HORSE BREEDING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2391, 28 December 1899, Page 42

HORSE BREEDING.

(By "Milroy," in the Sydney Mail.) Looking back on the work of ou: greatgrandfathers we find that they were very partial to inbreeding largely to one or two great individuals in order to procure a racehorse of clans. To get as mueli Eclipse and Highflyer in a pedigree as possible was considered the royal road to rucces-s by the breeders who lived in the three-cornered hat and bob wig days when the fourth George was Regent, and later the craze was to cros3 in as much as possible Sir Peter (son of Highflyer) with the best pons and grandsons 'of liclipse. They bred into individuals with a vengeance in thorc days — to such an extent that writers of the old school denounced it incestuous ; but, incestuous or not, racehorses kept coming, and the breed of horses improved as time went on. Later on breeder? considered two crosses into a strong individual three generations off, with a powerful corrective in the shape of an "oiitcrofcb," was the touchstone of sucee=K, but often the "outcross" was as inbred to the main ttud book heads as the individual they were breeding to. Such a thing as outcroaaing lias been next to impossible any time during the past 50 3'mrs. The only real outcross that can be got. iv one of the baser breeds, or rather the Arab or Barb. Of course every British thoroughbred descpnds direct from, and is very powerfully infused with, the Arab, Bai'b, or lurk, but the genernlions of feeding on English Foil, the influence of the climate, and the careful inerofsing of the best families, have altered the hoive ."o that he is a totally different animal to what were his forebears in Iho ea-it.

If the breeders who lived in the Fecoml half of the eighteenth century were to uprise t<.day they would consider the ppdigrecs of Plying Fox a perfect one for all purpose*,

