IMPORTED HORSES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 239, 22 September 1922, Page 7

IMPORTED HORSES.

CRITICAL ENGLISHMAN. MANY “CHEAP AND FLASHY ” V Sydney, Sept. 13. Mr. William Allison (“The Special Commissioner ), who has sent many English horses to Australia, in his book, “Memoirs of Men and Horses,” tells how the famous Bill of Portland came to Australia, and expresses a very strong opinion on the question of English horses that have been exported to this country. This will be of great interest to breeders and owners of thoroughbreds generally. Mr. Allison writes:— “Mr. W. R. Wilson was my chief friend from Australia in the early days, and banks were breaking in Australia at that time. He wanted a St. Simon stallion, but each day felt like spending less money, and eventually he limited himself to an outlay of lOOOgns. Then he took my advice, which was to buy a really high-class horse with a ‘crab’ about him rather than a sound mediocrity, and I recommended Bill of Portland, who was worth 10,000gns., even in those days, had lie been sound, but being a bad roarer, he was bought for the lOOOgns. “It is common knowledge now that Bill of Portland made an immense success at the stud in Australia from the very first, getting the best of the year in each of his first three seasons, and his sons have carried on successfully after him. more particularly Malster; but this brilliant result was on the whole injurious to Australasian blood stock. SPECIOUS MEDIOCRITIES. “Breeders there knew that Bill of Portland had been bought cheaply, and without assimilating my advice to Mr. Wilson as to the sine qua non of class, even if unsound, rather than sound mediocrities, they hastened to buy numbers of cheap stallions with specious pedigrees, fegarefless of whether they had ever shown any form or not. Thus they have contrived in the last 25 years to greatly depreciate their own stout old lines of blood, and to produce animals which are readily beaten by second-class importations from England. “The mistake was in not understanding that Bill of Portland was really a horse of the highest class, and that as he did not transmit his infirmity to his stock his success was, or should have been, easy to understand ; but it was not, and there was a rush from that time forth to buy cheap stallions, with mos unfortunate results. GOOD OLD AUSTRALIAN. “Now you can send out a secondclass animal from here, and he carries all before him. It is liecause they have been breeding fropi cheap and nasty paper pedigrees. Just l>ecause they are gaudy. Let them hold on to their ola Musket. Fisherman, Yattendon, Tom Whiffler. and Goldsbrough strains, and then they will find the importations not a serious menace. , “I can safely claim that I was never responsible for sending to Australia or New Zealand any but good horses, and one of the latest of them was Kenilworth, with whom Mr. E R. White, of Merton, New South Wales, did very well indeed.”