BREEDING BY FIGURES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1933, Page 7

BREEDING BY FIGURES

■THE BRUCE LOWE SYSTEM

EXPLANATION IN BRIEF

. The meaning of the "Bruce Lowe figures," which so often appear in articles on /breeding, may not bo clear to the general Tace-goer, whose interest in the Turf is primarily in the result of, races rather than in the horses themselves, so the following brief survey of the system should ■make interesting reading for those who desire to understand it v The system is simply a mode of classification. Since its, inception some 40 years ago, however, it has had a profound, influence on the progress of breeding. The late Mr. Bruce Lowe, in the course of his researches, found that certain, families of racehorses possessed a :pronounced superiority over others in speed and stamina and in the capacity of transmitting these powers to their offspring. In assessing the respective merits of the families, Bruce Lowe relied on the degree of success attained in the three classic races, the Derby, Oaks, and St. Leger. In this way 34 families were given designations, the mare whose descendants had had most'successes being styled No. 1, and so on. : . FIPTY FAMILIES. Bruce Lowe traced the families of fifty mares, approximately the number represented in the Stud Book to-day, butfeixteen of these, thatis from No. 35 onwards, have nexer produced a winner of the three classic races quoted, or at least had not up to . the time of Bruce Lowe's death in 1894. la fact, some twenty families only play an important part in modern pedigrees, and a study of records shows that not more than half of these are indispensable in a pedigree of the first class. Following the classification of : the families according to performances, two salient facts emerged. The.first was that the families numbered 1, .2, 3, 4, and 5 possessed, as Bruce Lowe put it, "the highest degree of vital force," or, in other words, racing' merit. The second discovery was that five, families showed in a marked degr.ee the ability to transmit merit to their offspring.; Their special field of distinction .lay in the potency of their sire blood. These "sire" families were Kos. 3, 8, 11, 12, and 14. ■ THE SIRE LINES; lit will be noted that, except in the case of No. 3, not one of; the- racing families earned sufficient distinction as parents to merit inclusion in the sire* list; .These purely racing families were deficient in the elements that constitute successful sires. That family No. 3 not. only escaped the deficiencies of both types.but. combined their virtues, entitled it to pride of place in the list of families, Prom this family came such great sires as Galopin, the-Flying Dutchman, King Tom, Toxophilite, Atlantic, and Bay B6nald,,to name only a few. ' It was Mr. Bruce Lowe's declaration; and abundant proof was supplied •,. by the late Mr. W. Allison, that no horse ever, did, any good.at the stud that w^as no^ descended directly from, or strongly inbred to, one of these sire lines. The originator claimed further that no. great horse of modern times could be quoted that did not contain, in the first three removes of his pedigree, some of. the running and sire'lines. ■ Thus, briefly, is how the Bfuce^Lbwe •ystem of "breeding by figures" arose.