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SHOULD MARES BE RETIRED EARLY? Unless some reassurance as to further racing can Is? given there is likely to be a tremendous catalogue at the next December sales. Col. Hall Walkers stud alone will add a large number of lots, and as lighting the ring is not to be permitted the available time for selling in each day will be limited indeed, so that it may well happen that more than a week will be required before the business is got through. Already there is much talk and correspondence about seizing the opportunity to buy numbers of choice mares for the American studs, that were so badly depleted by their non-racing years, and I have been asked again and again whether it is not a mistake to go in for mares that have had several seasons training. On this point the late Lord Falmouth is generally mentioned as an authority who would not keep his fillies in training after their second season on the turf. He certainly did retire a good many at the end of their three-year-old careers, but that was probably because they did not seem likely to train on ami do well as four-year-olds, but he did, as a matter of fact, keep some of his best in training at that age — Jannette, for instance, which assisted Silvio and Charibert to try the three-year-old Wheel of Fortune, when she herself was four year. Moreover. Lord Falmouth wrote me the following letter, dated February 1. 1S84, in which lie distinctly stated his own views: "Dear Sir: I dont think any hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to the best age at which a mare should commence breeding. Some practical men say the constitution of the stock of a mare of mature age is stronger than that of a young one. Whether it was true or not I cannot tell, but it used to be said that Mr. Orde left an inunction in his will that Beeswing was not to be bred from till she was ten-years-old. Anyhow, I saw her ridden in Rotten Row in the interval between coining out of training and that age, and I think she produced nine foals in nine successive years. "Lilian was not overworked and was sound as a liell when I t x k her out of training. She went to the stud in the prime of life, nine years old. No one can tell whether Lillibullero her son is goixl or bad. for. being a large, heavy colt, he has never been fit enough to show his form. I remain, yours faithfully. Falmouth." I quote the alxjve letler simply to slxiw that the commonly accepted idea as to Lord Falmouths opinion on Hie subject is by no means correct. As a mailer of fact Lillibulcro, which he mentions. turned out badly, and. but for producing Savile. Lilian would have liecu accounted a failure as a matron; but Beeswing, as we all know, was the dam of Newminster. and Alice Hawthorn, another old campaigner, produced Thormaiiby. There is probably little or nothing in this idea of retiring mares early, so long only as they ar- not in stables where they are badly done and trained to mere skins. In such cases it needs a year or two to get the sap and vitality back into them, but coining out of a good stable such a mare as Happy Fanny, for instance, now live years old, would start right off next season and develop into a grand broodmare. Among other breeds of horses it is quite certain that mares are none the worse for having been worked hard for a nnmlier of years. 1 have two. one an old hunting mar.-, whicli was in later life driven to the brougham, and the other 11 ponv which must have been 17 years old when m • up driving her and took to a motor. I kept tlr? 111 lxdh and bred from them. The pony has prulin 1 six foals, missing only one year, and the big mare has also had six. Moreover, the st.xk has in both cases been uniformly good, the big mare prod icing weight carrying hunters of high class to Baliol. Kowloon twoi, Cornstalk two, then a splendid Great Scot colt, which died, and now she has a yearling by Great Scot. The ixmys firt was a beautiful chestnut by Mountain Ash. and is now the property of Lady Conyngham. The second a gray by an Arab, was taken by the Remount pro-pie, and the remainder, four, three, two and one years old respectively, are bv polo ponies n„j the two old mares are now apparently in foal all right to Heath Lad. This does not leek as thoeah year* of strenuous work had done them any Inarm for breeding purposes. It is to be noted that Lord Falmouth did in fact run his most famous mare, Queen Bertha for the Goodwood Cup when she was a four-year-old He also ran Silverhair as a four-vear old and she was the dam of his Derby and Leger winner Silvio, as also of Silver Ring. Silvester. Cartorly "p„dl Aixillo. Tregeagle and other winners. Gertrude the dam of Charibert. Chibleric. King Chute, etc he ran ten times as a four-year-old. With Jannette as a four-year old he won the Jockey Club Cup mil she ran in six other races at that age. H,! rim Wheatear as a four-year-old against Rosicruchla and Musket for the Alexandra Plate at Wot uul her first and best foal was Skylark, foaled wiien his dam was six years old. Ladv Oollghtly ran eight times as a four-year-old. and" it inav thes be seen that theTe is really no foundation hi fact for the prevalent myth that Lord Falmouth mid- a practice of retiring his fillies early with a view to their making better broodmares. One thing may be taken for granted at least I think so — and it is that training to a reasonable extent tends to the improvement of the breed and mares which have been trained have a better chance to pi o. luce good stock than those which thrmch lack of training have never attained to their fuU development. Let anyone who doubts this look at a recruit, who may be a very indifferent spec i ma 11 of manhood when lie enlists, and then see the same man six months later, when he lias gone through his course of training. He is then incomparably superior to his former self.— "The Special Commissioner" in London Sportsman.
