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JUMPING BLOOD IN CERTAIN FAMILIES Horses of Number One Family Seem Especially Gifted with Ability to Jump It seems that Lord Roseberys branch of No 1 blood through Illiimiimta and Serpentine liis i special aptitude for jumping and that inbreeding to No 1 tends to improve tin stock for this special point of view Wrack afforded a fine ex ¬ ample of this scheme some ycarsago and it was not until he was put to hurdle jumping that his true merit was discovered Ilo is now a successful sire In the Tnited States Bred on similar lines is Vertigo which Avon the Headley Juvenile Hurdle race at Derby last Saturday iu a large field He ran in blinkers lint now that he has found it so simple a matter to run straight and defeat his opponents he can probably dispense with the blink ers and repeat his performance without any nervous irregularity These highlybred horses are apt to be nervy but nerve force properly directed is also apt to ha allconnering s Vertigo is by Swyn furd he starts with an advantage over Wrack which is by Robert le Diable Itoth these are No 1 sires but it will not be disputed that Swynford is a superior individual to Kobert le Diable and also a in oru successful stallion It is a little strange that while Swynford and his brother Harry of Hereford are in nch demand as fashionable stal ¬ lions and justly so their sire John oGaunt is neglected This should not be for John got Kenuy more and Torchlight also in his early days at the stud and he certainly ought not to be forgotten now He will probably profit by his change to Sheffieldlane Paddocks for he had a good many years at Million and nearly all horses deteriorate under such conditions It lias often been pointed out how a continuous stay at Eaton damaged both Bend Or and Orme so that after the first two or three years their stock began to fall off Hend Or certainly did something by the way of an exception to prove this rule when he sired Kadinm iu his old age but Onne in his later days never gave us any approach to such stock as Flying Fox and Orby There were several brothers to Flying Fox but none of them of much use with the exception of Flying Lemur and he was not a patch on his big brother brotherA A WONDERFUL PEDIGREE PEDIGREEIy Iy the way I am assured by a firstclass au ¬ thority that I was mistaken in faulting Harry of Herefords joints as the result of a somewhat cursory look at him iu his box during the spring of this year As I wrote at the same time the tines lion is of no great moment for the horses stock are undeniably clean and sound and with scarcely an exception have shown winning form I call to mind now that when the horse was in training I myself several times wrote that he looked to be an easier subject for his trainer to deal with than Swynford had been for he was nothing like so heavy and his joints were not so fleshy I be ¬ lieve this opinion was quite correct so far as it went but it seems Harry of Hereford was rather badly amiss early on in his racing career and Mr Lamhton never had him quite to his mind Even st however the colt ran well on several occasions and never except in good company le all that as it may then is no doubt whatever a to his stud sincess or bis full subscription list for the coining season And what a pedigree it is that is at the back of Swynford and Harry of Hereford Isin ¬ glass and the three classic mares La Fleche Can ¬ terbury Pilgrim and Pilgrimage are its immediate supports John oGannt was the iRst colt of his year and as a yearling could not well have been surpassed Tristan the sire of Canterbury Pilgrim was a great horse though outclassed by St Simon and he was n son of Hermit which though he failed to establish a male line in this country ex ¬ ercised incalculable Influence on the British thor oifghbred iu general and most particularly in the matter of jumping Ascetic by Hermit was cer ¬ tainly one of the best sires of junipers we have ever seen ami it may well be that Vertigo is not a little indebted to Hermit for jumping qualities qualitiesVALUE VALUE OF HERMIT BLOOD BLOODMoreover Moreover it must not bo supposed that Hermit has died out in the male line because no represen ¬ tatives of that line are available in England There is at least one sire of great distinction iii the tnited Statis tracing in male line to Hermit That horse is Pallot which proved himself to be a first class racehorse both in the States and in this country He takes the Hermit line through that horses brilliant son Friars Palsam which hut for the trouble iu his jaw could not haved missed the Two Thousand Guineas of his year Whether Ballots sons and daughters comprise any really great in ¬ dividuals is I believe doubtful but they have cer ¬ tainly won a large number of races It is to be noted that Star Shoot which for several years past was the most successful sire iu America was bred on the same lines as Swynford and Harry of Here ¬ ford That is to say he was by Isinglass a Hermit mare The same scheme of breeding has many times proved successful as witness Sea Breeze Kavensbnry Galliunlc and others by Isonomy dams Hermit mares Writing of Star Shoot note what liiy friend Vigilant wrote tin other day about his winning at Hurst Park under a Welter burden ridden by the then midget Johnny Roiff whoso weight cloths were so packed that he could hardly carry them and his saddle to weigh in The prev iilent Idea is that dead weight handicaps the bearer of it pretty badly lint Hiiggins who I mined Star Shoot was of exactly the opposite opinion at any rate where you have a freegoing horse and a good lightweight jockey The dead weight he would say you can pack well on the withers where the horse can best carry it and there it will re ¬ main quiet If you can depend upon your little jockey to sit still also it is far better than to have a heavier jockey iu the saddle whose movements to some extent at any rate will impede the horses freedom of action This reasoning appears to be sound and Hnggins certainly had the courage of his opinions and with successful results but he had an exceptionally good lightweight jockey in Johnny Keiff who used to sit as still as a mouse and let his mounts win their own races concerning himself only in keeping them straight He certainly made quite as much of Volodyovski as did bis Inother Lester indeed he enabled that colt to reverse the lcger running with Doricles not that that is a fair test for it is common knowledge that a dead set was made at Lester Keiff and Volodyovski iu the St Legcr and the wonder is that the Derby winner was able to finish where he did a close second A further instance of the success of No 1 family in producing jumpers was furnished at Derby on Tuesday this week by Matruh which conies of the Sunshine line of No 1 and made a winning debut in the Maiden Hurdle Knee beat ¬ ing a good band which contained several good per ¬ formers Thus we have the great lines of Paraffin and Sunshine coming t the fore within the space of a week and it may prove a useful system this winter to follow No 1 blood The Special Com ¬ missioner in London Sportsman
