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THE RESULT OF INBREEDING. Continuous inbreeding must naturally tend to the deterioration of any animal, and it is by no means improbable that the importation of such a number of" St. Simon stallions during the past few years may yet, in some measure, adversely affect Australias thoroughbred stock. No serious harm has yet been done, but now that fully two-third3 of the entrants for our various classic events trace to the stallion named, the time has surely arrived to get away from this strain, prolific as It ha? been of winners. Some Australian breeders thoroughly recognize this fact, but others, who live for the present, and are content to let posterity look after itself, want as much St. Simon blood as the.v can get. They know It appeals to buyers, and their principal aim in thoroughbred breeding is to get hold of a line that sells well. In a recent issue of the London "Sportsman" the well-known English authority deals with the subject of Inbreeding as follows: "I wish I could make breeders regard from a wholly different point of view the question of breeding for their own racing, and that of breeding for sale. The latter is past praving for, and the latest craze generally an untried horse at a huge fee is essential. But why should a man breeding for his own purposes join in tuis sheep-like rush after the ignotum whicii is for the instant pro magnifico, and later on peters out into nothingness. Breeders for sale are bound to defer to these fads and fancies, and. even so. they often get caught by the ebbing tide before they can put a yearling on the market. A man W.ho breeds his own racing stock, however, should re"ard the position from a wholly different point of view, for I am certain that such degeneracy as there may be in the British thoroughbred Is due to continuous Inbreeding for many, many years. Inbreeding properly understood is rigbt enough, "for it has again and again been usefully resorted to in hounds and all sorts of stock, but what has been done in England resembles the old-time habit be- fore railways enabled people to travel, and that was continuous inbreeding in villages, the inhabitants of which did not go ten miles away in their lifetimes. In m3 time, at Kilvlngton, in Yorkshire, there was a Tom Palliser a great character and the Church Register, or whatever you call it, shows that there was also a Thomas Pallacere living there in the days of Queen Elizabeth. The people of these villages interbred, and seldom went outside their ten-mile radius. There was always a village ldot in the days to which I refer. You do find village idiots now. when conveyance br bicycle or otherwise outside the ten-mile radius has rendered outside marriages so common. Now, this is exactly my point as regards bloodstock breeding, for the people who run after fashion are all in "a groove, and are asking for the production of rogues and jades, just as the old ten-mile radius villagers degenerated into at least one village idiot. Sydney Referee.
