The Washington herald., 1912-12-08

travelling correspondents WIloSe
the side, some of which general!
goes into the Christmas number.
Every travelling turf correspondent i
armed with a camera Dswadays and usei
it literally in photographing horses tina
come under his observation. Scenes OF
the track are also reproduced, contracts
for advertisements are entered into, and
thus the work is Systematically carried
on from week to week and from month
to month and dropped into the editoria
hopper for use when needed.
Trainers are almost as busy now as
they were during the racing season get
ting their strings together for 1913. Muir
ply, IL occasion demands, will travel from
the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast to size
up the horse he wants and his brother
trainers are quite as careful as he that
a touted good thing shall not escape.
At the recent Old Glory. trainers, anxi-
GUS TO snap up something good for them
selves or a friend, swarmed in the ring
almost as thick as flies on an August
day. The demand for something of fu-
turity caliber, is one that is increasing
every year among men of means-not so
much on account OF the rich purse that
falls to the winners, as the honor that
accrues to every winning colt owner.
1t is this high type of craftsmanship
that makes for the perpetuity of the trot-
ing turf; for no sport can long survive
when reduced to a truly sordid basis.
Judged at a distance, II would seem that
the time is not far distant when every
person who breeds for track purposes
will aim to produce foaIs eligible for
futurity stakes. Nor need the breeder
fear that the day will ever arrive when
the supply will equal the demand. The
breeding Of foals designed for futuTity
stakes is unlike almost any other in
dustry because of the element of chance
The farmer. for instance, sows for wheat,
or oats, or rye. or barley, or buckwheat;
or he may plant for corn or for potatoes,
and he is reasonably sure of an average
crop. The element of chance he encoun-
ters, ordinarily, is the variety of weather
scattered about in his particular locality.
But the man who breeds for speed
great enough to pull down a rich purse
is confronted at once with the profound
problem of heredity. He is confronted
with this problem because the American
trotter is. in a comparative sense a new
breed Of horse. He is mass of hetero-
genoUs elements, gathered from various
breeds and types, necessarily, and, of no
fixed type as yet and may not be for
century or two to come. In breeding the
American trotter, the breeders of the
United States are going through the same
processes the breeders of England were
engaged in going through in the days of
the barley and Godolphin Arabians.
Back of these sires were impSrtations
of barb blood part Arab. which was
blended with such native blood as was
at hand that possessed the power and
instinct to run fast Evidently the blood
Of the Darley and Gololphin Arabians
proved the happy mich, for whom the foun-
dation thus laid has risen by careful
selection the most perfect of equine types,
the modern thoroughbred. What the
GodoIphin and barley Arabians did for
the English thoroughbred, Imported Mes
senger, brought to this country the latter
part of the eighteenth century, has done
for the American light harness horse.
The descendant of a long line of race
horses, tracing his descent through male
and female lines to those studs of the
desert already mentioned. his blood quick
ened everything IT touched and laid the
foundation of a new breed of horse now
known as the American trotter. HambIe-
tonian 10 was only three removes from
Messenger. through his sire, and traced
to him through his dam. the Kent mare
The recent sale at Madison Square
Garden was one of the mile stones mark
ing the progress of the American trotter
since the day Messenger rushed down
the gangplank at Philadelphia in his anx-
ietY to once more set foot on land, even
though it was foreign shore, Every
public sale, whether held in New York.
Chicago, Lexington, or Indianapolis is a
milestone of progress, because every
year we are breeding better horses in
the United States. By better horses we
mean handsomer individuals. The ewe-
necked,e coarse-headed, coarse-bowed,
gummy legged and unsound trotter has