Barnebarn til Nancy Hanks. Exceptionally blue blooded, the son of Bingen, out of a daughter of Nancy Hanks, is today best known (and perhaps only known) as the sire of Margaret Parrish. Forbes adored the young colt but he died (in 1904) when Vice Commodore was 3-years-old and the colt was sold off at the dispersal sale arranged by his heirs where he was bought by Andy Welch for $6 900. The following year he stood stud at a foal fee of $50. He was subsequently bought by John Madden and trained for a record. Despite little training he took a mark of 2:11, supposedly both with ease - as he was extremely talented - but also with difficulty - as he struggled with lameness. Madden withdrew Vice Commodore from the market (presumably because of the row around Bingen, of whom he was a son) and only used him on some of his own mares, but one of them was Lady Leyburn - the resulting foal being the very talented Margaret Parrish. In 1914 the 13-year-old stallion was purchased, through an agent, for a Russian buyer and in June of that year he was loaded on a ship to be sent to Russia. Again the timing couldn't be worse: on June 28 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assasinated and within the month World War I was underway (Germany declared war on Russia on Aug 1st). When Margaret Parrish's foals starting dominating people starting digging into the history of Vice Commodore and it was found that he never arrived in Russia. It was subsequently discovered that the ship carrying him was sunk by a German sub. Thus prematurely ended the life of a stallion that never got a real chance anywhere. Text by Lisa Harkema