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STUD BOOK ROMANCES y t * The Derby Ringer, Running Rein, Finished His Life in Russia. * ♦ * Mysterious Murder of St. Gatiens Sire, The Rover — Side Lights on Breeding. * ♦ i A unto in the English General Stud Book, referring In tin- .i|i-ii inn mare, say* tli:it her cult of 1S40. V; ccabcus afterward Zamuiil. by Gladiator, run for tin- Darky f 1S44 under tin- name if Punning Beta, betag then four rem old. a corresponding note records that the cult foaled in 1841 liy The Saddler M:it . by Dnmui Grey, waa the real Punning Bi in. 1 1 ir- four-year-old having been tradulenily substituted for liim in the Derby, for which he rente iii f ir~t. and ether races, it trill he resaesa-hared that after sonic litigation the iaaaastar wii-disqualified and i ho race awarded to Orlando. It may he of interest to add that "Kuiiniiig Ilein." • hose name was shortly after chanced to Zaiinni. :il! l which is described as a horse of great style ami beauty, was exported to Kaaata. The real I I ne, we believe, mysteriously disappeared. In Volume 15 of the Oenoral Slud Book another historical statement is made about the mysterious murder of The Barer, sire of St. ;atien. The horse was at the time of his death standing at Woodford, in the Knight of Kerrys demense. anil was in the possession of one flaahl Shine, a farmer and bono dealer living at UstoweL In this year St. Onlien. by Polherhill or The Hover, dead-heated for the Derby. He was certainly by The Borer, and coarea.ae.ntiy the value of his reputed sire became suddenly greatly enhanced. Shine having become bankrupt, an order was, obtained from .ludge Miller that his valuable boraa, The Hover, should be brought up to Dublin ald sold for tlie benefit of his creditors. The morning after the injunction was obtained the horse was f. Mini dead in hi- stable, his throat having been ut during the Bight. Arrests were made, but the culprit was never discovered, and the affair till i cina ills a myslery. though public opinion pointed mit the criminal. It may further be recorded among these tragedies that Lord Kgremouf. who won five Derbys and as many Oaks, had the mare Pugle stolen from his famous paddocks, she being never heard of again. ■Bd it is often thought that RBC may have become Uip ancestress f some of those wonderful half-bred horses whose performance it is so hard to reconcile with their breeding, or rather supposed lack of it. SOME SIDELIGHTS ON BREEDING. In the pages of the Stud Hook are found that fi als were sometimes poisoned nr maliciously deli veil, occasionally killed by lightning, bitten by venomous reptiles nr mad dogs, gored by bulls, or kicked to death, oftea drowned, one iuaotbered in new. and another crippled by frost, now aad then bora without eyes. feet, tail or a windpipe, some were stolen from their mothers side, and even if the* escaped all these calamities the* fioipientlv died. On the other hand, we have for our enroiirage-II- ii T the example .if such a mare as Flo-ei.ee. by Volnci| clc. w/hii h hrougni forth twenty living !;.ls in as many veals; Maniac, which bred nine-1i en foils and in- never barren, and the famous Qaeea Mary, which only aliased once in her first •wenty years at the stud, and lived to the age of t wenty -nine . As regards the produce of marc-, there lias oftea bun a prejudice against first foals on the score of physique, or their inferiority as race horses, at I ssjbiy hath; s, much so, that only quite recently tht Jockey Club allowed them to claim an allowance of three aaaadh in certain races, a privilege. however, that was soon after withdrawn, though the Irish Turf lub sanctioned it till the autumn of last year. Bat in reality, a list of first foils which have distinguished themselves alike on the turf or at II i stud would be a long one. and contain the n.ines .if many of our greatest . elebrit lea. conveying the impress!, hi thai no good grounds exist foi t.cir supposed inferiority to the later beta prod l.c, of their dams. TWINS REGARDED AS MISFORTUNES. P.reedcr* naturally enough in most instances regarded the occurrence uf twins as a misfortune. : ml we haaard tic opinion that if the true facts wire known, probably the average of eight cases in a thousand. ;i- given iii i he Stud Book, would have t i be materially Increased, as possibly in soeae eaari tie information bai been suppressed in the returns sent in. We ourselves once bought five in-foul mares in one traiis.ii ; i.ni true* a well-known breeder In Ireland, and three of them produce. 1 twins the following spring to Gallinule. Wil dfowler and Finnic! II. res| ectiveiy. lie five mares thus having • ghl foals Ixtween them. To take a case at random, an examimi tioii of the tl illy marcs, comprising the Welbe. k Stud s,,me tin vears ago. shows thai no fearer that twelve of them produced t.vins at one time or another. A kind* of tin- annual list of foahl so. in- to afford fittd ground for the supposition that tin bearing of twins is soanwhat of an hereditary raree, ami that, as might almost he exported, a mare which lias „,„,. I,.-,,! i wins is apt to have them again, or that her daughters will prodin c tin in in their turn. Ii mess htajr, by Atheratoae, slipped twins five limes jn ien rear*. Broaar, wteaer of the Oaks. had twins four times, s,, also did The Song, a half-sisie, I,, the St. Lege* winner Ossiaa, and herself a Bead mare on the turf: Oim.dii had twins four tunes in six years: The Old I.a.y. by Tiiuringiin Ii line. als. had four sets of twills, while several oilers have had them thrice and many limes twici As proof of the decided hereditary tendency of this trait, if one refers to the Mad career of the famous mare Enigma, we shall find she bred twin-, a- did her daughter. Arno. and her three granddaughters. Amiable. Ora vitation and Iitti. the lat-tis surviving twin also having twins her ftrat your at the Btad. on tinned oa second page. STUD BOOK ROMANCES Con tinned from first page. It is but seldom a twin horse distinguishes himself, mm Nicoio in isj:t wmi the Two Thousand Guineas and got a certain number of winners. Trapeze, brother to Tristan, was another example, lot neither made any mark as BtaUhm*. On the other hand, twins have recently attained great celebrity as brood mares, chiefly through the wonderful successes of the twin sisters Lady Bawn and Lady Black, which have between them produced so many winners of the highest class, of which Bachelors Double is so prominent an example. Iaigos dam was ■ shabby little twin mare lo Wisdom; Duet, a twin, bred Double Thrush; P.. Flat, another twin, bred Paul, the winner of the German Derby, to say nothing of nineteen other bals. Harpenden. s,n of the twin mare Mrs. Jones, won the Pevoril of the Ieak Plate of £1.000 at Derby and other good rai-es. and Grama-cfcree. sister to Birdeatcber, is another example of B well-known successful twin brood mare. I! may be noted that the fertility of these twin/ at the stud docs not apparently differ from that of other mi Fortunately enough, among plural births, triplets do ool enter into the calculations of breeders of horses, and the Stud Book, so far as we are aware, onh nicuds one instance, and that in Volnme 22, When tin- mare Scintilla, by Sidus. bred by the late Lord Cadngan, is reported to have had in "1005 triplets dead by Littleton." — C . M. Prior in Sporting Chronicle.
