DETERIORATION OF HORSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2504, 19 March 1902, Page 46

DETERIORATION OF HORSES.

X German of distinction wrote the foilowinß letter to the London Sportsman In Iris note to "Vigilant" he apologised for his letter on the grovuui that he is unaccustomed to writing Euglish. Our readers will a»rce that he makes out an excellent case. Ke says: "In the Sportsman of December 25 you write that 'few of us can fail to agree with John Porter in his recent statement that sending horses to the stud at four years old is one of the chief causes of the present deterioration that is noticed in our thoroughbred stock.' There is another cause, which seems to have altogether escaped the general attention, as I have been astonished to see for some time, and which has — there can be no doubt about it — gradually and all along done more harm than the comparatively few horses sent to the stud at four years : it is the tremendous increase of the number of mares put to the stud at a» age of two to three years. In the time of Queen Mary (vol. VIII) you will find little more than a dozen marcs covered al two years ; about 20 per cent, were first covered at three and the areat average at four years. About 50 years later (Vol. XVIII) the number of two and three-year-olds covered is more than double as large as the number of four-year-olds. The by far greater number are put out to tho stud at three years old, and you will find 252 mares (always only those mares counted whose stud career began in the same volume of the General Stud Book), that were covered at the age of two years. Three even were covered as yearlings, bnt one or two of them •most fikely by mistake (of pedigree?) If you take Ireland for itself (or is it herself?), you will find that more than 25 per cent, of all the thoroughbred nuires there are covered at an age of two years, only five less than the four-year-olds. These are facts (the statistics are on nty desk before me) and not opinions, of which we have had lnore than enough all along, and I can leave you to judge them by yourself nnd give the ve/y necessary warning, as with very few exceptions, which can be easily accounted for by the breeding, hardly auything has come from this sort of mare, although I have not been, able to find out a marked difference in the number of produce by them and others up to now. . . . Mares (with few exceptions) are generally spoilt for their whole stud career, and their produce, too. when they are put to the stud 100 early. The produce of too young a sire is often not worth much, "but the horse in the time of rest grows stronger." The writer has stated his case *o clearly and concisely that little or nothing could be added to it. The figures which he gives, and which may be fully relied upon, are so startling that they will give many considerable food for reflection, and he is probably quite correct when he .states -that it is the youth of the mares, and not the, sires, which is in the main responsible for the deterioration of our thoroughbreds.