Los Angeles herald., 1907-04-15
NEW BREEDING
METHODS USED
NEW WORKERS WORK TO RAISE
STANDARD
other States Following the Lead Of
Eastern Jockey Club and VIII En-
deavor to Improve Horses
of Farmers

One of the most important steps of
many years was taken when the Jockey
club, which governs racing in the state
Of New York, instituted it's breeding
bureau. 1t can scarcely be too fire.
quently italicized that the United
States Is the great equine nursery of
the world, and the one source of sup
ply for the pressing needs of any other
civilized nation. Already Europe must
come to us for the horses for its third
army corps; not a single nation carries
sufficient numerically; not a single
nation has the space of land to breed
and rear them, except at an enormous
cost. There no possibility of change
in this situation on the horizon line
until Russia, Australia, New Zealand,
Japan and Canada become sufficiently
developed to enter as competitors. All
other nations are already hopelessly
beyond the pale.
What is true of the matter of army
mounts and remounts might easily be
made true of other types of horses. 1t
is no empty boast today to say that
at our National Horse show, where
hunters are judged yearly on per-
formances and conformation, so per
cent of them go over a stiff fence of
six feet in height, while in England
today, the home of the high class hunt
er, long articles are being written con-
cerning the isolated ane phenomenal
hunters which managed to achieve
about the same corresponding height.
Where the English have decidedly sur
passed US in hunting-horse flesh has
been in the extreme middleweight and
the heavyweight division, those calcu-
lated to carry over 10 pounds and up
TO 250 pounds, across moderate country.
England has long had a practical mo-
nopoly of this type, and therefore it
was satisfactory to note at the national
show of 1905 a decided increase in such
types bred in this country. Here will
come in the breeding bureaus possi-
bilities.
In the older countries heavy govern
ment grants have been given toward
the development of certain types of
horseflesh, France outstripping all her
peers in the amount poured forth like
water to establish her grand French
coacher type, and not even yet will
France sell a single specimen to other
nations. She is still developing. Ger
many has done much, and England
also, but all have necessarily been on
very limited lines, not of quality, but
of scope. 1t is not a light undertaking
to map out the production of 100000
horses within a given time. Germany
buys about 100000 horses year, but
very few from this country. England
has taken as many as 100000 in less
than six years, and, taking our equine
exports for year, we have touched
the 10000 mark already, with value
of about 100000 We only need type"
and desirable quality to carry it be-
yond the widest dream of the veteran
Englishman, Mr.. Weatherby, who more
than a century ago said If we bred
straight and clean the world must come
to us for new blood. Unfortunately,
we did not do so.
Other countries long ago realized that
to raise the general type of the horse
GividualS-the foundation stone lay
with the farmer Almost every farmer
has a good mare or two. Either good
in conformation, or blood, herself, or
coming from stock Of which she was a
by-blow, and exceedingly liable to
again throw back to the better line.
Take the antecedents of the hundreds
of mares brought by VARIOUS turf
cleansing bodies at public sales, and
resold without name or pedigree for
utilitarian purposes, simply because
they had not produced speed" con-
formation, etc, cutting no figure in
the cause of outlawry or its palliation.
The names of distinguished sons and
daughters of such degraded dams is
long and scintillating. Every such dam,
or her descendants, is liable to again
breed back to the line, even as the
peerless Isonomy and Thebais produced
the no-account imp. Hermence, which,
mated to rugged American mare of
no particular quality, produced the
great Hermis, the hero of 1903-45.
Farmer Handicapped in the Past
Hitherto the farmer was badly handi-
capped. Few of them had any tangible
idea of the possibilities lying before
their good mare. They could not af-
ford a really good stallion they had
not time or inclination to hunt one at
a distance, they took the first one to
hand, without knowing or caring If his
service was forty or four hundred. Thus
certain structural and disposition
faults became typical of a district,
and things were going from bad to
worse until certain public-spirited men
Copying the English method existing
for years. began to let their tenants
and neighbors have a free service of
some good horse for any good mare
they happened to possess. This was
really the germ of the breeding bureau,
fostered and strengthened when several
hunting and steeplechase enthusiasts
began to obtain magnificent foals from
good mares bred to such stations as