Background
Galopin was a bay horse standing 15.3 hands high, bred in Lincolnshire by Taylor Sharpe. His sire, Vedette, was a successful racehorse, winning the Great Yorkshire Stakes, the Doncaster Cup (twice), and the 1857 2,000 Guineas Stakes. Vedette's value as a stallion had declined to such an extent that he was sold at auction for 42 guineas when he was seventeen. Apart from Galopin, the best of his offspring was Speculum, who won the Goodwood Cup, the Suburban Handicap, was third in the Epsom Derby, and was Britain's Champion Sire in 1878. Vedette also sired some good hunters. Galopin's dam Flying Duchess (1853) was by the 1849 Epsom Derby winner The Flying Dutchman.
As a foal, Galopin and his mother were sold for a combined price of 100 guineas by a representative of the Middle Park stud. A year later, the yearling was offered for sale again, and was bought for 520 guineas by the Hungarian aristocrat Gustavus Batthyany, acting on the advice of his private trainer John Dawson. Galopin was trained by Dawson at Batthyany's Warren House stable at Newmarket, Suffolk.
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