St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-09-06
COLOR IN HORSES.
Some SpeculatiOns on Its Relation
to the Special Qualities.

Few subjects have attracted more at
tentiOn than this. The following. from
an exchange, will be found interesting
There is more in color or likeness in
breeding all animals than most people
imagine. In large herds of animals in
their wild state cOlorS vary little. There
is often. so travellers have said, an odd
cOlOred stallion or two in wild herds of
horses. and it is not uncommon to find
an odd-colored stallion apparently the
master of the troop. 1t is quite certain
that this stallion does not get his own
color, as the herd remains in it's own
originality. 1t has been said that the
original color of the horse is chestnut,
and there is evidence to show that of all
of the eastern, or what is supposed to be
the original blood, the color that has
lasted the longest is chestnut, and that
which has lasted the least is gray. The
earliest numbers of the English Stud
book give more grays than almost any
color, but they have become Scarcer and
Scarcer until now among stations there
is scarcely a gray horse in service in En-
gland. For long time prejudice at
tached to white horse on account of the
fabulous tradition that they could not
stand the cold, because white was a
once contrOverted by the fact that the
Polar bears, which exist alone in the
regions of eternal cold. and are happy
no where else, are white. The same
prejudice existed at one time against
the black horse, on the other extreme;
as black was conductor of heat. a
black horse would Succumb to the ener-
waiting heat of summer. In this age Of
the horse it is needless to say that the
color of the horse has nothing to do with
his constitution. frances Alexander,
a coal black stallion, trotted one of
the most e Xhausting and prolonged
races against field of six others on one
of the hottest days in midsummer, and
won II. Jay Eye See is a black, and
surely there are none on the American
turf superior to him in courage and en-
durance. Hopeful is gray, and during
his turf career he was the foremost
horse on the trotting turf. He pulled a
wagon and placed to his credit a credit
for that way of going which has never
been eQualed. Charley Ford is another
gray horse that was first in thirty-eight
races. and trOtted seventy-seven heats
below 2:30. These two examples alone
explode the theory that horses of a light
color are usually of a weak cOnstitu-
ton.
Hermit. the great thoroughbred Eng
fish sire, is chestnut, while his sire is
bay OF a particularly marked bay fam
lily. Out OF score OF sOnS and daugh-
tiers of Hermit which have made their
mark the majority are chestnuts. This
same popularity marks the produce of
the trotting sire Hambletonian Prince.
Those of his get that have made their
marks are of one color-namely, Billy
Button, Helene, Peralto, Happy Tray
eler. Although among trotters there
are large number of fast horses of
various colors, the majority of dis
tinguished horses are bays. The
fast horses among which that
color is prominent are legion. The di-
verSity aid universally of color in
horses is provision of nature, and the
cause of it cannot be explained by finite
minds. Why there should be more bay
horses than brown. more brown than
gray, more gray than black, is a prob
lem that the human mind cannot solve.
No more can it be explained why the
union of black sire with a gray dam
may result in bay, chestnut, brown,
black or gray offspring, or why the
union of the same color may pro-
duce the opposite color; one is as
likely 10 lOllOW DIS Gn0 OCn6r.
This is the most notable thing in
the economy of nature. From the union
with black mare, Sorcerer the English
thoroughbred, himself a black. pro-
duced eight black colts out of thirteen,
and then being bred to chestnut mare,
the color was bay or brown, and
never black or brown. and never a
black or chestnut. AS the predominant
color among horses two centuries ago
seems to have been gray, it would not
be without precedent if within the pc
Rod of two hundred years to come it
would become the ruling color.
the reputed founder
of the trotting family in Ameri-
Ca. was flea-bitten gray, and at a dis
lance of two hundred yards from the
fountain head the vast proportion of
speed transmitted from him is concen-
trated in bays. Suppose that in three
generations to come the great trotting
of the country should be repre-
sented in horses of gray color. cit would
be remarkable, but not more so than it
is now represented in horses of a bay
color. Nature produces no greater
than when in the animal
kingdom she reaches back through the
ages to produce special characteristics.