the 1923 victory another nine times with five different horses. Though he never reached the winner’s enclosure again, Laddie was twice third with his good horse and future Elkridge-Harford foxhunter Bright’s Boy. Laddie was justifiably proud that between 1922 and 1928, he had nine straight starters and nine straight finishers.

The spoils of that first victory rained onto the trainer, jockey, and horse as well. The Grand National title enhanced an already celebrated career for George Blackwell that included his 1903 “Triple Crown” as trainer of Rock Sand. Jockey Captain Tuppy Bennett would follow the March win at Aintree with a win at the Scottish Grand National in April. In December of that same year, a horrific fall would lead to his premature death just 17 days later. As a result of his injuries, crash helmets would become mandatory for all subsequent English and Irish races.

In total, Sergeant Murphy completed the Aintree course six times. One record notes, “Sergeant Murphy ran 42 times: won 12, placed 12, unplaced 18. Finished the course every time. …He has jumped the most difficult courses in Great Britain, Ireland and France.”  

In 2013, 90 years after 24-year-old Laddie Sanford hoisted the Grand National trophy in victory, the 30.5-inch-tall silver prize disappeared from the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs. Despite being kept encased in guarded glass, the 1923 trophy, along with four other priceless gold and silver trophies, was stolen. The brazen crime took all of three minutes. It was the first theft of its kind in the museum.

Though the Sanford family had many other notable turf accomplishments both on the flat and over fences, including owning six American Grand National winners saddled by hall-of-famer Hollie Hughes, who trained for three generations of Sanfords, the 1923 Grand National was the pinnacle. The victory also paved the way for future American racing enthusiasts by making the impossible seem possible. Three years later, A.C Schwartz’s Jack Horner won the 1926 National, followed by Marion du Pont Scott’s Battleship’s victory in 1938. Battleship became the first American-owned and bred to capture the trophy. This acclaim was trumped by none other than Jay Trump in 1964 when he and American jockey Tommy Smith won the race. In 1980, British-bred and trained Ben Nevis placed first in American-owner Redmond Stewart’s green-and-white silks under jockey Charlie Fenwick.

Since Sergeant Murphy and his successors’ wins, other Americans have attempted to reclaim the prize on the hallowed British course. This spring will mark 100 years since Tuppy Bennett crossed the finish line in the Sanford silks. Registered in 1880, the purple-and-gold striped silks and gold cap are the second oldest colors in continuous use in America behind those of the Morris family. This year, in honor of the centennial anniversary of his great-uncle Laddie’s victory, Pierre Manigault hopes to enter his own horse in the purple and gold for the Grand National. The occasion marks a serendipitous intersection of the past and the present.  

Manigault, whose maternal grandmother, Gertrude Legendre, was Laddie’s youngest sister, is no stranger to the horse world. Manigault grew up show-riding up and down the East Coast. While working in Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s, he reconnected with his old horseshow trainer, Bruce Rosenbaum, who encouraged him to hunt with the Piedmont Foxhounds in Middleburg. Bruce had won the Seven Corners Owner-Rider Timber Championship a few years earlier and was soon training Manigault and his horses to compete in point-to-points. Laddie’s widow, Mary Sanford, signed over the family colors to him, and Manigault wore them as a rider on the Virginia timber racing circuit. Manigault, of Charleston, SC, is now the owner of the Steeplechase of Charleston.

Manigault exclaims, “I wasn’t very good but I had a great time! I was hooked on steeplechasing though, and we soon bought some horses that Bruce trained and that we ran in the sanctioned meets.”

After a 14-year break from the sport while working and raising two daughters, he reconnected with Arch and Wendy Kingsley, old friends from Middleburg who now live in Camden, SC. The Kingsleys urged Manigault to get back into the sport, this time with two high school friends, Quintie Smith and Alec Smith. The partnership runs under the stable name of Hurricana Farm and its horses carry the Sanford colors.

“I always dreamed of going over to Aintree for the 2023 Grand National to celebrate Sergeant Murphy’s win, but it never occurred to me to have a horse for it. But then Arch and I got to talking about how much fun it would be to have a horse running, and I asked him to see what he could find,” explains Manigault.

With the help of trainer John “Shark” Hanlon, winner of the 2022 American Grand National at Far Hills and the 2022 Eclipse Award with Hewick, Manigault purchased six-year-old Cape Gentlemen from trainer Emmett Mullins.

With a racing post rating of 152, Cape Gentlemen is a four-time chase and hurdle winner in Ireland and England. In his first race for Manigault at Leopardstown in December, he finished the three-mile hurdle race respectably in the middle of the pack of two dozen runners. Manigault says it will be a thrill to celebrate the centennial of Sergeant Murphy’s win regardless of the outcome. 

“It’s more about recognizing Uncle Laddie and the Sergeant’s accomplishment and their place in history, as well as shining some light on the people of Amsterdam and the Friends of Sanford Stud Farm,” explains Manigault. Friends of Sanford Stud Farm is a non-profit that was formed to preserve Hurricana Farm’s legacy and the few remaining buildings of the once vast breeding and racing complex.

If the Sanford colors are once again on display at the centennial of Sergeant Murphy’s win, it will be a fitting celebration of a remarkable moment in American turf history and a family’s indelible mark on the sport of steeplechase racing.