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blackout of 1911–1912, when the sport was outlawed in New York during an outburst of moral fervor, but Hancock had to cut back the broodmare band to all but about twelve mares. Over the next twenty-five years, Hancock’s long climb to preeminence as a breeder began. He moved his family permanently to the Kentucky farm in 1912, a move suggesting that he knew Kentucky would one day be the home of thoroughbred breeding in America.
    A year later he bought the stallion Celt, a son of Commando, for $20,000 in a dispersal sale at Madison Square Garden. Under Celt, the Hancock stud regained the vigor it possessed in the days of Eolus. Hancock’s interest in foreign bloodstock heightened when the prices dropped in Europe at the start of World War I. In 1915 he bought the English stallion, Wrack, for $8000 from Archibald Philip Rosbery. It marked Hancock’s first major acquisition of a foreign stallion, and it launched a breeding operation at Claiborne Farm, where Wrack was sent to stud. Barns were built near Kennedy Creek. Part of the land was fenced with planking. A grazing paddock was built for Wrack to loll away his idle hours. And the farm itself expanded, growing in size from 1300 to 2100 acres.
    The Hancock studs flourished in the 1920s, grew in influence and prestige. In 1921, Celt was America’s leading thoroughbred sire in the amount of money won by his offspring, his fifty-two performing sons and daughters winning 124 races and $206,167 in purses. Hancock reached out for more foreign blood. His acquisition of foreign bloodstock reached its zenith in 1926, when he formed a four-man group—composed of Hanover Bank president William Woodward, Marshall Field, Robert Fairbairn, and himself—and bought Sir Gallahad III, a French stallion and a son of Teddy, for $125,000. Sir Gallahad’s impact at the stud was felt almost at once.
    Bred his first year in America to Marguerite, a daughter of Celt, he sired Belair Stud’s Gallant Fox. “The Fox of Belair,” as he came to be known, won the Triple Crown in 1930, the second horse to do it. Sir Gallahad III was the leading American sire that year, with just sixteen offspring winning forty-nine races and $422,200, a record in purses that stood until 1942. He led the sire list three more times, his horses winning more than the horses sired by any other stallion.
    Through the importation of the potent Teddy blood, through Sir Gallahad III and later his full brother, Bull Dog, American and other imported blood was freshened and invigorated. Sir Gallahad III’s influence became unusually pervasive in his role as a “broodmare sire,” so pervasive that he led the annual broodmare sire list for twelve years, ten years in a row, from 1943 to 1952. The broodmare sire list is a special category that singles out stallions whose daughters are exceptional producers. For twelve years the daughters of Sir Gallahad III produced racehorses that won more money than the racehorses produced by the daughters of any other sire. No horse in American history, before or since, ever dominated that list so long. He sired La France, dam of the 1939 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner, Johnstown; and he sired Gallette, dam of champion handicap mare Gallorette; Fighting Lady, dam of the speedy Armageddon; and Black Wave, dam of the 1947 Kentucky Derby winner, Jet Pilot.
    In 1936, Hancock was instrumental in bringing Blenheim II, the 1930 Epsom Derby winner, to America. Blenheim II cost an American syndicate $250,000. Among Blenheim II’s first sons to reach the races in America was Whirlaway, winner of the 1941 Triple Crown, the fifth horse to win it.
    Hancock’s fortunes as a breeder soared. In 1935, horses bred by Hancock won more races—392—and more money—$359,218—than the horses bred by any other breeder. He led the breeder lists for the next two years. Hancock was not racing his homebreds. Following a policy adopted originally by his father in 1886, he sold his yearlings at auction