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WANTED: A CERTAIN PATH TO SUCCESS No Breeding Formula Yet Advanced Brings Definitely Established .Results. BY SALVAT0R. The series of essays by Exile upon the dams of famous performers and progenitors appearing recently in Daily Bacing Form contains many interesting facts and deductions, but does it really give us any fresh light upon the subject which that writer took as ills .textnamely, the yal.ue of successful race mares as matrons. I confess that the many instances cited seem to me lacking in any systematic arrangement. Presented as they have been, they leave us . like the perplexd philosopher, Omar Khayyam, who, in his familiar Rubaiyat, recorded the fact that he did "eagerly frequent doctor and sage and heard great argument about it, and about," but eventually "came out by the same door where in he went." After all his citations Exile leaves us where We started. We all knew beforehand that ;many great runners and many great sires of great runners were out of mares that failed to distinguish themselves upon the race course; whereas, ihany others were out of mares that did distinguish themselves, and very highly. If wo are "looking for a lesson," how can we derive anything of any particular value from Exiles facts? It doesnt help us atvall to tell us that it makes no difference at ail whether a brood mare has or has hot been a successful race mare that everything depends upon blood, and blood alone. This is far from a "counsel of perfection," for the good reason that so much perfectly good blood has produced so many perfectly shocking results. If it all depended upon blood, and blood alone, there would be sotne reason for hoping that the maze of hreeding, while mighty, still was "not without a plan." But, alas, the plans work in so few instances! Ambitious: breeders burn the midnight oil thumbing the Stud Books and Racing Calendars and rack their brains oyer "Mating Competitions" In much the same" maimer that Chess experts do over problems in Kings Gambit and other abtruse intricacies of that profound nnd profoundly fascinating game. And, like the chess players problems, those of the breeder, in a rishcartening number of given examples, produce a stalemate. Of course it is a part and a precious and all important part of the breeders problems that failure to solve them only spurs the student to further and more strenuous endeavors. Some of these endeavors, crowned with brilliant success, are proclaimed from "the housetops and large black type tells the world about them . often right here in the Form itself. But as for the many and far more numerous .others, which resulted in dismal failure or an approximation thereof the mantle of charity,, that wide arid hospitable garment, whleh must of necessity always contain room for not one but millions more, is wrapped about them and they are forgotten or buried from sight with all possible expedition ;-and address. CONCERNING- "MATING COMPETITION." I wish somebody could "Exile" do it? would furnish us with some statistics on the number of stake winners, beginning with Derby winiiers and gradually descending to ordinary races of that genus, that "Mating Competitions" have" produced. I suppose, in my ignorance, that there must be scads and shoals of em. but my doubt, or, rather, my lack of information on the subject, is .encyclopedic. "Mating Competitions" are simply a welter of blood, nnd the very best blood at that. So bloody are they, indeed, that somehow I have found it difficult to come to grips with them. So much "pur sang" was more than my plain American system was able successfully to assimilate, sis a matter of fact. But, boiled down to their residuum of stake winners, I think I could successfully get away with the pabulum. But to return to the great question, Is it necessary to use the blood of successful rate mares in order. to breed successfully? There is "one feature of this discussion, which "Exile," probably from tpure inadvertency. I "overlooked;; that seeriis to hie worth some attentldn. "Arid ithis Is the""fact that, unless my researches have misled me, it is practically impossible to tabulate the pedigree of any very great progenitor, or performer or family which has been prolific in producing them, without encountering the presence of mares that have highly distinguished themselves on the course. "Exile" says it makes no difference whether a brood mare has raced well or not. But if he can clinch this argument by tabulating the pedigree of-any great performer or progenitor or progenitrix In which NO "successful race mares can be found, lie will, I humbly venture to think, have offered us something more luminous, in our search for "causes and consequences," than thus far he has presented. I think it will surprise "Exile" or anybody else who has. never taken thought about the matter when they attempt to do what I have requested, i. e., tabulate the pedigree of a great preferably a very great thoroughbred in which the performing ancestress is totally a minus quantity. If you dont come across one coming, you will going, arid most probably you will both ways. They may not be in the first two or three generations, but just "keep agoirig" and you will "get there." REVIVAL OF DORMANT INFLUENCES. The funny thing to me about the "developed dam" discussion is, most hugely, this. We are fed up with disquisitions on "pur sang" and "tap-roots" ad nauseam and colemly warned in the premises that hereditary influences persist for generations not only, but for centuries theres that dear old dArcys Yellow Turk, you know, and the Bloody Shouldered Arabian and Lady Thingumbobs Pet Mare arid all the rest of those ancient arid honorable equine worthies of a couple of hundred years ago and then some. Isnt it a mighty and momentous fact that their blood goes marching right on arid on, and if your Derby candidate did not deliyer the goods, the explanation is that he was shy somewhere of a sufficient number of crosses to tliis hierarchy of saints and heroes. . Nobody can dispute this or would dare to. But when a famous race mare is tried out and doesnt throw a trijple-crown winner the first two or three times trying, she becomes a "horrible example" and theres no use trying to tell any breeder, or breeding expert, that her blood is valuable, just the same. And, as researches in heredity have revealed how influences lay dormant for generations and. then assert themselves with dominant force, it is useless to stress the fact that in natures own good time the ancestral excellences for the interim quiescent will blossom forth with interesting ahd valuable results. No, this is the age of "quick action for your money" arid such" ideas cannot get across. But the .dear old Saffron Turk and Huckleberry Royal Mare keep right on going over the top all the while. How I wish Mark Twain had turned his attention to equine genealogies and the theory of ."pur sang" in. the thoroughbred! He could have written a companion volume to his "Connecticut Yankee at King Arthurs Court" that would have become aw immortal classic. Yes, it is quite true; the best, the rarest books, are never written!
