The San Francisco call., 1905-08-27
By Edward III. Hurlbut.

NN one Of David Graham Phillips
books, I think The Cost there is
striking portrayal of two character
tstic American types: the one, the
young patrician college type from
out Of the East, the product of countless
generations Of intelligent and wealthy an
cestors; the other a young husky from
out Of the unancestored West, the product
Of many removes ef sturdy but yeoman
forbesrs. He of the aristocratic lineage
Is quick 70 learn. the grooves of his mind
are refined and work smoothly; his oppo-
site slow. The thing is up for discussion
between them, and the exquisite, with
easy familiarity, says:
''Oh, it's nothing. My esteemed ances-
tors have been doing nothing for some
centuries back save make money and
brains. I ought TO have some of the re-
suits"
In sense he was right, and in sense
wrong. 1t is not always true that the re-
suits Of interbreeding and cultivation for
q higher product are constant But to the
degree TO which they are are his words
peculiarly applicable TO the breeding of
race horses.
of high-bred stock upon high-bred stock
lies the secret of the breeding of race
horses for speed and endurance. Dan
Patch was no accident; nor Lou Dillon,
nor Major Delmar; no more so than the
thoroughbred patrician is the accident of
d spontaneous generation. 1t takes the
refined hand of experience and the pol
ishing wheel Of time. In 1906 the one mile
American trotting record was held by
Yankee. in 2:5s; in 1903, ninety-seven years
later. Lou Dillon, at Memphis. Tenn, set
the mark just one minute and one-half
second less, when she trotted the mile in
I:5ssz.
1t was something more than the natural
order Of things that Topped minute and
one-half a second of the 1rotting rec
ords Of American horses during that
ninety-seven years. 1t was the product
OF almost a century OF study and cease
less care on the part of a long line of
trainers and breeders, whose names have
been famous in their time and day 1t
seems hardly probable that the record
will ever be lowered very materially
from the place 1t is now, and yet no one
can say what another century of en-
lightened training and breeding methods
may do for race horses.
1t is constant grind that makes a
thoroughb It takes not weeks, but
years of unceasing, untiring effort. You
can't sit down on the top rail of q pad
dock fence when your years crop of
colts have been shipped away and call
it a Job. There is no rest You have
got TO keep going all the time. When
the yearlings are of your hands you have
got the stations and the mares TO care
for. Their condition must be absolutely
and ideally perfect. Stables and grounds
must be looked after, not once a Wee.
but every minute of the day. The disci-
pline on farm of this kind, where every
paddock and every box stall holds horses
of the finest pedigree. must be absolute.
get Up at four in the morning and to
bed when / can"
Coming from man with the national
reputation that Manager George berry
OF the Napa Stock Farm holds, and com
ing from man who last season took
TO New York his years crop of nineteen
colts and secured at auction the phen-
omenal price of $4,000 for the lot. those
words should carry weight
But II nature ever conspired with man
for the attainment of an end, nature
did that for the breeding OF race horses
at this stock farm. Located a short dis
tance out from Napa. the farm covers
in all eight hundred acres, in the main
level fertile bottom land bordering the
Nspa Creek. In all there are but thirty
five acres of hill land, and that but
the low rolling land characteristic of
California foothill country The entire
area, aside from that occupied by build