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SMALL MARES MAKE BEST BROODMARES Advisability of Giving Preference to the Smaller Typo of Brood Matrons Pointed Out OutThe The question as to whether height and smallncss form part of a compound of sexual characters in mammals lias been often and widely discussed but to my recollection it has never been commented upon in a way as to render it of interest to the stock ¬ breeder Of course biologists cannot close their eyes to the fact that in certain species amongst the higher grade of mammals particularly in those which lived under the primitive conditions and Which were never cxiwsed to such influences of environment as have determined sometimes marvel ¬ lous changes in the coloration and conformation of races height and smalliiess are pronounced sexual characters There is for example the seaelephant living in the Arctic zones The male is three times as big as the female However more important perhaps than this is the fact alluded to by many Polar explorers that one may travel hundreds of miles in the breeding season without seeing one barren female Such and similar observations as opposed by others to which I shall refer further liclow have not only led to the acceptance of the fact that height is a sexual character of the male and siuaUhcss of the female but also to the admis ¬ sion that this surprising degree of prolificacy exists in those species only the male and female of which greatly differ iu size and other characters which though common in both are more pronounced in one sex than in the other otherI I have often wondered why the problem of origin and inheritance of sex has never been dicussed in what to my mind is the only possible way Who can deny the fact of the female sex being the orig ¬ inal and the male sex the advanced form of it Space does not permit me to dwell on this difficult theme at any length but I can foresee that before long the Mendelian interpretation of sex will be Female recessive to male the former explained by the absence and the latter by the presence of the additional factor for the male This cannot be mere conjecture in view of the fact that in every species of mammals the male has teats which tends to prove that the rudimentary form must have been the female and would have remained so were it not for the efficiency of the added factor for male the presence of which is alternative to its absence absenceWhen When in 1909 I collaborated in the publication of Sir Krncst Shackletous book on his first Polar expe ¬ dition I was highly interested iu the description which the biologist of the expedition Mr James Murray gave of some species of niomosexual Roiifcra which propagates parthenogetically that Js to say by means of uniinpregnated ova The matured egg and subsequently the embryo re ¬ mains in the body and the young are born alive This undoubtedly is the original form of life which biologists call monism the development of the all or universe from a single principle And the second form i e the male determined by causes which are beyond our powers of conception presents itself in the separation of the fertilizing from the egg prodiicing clement Thus we have dualism the twofoldedness in the unity of being or the doctrine that there are two opposites and independently existing principles which go to form everything everythingDEVELOPMENT DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL CHARACTER naturally imposed different duties and different modes of living on the two sexes which under such influences develop what we call sexual diameters Certain duties of the male and particu ¬ larly so in the higher order of mammals required a greater degree of physical strength than the female needed and therefore the former gradually acquired characters uuknow because uu necessary iu the female And that height is one of these gives me no doubt Both sexes naturally must be iu full Itossession of the sexual diameters in their purest form to be able to fulfill properly the duties which Nature ordained for them The effeminate stallion however great a race horse he may have been as a rule is a dead failure at the stud and similarly the too masculine looking broodmare I am endeav ¬ oring to show why breeders should not for any reason condemn the broodmare if she is only a pony They should rather discard the big broodmares which however rationally they may be bred cannot Iknssibly do justice to their breeding For my part I am perfectly clear on the point that the increas ¬ ing iicrceutage of barrenness is due to the modern tendency of breeding for size One only needs to compare the interesting statistics of Admiral Itous iu connection with the size of modern thoroughbreds and llerr voii Oettingeus statistics with reference to the rising scale of barrenness during the past fifty years to perceive a distinct coherency between these two features of modern breeding Some time ago I read an interesting ethnological treatis pub ¬ lished in France in which the writer endeavored to demonstrate the reasons for the enormous amount of maternity among the colored races which in the main he of course attributed to the early maturity of woman But incidentally he raised the iuteresting question May we not take it that the pronounced difference in size and other sexual char ¬ acters between man and woman has something to do with this state of affairsV It would then be interesting to quote from llerr von Oettingeus book Horse Breeding in Theory and Practice and to hear what he has to say on this important subject subjectThe The feminine character always finds distinct expression with good broodmares Vampire the dam of Flying Fox with her conspicuous stallion neck and uufeminine coarseness belong to the exceptions and besides the 1899 Derby winner slit has not produced anything useful Mares with pro ¬ nounced hooked teeth are nearly always