The Farmer.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1702, 3 July 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Farmer.

Brood Bares. Br Captain - W. If Fife in the Live SiVvk F’Cp.nai.. Very little encaurstremen' is riven at pn-smt by the existing agricultural societies to Ir md mares, for the following rca^n-: -!li Bicause the generality of shows are held during the spring and summer months, limes when mares are either just about to foal or have their foals at font, and under eith-.r d tl circumstances few owners will run the risk of sending their marcs any distance to compete. The entric'- of brood mares are, therefore, fsw, and many shows of moderate importance omit the class altogether. The same is the case with stallion classes. Both these and brood mare classes to be successful should be competed between the end of summer and the beginning of spring. (2> There should be more than one class for brood mares. There should be a class for breeding weightcarrying hunters, and another for light weights. There should also be classes restricted to age, say for mares in foal under the age of five years ; this would encourage farmers and others to breed from young mares, which is one of the most profitable ways of breeding hunters, as a foal or two is got from the dam between three and five years old. an age when she is growing into money. There should al-o he a class for mares suitable to breed hunter 1 which have not been used for breeding. This is a class that might, of course, be shown a: any time of year, and would, I fee! sure, be ’’he means of many a good mare being put to the stud that would not otherwise have been bred from. Marcs are never allowed a fair chance at shows in having to compete on equal terms with geldings, the latter naturally having the adventsce of greater size and substance, so it would be only due to the mares that they should have a separate class for themselves under the head of “ mares suitable tor brood marcs but which have not tec-n used for stud purposes."

The farmers' idsaof what is the right sort of mare to mate with a thoroughbred horse ia often very wide of the mark, and such a class would tend to educate their minds as to wha,. is the riuht sort, and many would be dissuaded from the idea of breeding from an unsuitable one from the fact of her not being in any way noticed ia this class, while others who, through want of knowledge, might not have intended breeding from a good one, might be induced by success at the showyard to try their luck by having a foal from the prize-winner. All such c!a==ss as I have named should be encouraged as ranch as possible, and there should be established a hunters’ prize-book for all mares that have taken prizes or have been very highly commended. Thoroughbred stallions also that win prizes or medals at the Hunters’ Stallion Show shourd be entered in this book, and also those that win at the Royal and other leading shows. The fact of shows being the key to the prize-book would be an inducement to show mares, and the subject would be more generally studied and ventilated. Should an exhibitor have a mare in the prize-book, and get a filly foal from her by a prize horse, and should he succeed in getting this produce into the prizebook, she should be moat valnable as a brood mare, and each succeeding generation that could bo got into the book on her merits, would be additionally valnable, and it would then to a matter of consideration whether an animal co bred would not be more valuable as a brood mare than she would be to sell for other purposes, and encouragement would thus be given to breed from one of the right ort which, but for the existence of the prizerook, might never have beed bred from till she was worn out and too old to breed strong and healthy stock.