BREEDING OF HORSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27391, 17 May 1950, Page 5

BREEDING OF HORSES

SPORTING

Success Still Regulated By Science GOOD FORTUNE AN ELEMENT By the Sporting Editor In considering the question of breeding, it is not isolated instances of good horses being produced but a continuous and permanent series of successes which must be taken into consideration. There are those who contend that breeding is largely a matter of luck, and the strongest point in their argument is the successes of animals of unfashionable pedigree which are occasionally recorded. Their theory is that it is good fortune and not science which regulates success in breeding, but even the luckiest of breeders is likely to do better with good animals, well bred and well mated, than with nondescripts. Very few practical then would, however, deny that luck and science go hand in hand in breeding, otherwise a breeder would only have to mate his mares or horses' on the same lines as the most successful owners of the day; and the same sire put to the same mare would produce the same kind of foal every year, with the result that everybody would be producing champions, and breeding would be reduced to the level of a purely mechanical process. The day when breeders will discard science in favour of luck is as yet far off.