Description:

Franklin Brooke Voss (American, 1880–1953) NIMBA $25,000. – $30,000. Oil on canvas, 28” x 36” Signed, dated 1927 $25,000. – 30,000. Illustrated: John Hervey, Racing in America 1922–1936, privately printed for the New York Jockey Club by The Scribner Press, 1937, page 96 Champion 3-year-old filly of 1927, Nimba had her knocks. Her 2-year-old campaign had to be delayed after she was kicked in the stifle in the spring. She won her only start at 2. Then over the winter before her championship season, she was kicked in the jaw and it was feared she would miss another summer. But she won the Coaching Club American Oaks, the Alabama Stakes, and the Lawrence Realization Stakes at 3. Nimba opened her 4-year-old season on May 26, 1928, winning the Metropolitan Handicap, pulling away from the colts. But after that victory she began to sulk and never returned to form. Bred in Kentucky by Arthur B. Hancock, Nimba was sold privately as a yearling to Marshall Field III, who raced her and returned her to Claiborne Farm as a broodmare. Her first foal was Nimbus, who ran second in the 1933 Belmont Stakes for his breeder. Harold Thurber’s greatest achievement might have been guiding Nimba throughout her racing career. Born in North Dakota in 1892, Thurber rode as a jockey in Louisiana, Kentucky, and New York. Twice he applied to ride in Cuba. He passed away in California in 1968. On pages 96 and 97 of Racing in America 1922–1936, Nimba is discussed thoroughly. “Jock, Justice F., Black Panther, War Eagle, Rolled Stocking, Hydromel, and Kentucky II were other three-year-olds that raced prominently, but aside from the group previously mentioned, it was two fillies that stood out, with Nimba the real prima donna. She had, as all prima donnas should, exquisite beauty, the artistic temperament, and the capacity to do dazzling things. While both her sire, War Cloud, son of Polymelus, and her dam, Martha Snow, were bred in England, she had an American strain maternally, as Martha Snow (also dam of Calumet Dick and granddam of Privileged) was by the Ogden horse, Sir Martin, that John E. Madden had originally taken to England to race. War Cloud, imported as a yearling by Mr. A. K. Macomber, had raced here with distinction, winning the Preakness, Dwyer, and other stakes, after which he was sent to France, subsequently returning here to enter the Claiborne Stud, where after making one season, that of 1923, having accidentally broken a leg he had to be destroyed. Nimba was bred by Mr. Hancock and bought privately as a yearling by Mr. Marshall Field. She raced but once at two, winning a purse event. At three she won five of her nine starts, giving a grand exhibition in the Realization, as she led from end to end and won in hand by three lengths from Brown Bud and Flippant, with Bostonian, Valorous, and Chance Shot toiling after her in vain. Only once before had the American equivalent of the St. Leger been won by a filly, Vexatious, in 1919, but on that occasion she did not finish first, Over There, who did, being disqualified. As no other filly since Nimba has succeeded in it, she therefore ranks as the only one of her sex to score a clean-cut, unequivocal victory. Moreover, she also won the Coaching Club American Oaks, our equivalent of the Epsom Oaks, leading all the way and beating Frilette three lengths; at Saratoga she took the historic Alabama Stakes, carrying 124 pounds and giving 10 pounds each to La Palina and Recreation, second and third, and in the Travers split Brown Bud and Valorous. At four she triumphed in the Metropolitan, another event which her sex has found it almost impossible to win. She was bred at five but has not, as a matron, emulated her turf record, which closed with seven races out of thirteen starts and $74,045. Nimba was a chestnut, with a penciling of white between her eyes and a filly of almost faultless beauty of the most patrician type, her head and neck being cameo-like in fineness and her limbs as slim and shapely as a fawn’s.”

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November 17, 2019 4:00 PM EST
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