NEWHAVEN'S PEDIGREE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2396, 1 February 1900, Page 40

NEWHAVEN'S PEDIGREE.

Unfortunately for his career at die stud in England, Ncwhavcn's lines cannot be traced beyond a certain point, and having been refused admittance into that very exclusive ■volume, the English Stud Book, the stigma of ''half bred" will for ever be attached to one of Uie best racehorses of modern days, and all because somebody didn't start a stud book 50 years ago in Australia so as to keep a record of all the blood mares then in the country instead of allowing many of them to be forgotten. So writes " Milroy," and he adds : _vlr James Wilson, sen., has always been a.s great a stickler Tor pure blood as Messrs Weatherby, and the fact that Mr Wilson has stuck tenaciously to Newhaven's blood all theoe years pretty well proves that there was not much wrong with the original mare from which lie built up the family; i-i ioct, Mr Wilson declares the hoise is quite cleanly bred, bin he cannot find the pedigree. Very few men in the early days interested themselves or knew as much about the Englls'i Stud Book as did Mr V> r ilson, and it is hardly likely he would have gone to all the trouble he did to get Dinah's dam in those days unless she via.3 thoroughbred, and as there was no stud book published for many years after he purchased her the forgetting of the original pedigree is quite natural. But this is quite apart from the main issue. Messrs Weatharby do not hesitate to admit American horses of admitted impurity. In feet, in some American horses that have found their wpy into the English book as many as 10 strains of native mustang mares ran be found, yet they stop Newhaven, who h?s one doubtful strain, but from the time the doubt begins seven generations have elapsed, which should constitute purity, as in. that length of time tha influence of all the pure blood thot has been brought to bear on the one mare of whose parentage a doubt exist* must have had the effect of obliterating any ba'-e blood that may have been in liar, but as the family has been good from the beginning there is no reason to sup-nose that Mr Wilson's contention is otherwise than correct. Seven generations of pure blood, or a pur 0 Arab source of even a shorter length, will always be accented as pure bred in Australia, where, considering the number of inn res and sia 1 lions they have to work upon, breeders raise a better average of winners and vacphoives oF clais than they do in England. If Mr iTuille refused to admit into his book any mare about whom a cloubi existed, a large number of very good racehorses and sires would not find a place in his work to-day, bnt Mr Yuille runs his book on common-sense lines, which is more than can be spiel for Messrs Weatherby, who refused to admit the best racehorse (Clorane) in England because there was a doubt about one of his dams 10 generations off ; yet some of the original mares that form the groundwork of their book are to be got in present day (pure) pe-digrees at 12 generations. Yet another ea«e of their conservatism: — A gentleman bought a filly Vvhose pure bred dam had not been snnt foi inclusion in the 17th volume of the stud book, and for this reason they refused to admit into the 18th. the filly, whose very grand-dam Mas in the 17th volume.