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TWO GRAND STUD MATRONS ABROAD. I have received the New Zealand "Turf Register" for 1915, and a glance at the winning stallions list serves to show how the Sunshine family continues to make headway. It was in 1900 that I bought the young mare Otterden 1S9I5, covered bv Martagon, and sent her out to New Zealand for the late Mr. G. G. Stead. She is by Slieen Springmorn, by Springfield Sunray, by King of the Forest Sunshine. This mare Otterden produced Martian, to English time, and he proved to be a first-rate longdistance horse in both New Zealand and Australia. She continued year by year to breed winners, and now looking at the winning stallions return for the past season, I find Martian heading the list with forty-four winners of 17,750 pounds, ten shillings m stakes, while Boniform, by Multiform Otterden, comes third with sixteen winners of 9,915 pounds, ten shillings. This is a satisfactory result indeed for two half-brothers to have attained, and it is clear that their dam, Otterden, has proved herself a worthy representative of Sunshine. Indeed, I remember no other mare whose sons were so successful at the stud in her lifetime. Martian, it may be noted, has headed the list in New Zealand for three successive years. A good many people are now interested in the family of Lady Sterling, by Silver, mainly through her daughters, Cooee and Queengold, which have proved most consistently successful matrons. There was a sister to Cooee by Trenton Lady Sterling taken out to South Africa by Mr. Hilton Barber in 1903, and I had lost trace of her, but I now find that she is named Lady Trenton, and has quite kept up the family reputation. Her son. George Washington, by the South American-bred Defender, showed himself to be about the best four-year-old , in Soutli Africa last season, winning seven races, the last of which was the July Handicap at Johannesburg, for which he carried top weight, 120 pounds. At the previous meeting he won the June Handicap, carrying 122 pounds. I met his owner, Mr. R. Piatt, the other day, who thinks no end of him, and I could not at first identify Lady Trenton, but now I know her to be the sister to Cooee. There is another winner out of her, too, though not of such high class. This is the six-year-old gelding Voter, by Franchise II. He won last year and also in the year before. There are probably others also, but it is difficult to get hold of South African breeding records. W. Allison in London Sportsman.
