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ENGLANDS STUD BOOK SINGULARITY Only Case in Which a Half-Bred Mare Was Admitted to Registry. The connection between racing and chasing and the army has always been close and intimate and we know that the Duke of Wellington had a pack of hounds in Spain during the Peninsular war. We know, moreover, that a race meeting was held in Mesopotamia to celebrate the capture of Bagdad. Messrs. Weatherby and Sous have been reckoned austere men by many people who could not over-i»ersuade them this way" or that, but it will always remain to the credit of that famous firm, for sympathy and patriotism, that they never deliberately admitted a half-bred mare to a place as a matron in the General S.ml Book, with one exception, nn.1 that one was the dam of Coneuhageii. the charger whom the Duke of Wellington rode at Waterloo. Any reader who wishes to verify this statement should look up. Lady Catherine, in Vol. 11. of the Cenernl Stud Book and there he will find her thus described : Bred by General Crosvenor in . got by John Bull, her dam by the Rutland Arabian, out of a hunting mare not thoroughbred. 1808 — eh. c. *Co;Hiihagen, by Meteor— Gen. Crosvenor. 1810— eh. f. Chantress, by Popinjay— Mr. Farrall. Sent to Ireland. •Coiienhatren was the horse ridden by the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. HISTORY AND THE STUD BOOK. This is not in the least analogous to cases in which the fact that thoroughbred mares have been mated with half-bred horses has from time to time been registered. Ladv Catherine was the one and only admittedly half-bred mare that has ever had her foals registered in the General Stud Book. As J. A. Doyle expressed it. referring to an article in Rallys Magazine on thoroughbred horses in war: "It was there assumed, as it usually is. that the Duke of Wellingtons charger was thoroughbred. As a mutter of fac; the entry of his dam in the second volume of the Stud Book "runs thus: See above. "There is not. so far as I know, any other instance where a horse avowedly not thoroughbred has passed the limine College of Heralds in Burlington street. Copenhagens admission may l»e looked iiikiii as a stiecial case when- a title of nobility was granted for military services." For such a dose and accurate reasoner as was Mr. Doyl" to have missed the really unique point of Copenhagens registration is not a little remarkable. The unique feature is not that he was admitted. tint that his half-tired dam was iu the character of a broodmare. There have lieen a good many half-bred foals recorded in the Stud Book, hut they have been out of thoroughbred mares. The classic instance is Qmum Marvs colt foal by Fernley, half-bred, in Vol. VIII.. General Stud Book, but no filly of such antecedents has ever yet lieen accepted i:i the book as a broodmare. Therefore. Messrs. Weatherby deserve full honor for having made but on- exception from their rule, and that one in favor of LiMty Catherine, admittedly half-bred, in virtue of lie great fact that her son, Copenhagen, was the Duke of Wellingtons charger at Waterloo.— Liudi.ii Sportsman.
