Untitled

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VII, Issue 361, 24 June 1897, Page 8

“ The importation,” says Messrs Wertherby, “of a number of horses and mares bred in the United States of America and in Australia, a few of which will remain iu studs in ■this country, may have some effect on stock bred here, but the pedigrees of these horses, though accepted in the Studbooks of their own country, connot in all cases be traced back to thoroughbred stock exported from England, from which they all claim to be, arid from which, no doubt, they mainly are descended; these animals are, therefore, in these cases, marked with reference to their own Studbooks.”

Commenting on this the Sportsman has the following to say, which shows that the writer has the correct hang of the situation : —“ This is an excellent step in advance, and one which has, in substance, been frequently urged in these columns. Prior to the publication of the new volume, a very anomalous state of things prevailed, for American horses or mares were admitted to our Studbook without demur on a pedigree certificate from Col. Bruce, who owns the American book ; but Australasian animals were refused admittance notwithstanding their having pedigrees similarly certified by Messrs Yuille, of Melburne, unless they could at all points be traced to the Old Burlington Street records. This seems distinctly unfair treatment of our Colonial friends as compared with the Americans, for while many of the Australasian pedigrees are, like Clorane’s, imperfect, it is highly probable that this is due merely to carelessness of such matters in the early days of the colony, and that the animals lost trace of were clean thoroughbreds imported from England : but in America the position is much more serious from the point of view of our Studbook, for by far the greater number of mares in their (that is, Col. Bruce’s) first volume are of confessedly native American origin, and it is not correct to say that they even ‘ elaim to be ” descended from ‘ thoroughbred stock imported from England.’ They can, in short, be proved to be not thoroughbreds, whereas all that can be said against some of the Australians is that you cannot prove that they are thoroughbred. The great Lexington had three strains in him, and Foxhall has four, yet there is a lot of this blood in our Studbook now.”