bad dams and often barren Statistics further teach us that small wiry mares are preferable to large so called show mares If the dams of classic winners are divided according to their conformation into three military classes Horse Guards Lancers and Hussars the most approved broodmares will be found in the last lot Good broodmares of the Horse Guards type are few To mention a few English individuals of this class there is St Edltha dam of St Gatien Morgauette dam of Galtee More and Ard Patrick Also liippia herself an Oaks winner was a broodmare of the Horse Guards type but she could not produce anything better than Gunnersbury even to such a good sire as Hermit On the other hand Perdita II and Me dora amongst others as may be found iu the fol ¬ lowing list were of a distinct Hussar type Queen Mab 17S5 Maniac 1SOG Velocipedes dam 1817 Kmma 1824 Beeswing 1833 Crucifix 1837 Poeahontass 1837 Chuznoe 1S38 Miami 1814 Iidy Evelyn 1S4C Blink Bonny 1854 Imperieuse 1834 Pulcbcrriuiii 1873 Pearlina Perdita II Morgauctte Vitarbu Sappho famous German niare niareVision Vision La Fleche Medora Festa PROVES VALUE OF SMALL BROODMARES BROODMARESI I think this list which in the main distinctly proves the higher breeding value of small brood ¬ mares can be much further extended by instances from modern breeding But as for famous brood marcs of the present time there is certainly none of the small size and the supreme class of Poca hontas Gluiznec and Miami These three instances more than any others emphasize the advisability of giving preference to the smaller type of broodmare Admiral Itous contends that in 1700 the average height was 13 hands 3 inches and that it has since risen every twentyfive years by one inch which means that ought o be now 15 hands 3 inches However it can be easily ascertained that the height of the thoroughbred iu England has increased much more quickly than Admiral Rous supposed The desire to increase height seems to me to be dan ¬ gerous observes llerr von Oettingcii and it will probably soon only be possible at the expense of soundness of logs He concludes his criticism on this modern tendency to breed for size by the re ¬ mark The most favorable size for broodmares is 15 hands 1 inch up to 15 hands 3 inches or about two inches less than the most favorable height for a stallion I think it will be generally admitted that 1C hands is the ideal size for a stallion and it certainly cannot be a matter of mere co ¬ incidence that this size was recorded for Sir Peter Orville Stockwell Blair Atliol Rosicrueian Spring ¬ field Cliamaiit Isonomy Gallinule Ayrshire etc St Simon measured 10 hands inch and can there ¬ fore be included in this list On the other hand the 17 hands high Prince Charlie the 16 hands 3 inches high St Serf and to quote an instance from French breeding the nearly 17 hands high Maiutcuou rep ¬ resented a decidedly inferior standard to that of their respective sires Blair Athol St Simon and Le Sagittaire We therefore may presume that also as far as the breeding quality of stallions is con ¬ cerned the modern tendency of breeding for size is of disadvantage rather than otherwise A 17 hands high stallion appears if we compare him with the modern average to be a sort of freak and with ¬ out mentioning individual cases I think it will now be generally accepted that the produce of such giants are not so sound as to stand successfully the requirements of modern racing To cut a long story short the golden mean also iu bloodstock breeding is the safest road to success But it should be carefully considered that there must be consider ¬ able margin between the ideal size of the stallion and that of the broodmare for reasons which I hope I have fully explained above aboveIn In one of my earlier treatises on Mcndelism I have defended the view that the phenomenon of individual prepotency may help to throw over cer ¬ tain Mendelian laws It is asserted Jt y the ultra Mendcliau crowd that the pure dominant for bay cannot possibly produce a chestnut au as a rule they raise if exceptions of this kind come to their notice doubts as to the genuineness of the pater iiity or maternity as the case may be Today I am able to allude to an individual case which docs not admit of the slightest scepticism towards its truthfulness Roquelauro yp to 1911 has sired about seventy foals among which there is not a single chestnut Howeypr last year such a phe ¬ nomenon arrived It was bred by Mr AV A Mur ¬ phy at Oberstown Stud in Irlcand dam the bay nare Chinese Empress by Santoi Madame Royale The latter was a chestnut mare by the bay Uiicas by Stockwell dam the bay Madeline by Plum Pudding That in this particular case the Stockwell element is predominant if not om ¬ nipotent may be gathered from the fact that her best son Frustruin by St Simon is a chestnut As Wildfowler is a chestnut the filly which Mad ¬ ame Voyale produced to him in 1903 Fast Fanny was of course to be a chestnut as well But the interesting fact in this case is that this marc which was sold to the Argentine in 1907 foaled in 1910 1011 and 1912 three chestnut foals to Diamond Jubilee and every one of them Fantasuia Chagu razo and Fripon have proved race horses of the first order and have won altogether in the last season something between ten and twelve thousand pounds in stakes A similar case is that of the chestnut stallion Lousby sired by Desmond also supposed to be a pure dominant for bay Lousbys dam Killacoona is a chestnut mure by Phocion whose dam Photina was a daughter of Uncas dam Killangey a daughter of Master Kildare Strathardle a chestnut daughter of Blair Athol Thus three of the male lines in the maternal breed ¬ ing of Lousby trace back to Stockwell and to all appearance this close inbreeding led to such an in ¬ tensification of the Stockwell element that St Si ¬ mon was completely suppressed Boulauger in London Sporting Life I
