HORSES FOR AUSTRALIA.

West Coast Times, 22 March 1910, Page 4

HORSES FOR AUSTRALIA.

EXPORT OF DRAUGHTS. WELLINGTON, March 18. No fewo rthan thirtyi-six draught horses were shipped from Wellington to Victoria last Thursday by the Moeraki. Twenty-one of these are three to seven-year old mares and geldings, which Mr W. M’Gaffin, of Hastings, is taking over for sale in Melbourne. They are a fine lot of horses and Mr M'Gaffin stated to a Dominion representative that for one pair he had been offered £IOO in Hawkes Bay while for another mare he bad refused £6l. He expected this- latter animal to bring in fully £IOO on the other side. Next week his brother is to take over a further shipment of 24 horses. It is Mr

M'Gaffiin’s intention to visit New South “Wales where draughts are at present in strong demand, and if the outlook is sufficiently favourable he may get together a shipment of anything up to a hundred horse sfor Sydney. Mr R. D. Knight, the well-known breeder, of Longburn, has been busily engaged in filling Australian orders for some time past, and yesterday sent away fifteen marcs, two to four-year olds, to a customer in Ballarat. Last week Mr Knight shipped between twenty and thirty horses to Melbourne, but his| largest consignment this spasonwas on February 3, when fifty-two hbrsos were sent across, seven being stallions.

The demand from Australia is stated to be due to the extension of wheatgrowing in Victoria and New South Wales, fanners requiring good staunch horses of a type not at present too plentiful in the States. In this week’s “Australasian” a New South Wales scribe writes as follows on the position in his State : “A stud book for draught horses is very inuph needed ip New South Wales. Although there lias, been evidence of improvement in the b,arses in recent years, this State is years behind Victoria and New Zealand in respect to the production of draughts of good, modern type. Some fine horses are seen on a few of the wheat farms in the -southern districts, and in nearly every case these have been brought over from another State, or bred here by farmers who came to New South “Wales to secure lain]. The general run of draughts here is extremely uneven. Most are, of course, fit to do some class of work, but, as a rule, there are differences in the weights and breeding of the horses in a team which are heartbreaking to a good driver. Numbers of stallions without any character, showing no true draught breeding, -are still patronised and often well bred mares are bred to these unsatisfactory sires, Pedigreecs are manufactured wholesale; in fact pedigree counts for very little with the owners of mares, because there are no established lines of breeding. If the name of a horse which has won a champion prize at a Sydney show, or has sired a few wellknown horses ,appears in a pedigree, it carries some weight, but there being no stud book, any owner may work any notable animal into the pedigree of his horse. Compulsory registration of all stallions will certainly be advocated by the conference in Sydney at Easter, hut the delegates might also do something towards establishing a stud book for draughts. Asked how he was finding the demand in New Zealand for draughts Mr Knight said that things were at present decidedly on the dull side up country.