N.Z. STUDY OF BREEDING

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27591, 23 February 1955, Page 4

N.Z. STUDY OF BREEDING

REVIEW IN “HORSE AND HOUND” “STATISTICS WILL BE OF UTMOST VALUE” Part 1 of a New Zealand publication entitled “The First Principles of Thoroughbred Breeding,” written oy Mr H. D. C. Hampton, of Auckland, is reviewed by “Audax” in the February Issue of the “Horse and Hound.” “Audax” writes that Mr Hampton has planned to issue many subsequent parts dealing with a variety of aspects of bloodstock breeding. Two future issues are to be entitled "How to Recognise the Great Brood-mare Sire and Even Breed One,” and “The Secret of the Great Brood-mare.” “Should Mr Hampton’s researches lead him to discover these two secrets, they will be. worth almost as much to him as the philosopher’s stone, and he would be very ill-advised to part with them,” writes "Audax.” “Mr Hampton, however, makes no definite promise that he will be able to produce the answers, for he states that the entire research field over which he hopes his publication will range is so vast that no single individual can complete it unaided, and he qualifies his list of future articles with the proviso that time and resources can be found to produce them. “It can be fairly deduced from this that Mr Hampton has his feet firmly upon the ground and has not floated oil into space as have so many theorists.” Mr Hampton, in his opening volume, gives a general report on his studies, comprising 10 years of private research, the nature of which is not categorically specified but which can be fairly accurately guessed at, and the result of three tests undertaken with the pedigrees of a number of yearlings in Australia and New Zealand and their subsequent racing careers over the last three seasons, says “Audax.” “He follows this with some conclusions on inbreeding, a short sentence which I think fairly covers the subject of the two most important chapters. “What* we have to decide is wether Mr Hampton has justified his assertions and conclusions,” "Audax” says. “His theories are, naturally, empirical. He has collected a large number of facts and from them has propounded his conclusions. There is always a danger with empirical theories that the limitations of human endeavour have resulted in failure to collect sufficient data. “Even if Mr Hampton’s theories prove not to be as sound as he imagines them to be, which only time can tell, the statistics which he has so laboriously collected—and I hope will always preserve—will still be of the utmost value. They will save other researchers from having to cover the same ground. "That we can well do with others who, like Mr Hampton, are prepared to spend so much time on such research is obvious, and whatever the final value of his work proves to be, represented in terms of theories, one must remember that it has not been the lot of any scientist, however great, to contribute more than a fraction of the knowledge of any particular subject that we possess today. “Statement Liable to Criticism” “Audax” makes special mention of Mr Hampton s statement that, speaking generally, a great horse has two strains, one male and one female, from the same ancestor, rather than two male strains from one great ancestor and two female strains from another. The reviewer says: “As an example he quotes Tulyar and Gay Time, first and second in the Derby and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Gay Time has two sons of Gainsborough and two daughters of Chaucer in his pedigree, while Tulyar has a son and daughter of Phalaris coupled with a son and daughter of Chaucer. Mr Hampton states that although this is a very fine distinction it is of supreme importance. “It may be that Mr Hampton’s researches, reinforced by further efforts in the future, may prove this to be so. At the moment, however, such a statement seems liable to some criticism. One may well get a very bad horse with the pedigree qualifications of Tulyar. . , “My own view, for what it is worth, is that one would expect to have to mate differently to get results when a race is considerably removed from its original ancestors than in the early stages. A reference to the extreme close inbreeding, such as mating mother and son, which was resorted to in the earliest days when it was important to try to fix the type illustrates what I mean.” Summing up, “Audax” writes: “Though I think Mr Hampton’s exposition is far from perfection, I also think that anyone who has taken the pains he claims to have done is worthy of at least the compliment of being read, though I admit I do not consider he has as> yet advanced the science of breeding very far. The keeper of the New Zealand Stud Book, 'Mr G. Tucker, has been asked by Mr Hampton to hold his findings and check them with future results. Swabs Prove Negative The swabs taken from Rising Sun and Lucky Strike at the recent Wanganui meeting have proved negative, according to advice received by Mr S. R. McCallum, secretary of the Wanganui Jockey Club, from the New Zealand Racing Conference’s analyst.—(P.A.)