Rock Sand - Stud Record

Stud Record

Rock Sand retired to stud in England, but when James Miller died in 1906 he was put up for sale. He was bought for £25,000 for breeding purposes by the American, August Belmont, Jr., who sent him to his stud farm in Lexington, Kentucky. His arrival in the United States was not trouble-free as it took more than an hour before he could be persuaded to walk down the gangplank from the ship which had brought him to America. In Kentucky, he sired:

• Damrosch, winner of the 1916 Preakness Stakes
• Friar Rock (won Belmont Stakes)
• Gun Rock, a stallion of the U.S. Army Remount Service that was chosen in the 1920s to be the mascot of what is now known as the University of California, Davis
• High Rock (won WATC All-Aged Stakes and WATC Grandstand Plate)
• Mahubah (1910), the dam of Man o' War
• Qu'Elle Est Belle II (Prix de Diane)
• Rock View (USA Withers Stakes)
• Spun Glass dam of Broomspun (Preakness Stakes) winner
• Sun Queen dam of Coventry (Preakness Stakes) winner
• Tracery (1909) won St. Leger Stakes etc.; sire of a number of British champions, including 1923 Derby winner Papyrus.

The banning of wagering on horse racing in certain U.S. states forced Belmont to sell Rock Sand to a syndicate who shipped him to France in 1912. He became a difficult horse to manage, eating his bedding straw and kicking the walls of his stable. He died of heart disease on 20 July 1914. His skeleton can be seen in the Gallery of Comparative Anatomy & Paleontology at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, France.