that is if they were properly seized with the worth of the individuals or families +0 whom he is so inbred, but our fathers in this and the old country would regard the gieat English colt as incestuously bred, and if his prospects ■ on the racecourse or at the stud depended on 1 the great majority of them we would never ' have heard of him, except, perhaps, as a gelded 1 hack, but fcuc Duke of Westminster could afford to experiment. Flying Fox is the resxilt of crossing a son of Galopin mare on a Galopin mare, gra'iddam by Speculum, who was by the same horse as Galopin When the late Bon E. K. Cox paid £1000 for Yattendon his friends held that it was not wise to give euch a high figure for a stud horse in this country with its limited market, but 1 Mr Cox knew what he was doing, and not only 1 did ho maka his stud a success financially, but improved the blood stock of the country to a wonderful extent. He was well aware at the time he bought Yattendon that there were few, if any, mares in the country that suited the great ron of Sir Hercules. Yattendon was ! undoubtedly a son of his father, whom he \ favoured in every way. This fact was so cvi- ' dent that Mr Cox determined to breed from ' him, exactly as he would have done from Sir I Hercules himself. Ho was one of the few men then in the colony that know Sir Hercules I and Slockwell were of the same family and ' were, practically, full brothers. ' With this in his mind, he went to England to buy Stockwell mares for his Sir Hercules horse, but found on arrival that it was as disHcult a matter to get sound mares by the ■ emperor of stallions or his best sons as it was to buy the Crown jewels, but he was patient, and bought the blood he wanted at the yearl- ' ing sales. He also got some of it on his return to Australia by buying mares that had been imported by another gentleman. From the purchased material he bred the best, horses of his time, and owned at his death the moat valuable collection of thoroughbreds in all Australia. Pie bred Chester pnd his brothers out of a Stockwell mare ; Grand Flaneur out of a jnare by St. Albiuu — son of Slockwell; Creswick out of 11 mare by Blair Athol — son of Stockwell, and Sweat William out of a Stockwell mare. Good racehorses Ihera, whose inbiecdmg neither affected their speed ucr their power of transmitting it 10 their progeny. The late Hon. James White, of Kirkbam, followed on tV.e lines laid down by Air Cox. In Chester he had n horse by a son of Shir) ereules cut of a, . Stockwell mare ; a horse bred in such a way that he was out of a ma^e by an almost full brother to ~t.U (Chester 1*)1 *) grandsire. Mr White achieved success that has never yet fallen to the lot of any other Australian or English breeder. Mr White 1 went to England in 1881 and purchased several mares for Cheater. They were : Epif-ode, by j See Saw out of a mare by Blair Athol (son of ' Stcckwell) ; Rusk, by Brown Bread out of a Stock/well mare ; La Prince«»e, by Cathedral out of a Stockwell mare; Lady Vivian, by Strathconan out of a Stockwell mare; Lily tawfchorn, by Knight of the Crescent out of a mare by Kettledrum, a s>on of Sjockwcll's , brother Rataplan ; Moonstone, by Blair ■ Athol : Piiillina, by Bonnyficld out of a mare iby Lord Lyon — son of Stockwell ; Princens Maud, by Adventurer out of a Stockwell mare; and Trafalgar, by Blair Athol from a sif-ter to Musket. The only failure out of this lot was Lily , Hawthorn, who. strictly on breeding, should have bean or.c-of the best of them. Episode threw a good stayer in Chesternian and a good mare in JSscapado to the lord of the harem, and to him La Princess threw Oranbrook. Having a double cross of Touchstone in her, Lndy Vhian was font all the way to New Zealr.ml fov Mu->kel, who also had 3. doublo cross of the great son of Camel, and the flying Vollay was the result of tlieiv union. The old rnaro ne\cr went to Chc*tei\ but to his son Abercom ?he threw Vivian and Vigorous. Moonstone threw two trimmers in Uralla and Carlyon to Chester, and Phillina - two foals by the old horse were Philip Augustus and Paraphrase. Princes Maud threw Acmo to Chester, and Trafalgar v»a3 the dam of Dreadnought. Mr White was also vory fond of Maribyi Inong mares, and out of them he bred rame very good horses by Chester, notably Stromboli. Mawbyrnonß was by Fisherman out of Rose do Florence, by Flying Dutchman, who belonged to the Fame fninily aa Stoeiiwell and Sir Hercules. Ro&e do Florence's second dam was Htockwell's graridaani. However, Mr White's greatest success was Abercorn, win.wa" out of a Tocai-bved mure. Xlib was by Goldsbrough out of Brown Duchess, by Whalebone, a half -brother xo Sir Hercules. Brown Duchess ran back to Otisina, by Liverpool (by Tramp, who belonged to jstuckwell's family) out of Otis, who also belonged to tttcckwell'a family) out of Otis, who also belonged to the tame family as Stoekwoll and Sir Hercules. To Chester this mare bred Abercorn and Spice, the former the greatest racehorse ever foaled in Australia, and the latter was an exceptionally Rood filly. f- Thus we had Mr E. K. Cox laying down that YatlendonV road to success lay through Slockwell, and Air White with the best exponent of the Sir Hercules— Stoekwell crcsi (Chester), followed as closely a3 he could in the footsteps of the Fernhill btudmaftei. With 'Abercorn at the head of affairs the Kirkham &tud was carried on, but unfortunately, the majority of the young marcs there were by Chester, and the chances of Chester's greatest son were small. His only big hits were out of Copra, a mare by RobinFon Crusoe, who was a grandson of Fisherman out of a Stock* well mare. Abercorn's maternal grandpire, Goldsbrough, was out of a mare by Fisherman out of Juliet-,, and Robinson Crusoe's dam wa.s also out of Juliet. Of Chester's other sono that took up ftud life only Cranbrook, Carlyon, Dreadnought, and Projectile need be used to illustrate the advantages of inbreeding. Cranbrook begat two great horses in Atlas and Cranberry. The fOlf 01 mer is out of a mare by Grandmaster (whose dam was by Stockwell) out of a mare by a Sir Hercule3 horse. Cranberry is out of a mare by Splendour (son of a Stockwell mare) out of a mare whose granddam was by Stockwell's brother, Rataplan. Carlyon's two best horses are Carllon and Dirk Haminerhand. Carlton is out of a mare by Julian A venal, a grandson of Stockwell, and Dirk is out of a mare by Neckerbgat, whose s=ire was out of a half-sister to Stockwell, and his (Neckersgat's) dam was by Stockwell's half-brother King Tom. Dreadnought's stud life has beea a maikec 1 success, and the deatli of such a fine btaUion in his prime was a great loss to Auptralasia. Though his dam was out of a sister to Musket (who belonged to the f-'ame family as Stockwell and Sir Hercules), he got winners out of a mare by Nordenfeldt, out of a Musket mare. Nordenfeldt was by Musket out of Onyx, by Angler out of Chrysolite, by Stockwell. Dreadnought also sired winners out of a mare by St. Leger (grandson of Slockwell) out of a Yattendon mare. Projectile is as yet on his trial, and so far only a brace of hU sons have raced. One is a winner, p.nd the other ran particularly well in hif- only two race-*. The winner i.s out of a marc by Lochicl (greatgrandioa of StockwellJ, out of a mare by

Roodee, a brother to Chester. The other ia out of a mare by Savanaka (son of a Sir Hercules mare), out of a daughter of Chester's own dam. . v To follow the success of the past- 20 years would go far beyond the limits of an article liko this, and so far only the methods of Mr E. K. Cox, Mr James White, and those who got possession of the stock raised by these gentleman have been touched, as it is well enough known that the two breeders named worked deliberately with one object and- did not breed in a haphazard fashion. Mr White once told a friend' who was congratulating him. on one of his successes that it would take 25 or 30 years of breeding on his plan to perfect* his horses, and the pity of it is that such an intelligent observer and manly sportsman did not live on till the object of his life 'was gained. Other observant breeders are now at work concentrating powerful families as much as possible, or as much as their limitations of purse and opportunity will permit, but, meanwhile, the lesson on inbreeding given them by Flying Fox, Barcaldine, Carbine, Abercorn, etc., is not likely to be lost on the breeder that owns only a, few mares, and who if thoroughly alive to his own interests will look carefully into the breeding of available stallions before selecting one for a mare, instead of doing, ac too many have done in the past — i.e., put his mare to a horse because he "likes him, ' or that so and so recommended * the horoG because iic "liked him," and bo forth.