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AGE OF HORSES FAULTILY PRESCRIBED PRESCRIBEDCogent Cogent Arguments Favoring Return to May 1 in Place of January 1 As at Present Many people have wondered why John Porter has always oxprisswd a preference for May foals but thcro must lie more who have wondered on looking at the old stallion advertisements when they rrad tho passage Hay and corn at market prices In other words hay and corn were then an extra when a mare visited a stud This would be ridic ¬ ulous under modern conditions for without hay and corn tho mares could not bo kept at all but the whole matter is easily explained when we re ¬ call that up to 1SS53 horses took their ages from May Day and it was only then that the age date was shifted back to January 1 fn fU as New ¬ market was concerned The following Calendar extract shows the then position positionAt At a meeting of the members of tho Jockey Club held on April 25 1S3 it was resolved that from and after the end of the year 1S3 horses should be considered at Newmarket as taking their ages from January 1 instead of May 1 1AVith AVith respect to other places they will continue to be considered as taking their IBOS from May 1 until the stewards of those races shall order other ¬ wise wiseRevised Revised Rules came into operation Monday April 19 1S3S and all former rules were repealed 1 Racehorses take their ages from January 1 1AVe AVe see therefore that it is only since 1S3S that bloodstock generally has taken its age from January 1 Between 1S3J5 and that year the confu ¬ sion of age must have been great more especially as foaling dates wore never recorded in the Stud Hook In Newmarket weightforage roees January 1 fixed the age but elsewhere it was May 1 and we are left to grapple with this strange question as best we may for among the celebrated horses of that period some may well have been six months older or younger than their l est contemporaries It is exasperating that we cannot well ascertain whether Stockwell Touchstone and other great horses of those days were foaled in January or it may be in July but at least we know that tlie wisdom of our ancestors originally fixed May 1 as the date from which bloodstock should take its age ageWANTED WANTED A CHANGE CHANGEI I cannot imagine why this was ever altered though May 1 was an unduly late date for fix ¬ ing ages The question is one which the Jockey Club stewards will do well to consider for a re ¬ version to something like the old regime would immensely lighten tlie burdens of breeders and be beneficial all round It is easy to understand that when mares were sent to stallions in June and July they did not want corn unless specially ordered for at that time of the year the grass is all sufficient and their best food Quite differ ¬ ent is tho position when they are sent to a stud ill these days in January or February when hay corn and bran if you can get it are essentials The cost of keeping them at that time is necessarily high and the worst feature of it all is that it is not natural for mares to have foals in January and February though by a vast amount of trouble such foals arc produced in numbers not nearly so great as those of March April and May Tho damage done to stallions and the expense incurred by breed ¬ ers in thus striving for unnaturally early foals ought surely to be most fully discussed The Kings Premium stallions do not start travelling until April 1 and they end their season on July 31 This would mean Marcli 1 as the date from which foals will take their age and it is quite early enough That date corresponds exactly with the practice at the Antipodes where August 1 is the limit from whici thoroughbred foals take their age there being just six months between those dates Our January 1 foal is as if the Australians dated their foals from June 1 instead of August 1 which as practical comimmsenso men they most certainly will never do It would be interesting to know what were the arguments which brought about the change from the May day date to January 1 but it may be assumed that early twoyearolds were wanted and it will be remembered that even yearling races were not unknown in those days daysBENEFITS BENEFITS AND ECONOMY ECONOMYOne One thing is certain and it is that the best stallions would sire far more foals with much less work under the old scheme than the new and owners of mares instead of sending their marcs to horses in tlie first months of the year and then recalling them before properly stinted to eat their home grass would be able to send them just as the natural season when the grass is coming on and rendering the task of stinting them so much easier In such circumstances we might even see a revival of the old legend Hay and corn at market prices for barren mares in nine cases out of ten do not want any hay or corn if they have plenty of good grass at this time of year Lord Jersey and his fellow stewards would do much for the Imnrorrment of horse breeding and the relief of breeders if they would bring about the salutary change which I am venturing to recommend March 1 would be the most reasonable date for experience has shown that the majority of foals are born in March April and May but of course under the new scheme they would also come in June and even July All would have full benefit of the summer season and grass without any prolonged period of wet and cold weather and Avhen we remember that Cyllenc was foaled on May 128 and won in March of his two yearold season there is no reason to suppose that there would be any deficiency of good early two yearolds if March 1 were substituted for January 1 in the age date of horses At present it costs breeders a lot of money in the mere stud account when their marcs are sent away to stallions and studmasters lose money over keeping them at cur ¬ rent rates in the early months of the year I am sure that if an enquiry were sent round to stud masters and studgrooms they would be almost unanimous in desiring tho age of horses to date from a period not earlier than March 1 I have men ¬ tioned in previous issues how at least one owner of stallions in the front rank of fashion has decided not to take public mares to them in future owing to the expense of forage if you ean get it at all and the difficulty of labor Neither of these troubles would be anything like so serious if the mating season began in April instead of February for the time would soon come when barren and maiden mares can be turned out and remain out so that the labor of leading them out in the mornings and back to their boxes in the afternoons would bo no longer needed nor would there be the serious ex ¬ pense of straw for their boxes which in tho earlier months of the year is inevitable Tlie kindly earth provides the forage in the shape of grass from May to September and there is really an immense all round reduction in the cost of maintaining a stud in the late spring and summer Most important of all however the stallions get a fair chance at this time of the year and are not unduly worked fighting against nature natureSTALLION STALLION WASTE WASTEThoroughbred Thoroughbred mares have got a bad name as compared with balfbreds for being difficult to stint and we often hear this ascribed to their having been fed high while in training but in my judgment there is no other reason than that the attempt is made to force nature and breed Jan ¬ uary or February foals which in at least three cases out of four they will fail to do They mostly turn after any such attempt and so the work of the horse resembles that of Sisyphus and has to be done over and over again until ultimately it may be the foal is quite a late one or the mare proves barren altogether The premium stallion goes on his travels just as spring is beginning and ninety mares are considered a reasonable list for him whereas such a list would be quite impossible for a horse begin ¬ ning work in February In his case forty will in ¬ volve far more continuous worry This surely is a point of enormous importance where our best stal ¬ lions are concerned for they are more than half wasted under the present system nf age date and when it happens that we have such a sire as Bayardo evidently was how much better would it be for the breed at large if his subscription list could have been doubled by the simple process of dating ages from March 1 In by own experience AVisemae mated with ninety mares in Surrey before he went to Russia and he got fiftyseven foals This involved no sort of undue tax on the horse Indeed he had not nearly so much to do as stallions at big studs which commence their more or less futile work two months before the natural time I cannot at this time of writing lay my hand on any work of reference from which we may ascertain the reasons that induced the Jockey Club to make such a prodigious reactionary change as putting the age date of horses back from May Day to January 1 n i less than four months Perhaps some of my readers can enlighten us on this subject No doubt some details and arguments would be found in the old Sporting Magazine of the period The change was made when politics also were in a state of flux in connection with the Reform bill and it is the mure puzzling because the deliberate limitation of the new age rule to Newmarket only leaves us to vainly wonder what treatment was meted nut in weight forage races to animals that were not bred at Newmarket and still came under the May Day aue date The Two Thousand Guineas for instance would In a rare in which apparently Newmarket horses might have five or six months or even more advantage ovir the provincials V Allison in Lon ¬ don Sportsman
