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EVOLUTION OF THE THOROUGHBRED. Striking Changes Wrought in Its Height, Dimension and Proportions Since the Day of Eclipse. In the development of the British race horse from a little animal no larger than the smallest polo pony of the present day to a type taller than any other breed of light horses ever known, a marked change of conformation as well as of size seems to have taken place. Unfortunately the reliable infor- mation from which comparisons can be made is meagre as to horses of the eighteenth century, and not much better or more complete as to twentieth century runners: yet the records available MMI to warrant the conclusion that changing conditions in racing have brought about corresponding changes in the proportions of the race horse. And if this conclusion is correct the change affords an interesting illustration of the principles and processes of evolution. It is a curious coincidence that the first man who seems to have thought of ascertaining the geometrical proportions of the lifirse was Claude Pourgelat. founder of the first veterinary college in the world at Lyons. France. in/1702, and that one of his pupils. Charles Vial de Sainbel. recorded the proportions of the first horse so measured in England besides founding the first veterinary college there. Instead of choosing a common horse, as Pourgelat seems to have done. Sainlnl selected the celebrated Eclipse, incomparably the best race horse of his day and the progenitor of almost ninety per-eent. of the best race horses of the present day. When he had finished his work he wrote his remarkable "Essay on the Proportions of Eclipse." in which he set forth for the first time the mechanical principles of progression in horses. Many of his conclusions and much of his talk about the horses as an animated machine excited derision among "practical" horsemen when published in 1701. but time and instantaneous photography have shown that Sainbels imaginative insight into the movements of the galloping horse, as based on the mechanism of the organs of progression was one hundred years ahead of his time. It was his intention to follow up his measurements of Eclipse with those of other great race horses of that period and make a table of proportions "by means of which." he said, "we shall be enabled to establish the true conformation of the race horse and at any given time discover whether the breed has improved or degenerated." Put his death, in 1793. cut short this interesting project. Pourgel.-its model horse was contained within a IH-rfect square to his height at the withers, whereas the measure of Eclipses t ody. taken from the extremity of the buttocks to the point of th;- shoulder or chest, "exceeded its height by nearly one-tenth," according to Sainbel. This is the striking feature of his conformation, more particularly so in the light of modern racing types. It was almost one hundred years after Sainbels measurement of Eclipse that the proportions of another representative race horse were carefully ascertained and put on record. In MM the late Captain M. Horace Hayes, author of "Points of the Horse." measured St. Simons length of body and height at the withers and three years later took the measurements of Ormonde in the same way. Ormonde was "the race horse of the century." as all turfmen know, and Captain Hayes has said of St. Simon: — "I am inclined to think that as long aS he kept sound he was as fast a horse, with perhaps the exception of Ormonde, as ever lived." St. Simons height at the withers was greater than the length of his body by about four inches, and Ormonde was three inches taller than he was long. Contrasted with the measurements of Eclipse, which was. according to Sainbel. several inches longer than tall, these measurements seem to disclose u radical change in the proportions of the race horse between 17*0 and 1K87. AH through the animal kingdom long legs are associated with speed, as short legs are with power. That the rule holds good among horses is shown by the comparative measurements of racers and draughters. In the typical Shire, probably the largest and strongest horse in the world, the height at the withers is often nine or ten inches less than the distance from point of shoulder to extermity of buttock, while a typical race horse like St. Simon or Ormonde is several inches shorter than he is high. And that is not all. for while the body of the fleet -footed St. Simon 15.3 hands high was elevated thirty-six inches above the ground at the girth place, that of the powerful draught horse standing a full hand higher than St. Simon at the withers is almost five inches closer to the ground at the girth. There is, of course, a corresponding difference in the depth of body from withers to brisket, that of the draught horse being proportionately much greater than the depth of the race horse. It would lie misleading to say that Eclipse represented an intermediate class between these two extreme types, for his bones and his muscles were essentially long, slender and fine of fibre by comparison with those of the thick, short, massive coarse-grainci! shire, yet his geometrical proportions differed from thos • of Ormonde, the nineteenth century Eclipse, and approached those of the cart horse to a degree which cannot be overlooked. The revolutionary, or evolutionary, change in eon-formation from the long, low Eclipse to the tall, short St. Simon hardly came about by chance, and how it came about is an interesting question, on which seme light may he thrown by a comparison of racing conditions then and now. When Eclipse was on the turf he ran races of three-mile heats and four-mile heats and carried what would now be regarded as crushing weight. Picks Turf Register tells us that in ten of his eleven winning races for the Kings Plats the weight shouldered was ItiS pounds. So completely have the turf tests changed since then that nowadays no running horse is ever asked to repeat, or go heats, and four miles is a distance unknown in Hat racing. In most of the great stake races a good deal less than half this distance is run. while the average of all races run is well under a mile. High speed for a short distance under light weight has. through influences well understood among horsemen, supplanted the more severe test of heat racing at long distances with high weights up, and the change, gradual as it has been, seems to have brought forth the St. Simon type as being the fittest for this style of racing. St. Simon is almost universally recognized as the greatest sin1 of modern times, if not of all time. When sent to the stud he led the list of winning sires two years ill succession in England, and in six years out of twelve following the period of his own supremacy one or another of his sons outranked every other horse in the United Kingdom. In 190S the family held five out of the first eight places in the list of winning sires, with two of them first and second, and in 1013 sons of the old horse filled five out of the first seven pines, with Desmond at the head of the list. It has been said of the fleet son of Galopin and St. Angela that he revolutionized the breed of Pritish race horses, and it might be added that his extraordinary conformation probably had a good deal to do with his success in the stud as well as on the turf. So frequently has lie transmitted his abnormal pnqiortions to his descendants that Pritish turfmen nowadays talk about the St. Simon type as a make and shape apart — higher on the leg and shorter in the body than the avorago race horse of other families. His son. St. Denis, winner of the Princess of Wales Stakes and now coming to the front as n successful sire, represents the type in an exaggerated form. It is worthy of note that St. Penis is closely inbred, his dam. Drooch. living a daughter of Galopin. the sire of St. Simon, and himself a tall, short horse. Whether this is a type that wise horsemen can be satisfied to cultivate and perhaps develop to further possibilities as a racing machine would seem to lie a question worthy of serious consideration. — G. fiaplin in New York Herald. i • | i j ; .
