Horse Breeding Recollections |
Common terms and phrases
Agnes Amburgh animals Araucaria Ascot Birdcatcher Blair Athol Blink Bonny Bred the following breeding for sale brood mares brood-mares brothers Byerly Turk Chamant clear removes common ancestor Cotherstone Dam of Winner Dee Stakes degrees removed Derby descendants Doncaster Eclipse Emilius England English breeders foals following Winners France Friponnier Gladiateur Gladiator Goodwood Goodwood Cup half-bred Haricot Highflyer horse Important Races in-breeding Kisber Lady Leger Legerdemain Lord Lyon Mandragora MARES AT MEREWORTH mating matrons Melbourne Middle Park Mineral Miss moderate relationship ners Orlando Orville Oulston parents pedigree Phryne Pocahontas Prix de Diane produce progeny proved Przedswit Queen Bertha Queen Mary racecourse racehorses Racing Calendar racing career regard roarers Selim sister Sleight of Hand sound Spinaway Stakes stallions steeplechase Stockwell strains of blood stud purposes studs breeding Thormanby thoroughbred Thousand Guineas Touchstone turf two-year-old untried Waxy and Penelope West Australian Whalebone yearlings Yorkshire Oaks young mare
Popular passages
Page 8 - ... Count Lehndorff, in the sensible observations prefixed to his ' Horse Breeding Recollections ' is only enforcing the views of Admiral Rous when he writes: — ' The thoroughbred can, however, fulfil its mission only, provided the young produce be continually subjected to severe trials in public. . . . The grand ideal principle which places this test so incomparably higher than any other, based upon the individual opinion 'of one or more judges, is the absolute and blind justice, personified in...
Page 48 - ... one form or another of the scheme of Lehndorff. This plan4 took account, as a measure of inbreeding, only of the number of generations intervening between that generation in which relatives were bred together, and that generation in which their first common ancestor was found. Thus Lehndorff says :5 I am of opinion, that a horse should only be termed in-bred, when in sum total less than four degrees lay between its parents and their common ancestor; in other words, when the children or grandchildren...
Page 8 - ... have biassed the decision of hotly contested struggles, as recorded in the " Racing Calendar " for the space of one hundred and seventy years. This it is that gives to the English thoroughbred horse a value for breeding purposes, unequalled and looked for in vain in any other species of animal creation.
Page 63 - It is evident, however, that the observance of this principle, if continued ad infinitum, also is not without danger to the lasting prosperity of the breed, for the more frequently the mating of animals, standing to one another in even a moderate degree of kin only, is resorted to, the more will gradually become the in-breeding in the whole species of thoroughbreds, necessitating, at perhaps a not far distant period, the infusion of new blood by occasionally importing into England sires of pre-eminence...
Page 9 - ... I would advocate that the principal races for horses of that age should not take place before the autumn, when owners who have judiciously saved their young animals during the summer may indemnify themselves through richer prizes than were offered for competition in the earlier part of the season. In principle I do not disapprove of running two-year-olds; on the contrary, I take it, if done in moderation, to be an unerring means to ascertain the soundness of the constitution. From...
Page 63 - ... degree of kin only, is resorted to, the more will gradually become the in-breeding in the whole species of thoroughbreds, necessitating, at perhaps a not far distant period, the infusion of new blood by occasionally importing into England sires of pre-eminence from other countries. Experience points to America as the source from which to draw in future the regenerating fluid...
Page 14 - I believe, if strictly adhered to, the following hints may be depended on as offering the greatest amount of safety in the choice of brood-mares:— 1. To buy, without exception, mares from the best strains of blood only, more regard being had to the dam even than to the sire. 2. To bear in mind that a good pedigree alone is not sufficient, because the best-bred mare may be unsound (I thought that by the acquisition of the own sisters to...
Page 38 - ... within the acknowledged best strains of blood I should by no means neglect, if only on patriotic grounds, the exterior, for in the production of our half-breds it has become an absolute necessity to use thoroughbred stallions, not only with performances of a high order, but also that our cavalry horses may answer certain conditions and forms about make and shape laid down in order to prevent their deterioration. The term of so-called faultlessness, however, is not to be taken in so strict a sense,...
Page 13 - The thoroughbred stands to the half-bred in the same position as the plantation tree to the wild tree of the forest: the former thrives in any locality where trees grow; the latter feels at home only where it first struck root, for, having never been transplanted, it wants those fibres by means of which to take hold of and draw sustenance from the new soil.
Page 27 - ... tried mares only nineteen had not run as two year olds. Taking, moreover, into consideration that of the mares figuring in the English Stud Book and used for stud purposes, those without public trial are in an overwhelming majority against those which have been on the Turf, it cannot be denied that the chances of breeding a winner of one of the four classic races are incomparably better with the latter than with the former. It is frequently laid down as a rule that, in order to benefit the breed...