Flying Fox (horse)

Flying Fox
Flying Fox, c.1905
Sire	Orme
Grandsire	Ormonde
Dam	Vampire
Damsire	Galopin
Sex	Stallion
Foaled	1896
Country	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Colour	Bay
Breeder	Eaton Stud
Owner	Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster
Trainer	John Porter
Record	11: 9-2-0
Earnings	₤40,096
Major wins
New Stakes (1898) Criterion Stakes (1898) 2,000 Guineas (1899) Epsom Derby (1899) St. Leger Stakes (1899) Eclipse Stakes (1899) Jockey Club Stakes (1899) Princess of Wales's Stakes (1899)
Awards
8th U.K. Triple Crown Champion (1899) Leading sire in France (1904, 1905, 1913)
Honours
LNER Class A1 locomotive no. 4475
Last updated on 29 January 2011

Flying Fox (1896–1911) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1899 English Triple Crown Races and was the leading sire in France three times.

He was sired by Orme who in turn was sired by Ormonde, the 1886 Triple Crown winner. Their victories made owner Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, the only person to own two English Triple Crown winners. His dam was the high-strung mare, somewhat aptly named Vampire, by Galopin. Vampire also produced these horses from six matings with Orme: Flying Lemur (£1,325, a stud failure); Vamose (£5,604 and at stud in France with limited success) and Pipistrello (a non-winner and useless as a stallion), Wetaria, and Vane (produced the Royal Hunt Cup and Ebor Handicap winner, Weathervane). Flying Fox was intensely inbred (3m x 2f) to Galopin.

Flying Fox was a very difficult colt to handle and as such his trainer raced him for only two years. However, he met with enormous success under trainer John Porter, whom the National Horseracing Museum says was "undoubtedly the most successful trainer of the Victorian era." Flying Fox won three of his five starts at age two, and then at age three went undefeated while becoming only the 8th horse in history to win the Triple Crown. In his sixth and last race of his season and of his career, he won the Jockey Club Stakes at Newmarket.

The Duke of Westminster died near the end of 1899 and the following year Flying Fox and many of the other horses in his stable were put up for auction. Purchased for a record 37,500 guineas by the prominent French sportsman Edmond Blanc, he was brought to Blanc's Haras de Jardy horse breeding operation at Marnes-la-Coquette in what is today part of the western suburbs of Paris.