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"FIGURE SYSTEM" FUTILITY • Bruce Lowes Slapdash Theories Fail Under All Tests. * Sire Families and Running Families Are Mere Phantoms — Statistics Prove This. • i BY SALVATOR. Provided one has a genuine interest in breeding one cannot study with too much attention the table Of "Twenty Leading Sii.-s of 19iT" in The American Uaiing Manual for 1!U-. It may be studied from sursy different angles, its separate Item* and its totality variou-ly gauged, and alway- it will yield some fact or thought worth consideration. During the last year there has been somewhat of a recession of the propaganda for the "Figure System" among us. As a matter of fact, it is not going nearly so strong anywhere as it was a few yeais ago. fail- :iin| fancies in breeding follow natural laws. They wax and wane, appear and disappear. "St rat their brief hour" and then go to the amp heap. The "Figur- System" is only one of a host of similar things that have bobbed up in the breed ing world and. owing to their plausibility, aspects of interest, or the inielligen, e with which they bars been promoted have, for a time at least, monopolized more prominence and attained more publicity than their merits, either abstract or concrete, star-ranted. Anything of this order is always worth some attention, for ofitimes we can learn from erroneou-ar fsacifnl ideas facts or truths worth knowing, ju-t as we ess aasaet imra aeaajra mistaken opinions from the study of things re* reel in themselves. Nobody can nrleaaly study the "Figure System" without, even if lie finds it in its main tin-si, i delusion, acquiring in the process useful iuformath n. even if noi of precisely the variety that Brace Laws and hi-- loll, sen intended. WHAT THE PRIZE FIGURES SHOW. It has uncalled to me that a testing out of America** "Twenty Leading Sites of 1921" by the "Figure Sv-iem" might reveal msse in-truotive facts aad 1 have accordingly prepared the follow in brief tabulation, in which they are ranked in order. according la the winnings of their get. the numb- r in the "System." of each sin- being given, togetio r with the names and numbers, in turn, of their own sires: Win Site. Xo. His Site. No. stags. Celt i Commando 12 06,237 Star Sh.M.i Isinglass B ltCJ.1-44 Met; -.. .". White Knight ....12 IS7.BM Ballot 14 Voter 1 1S0.971 Sweep 8 Ben Brash m. 171.T70 Wrack 1 Robert le Diabic 1 171. IM Broomstick Ill Ben Brash tn. l.".9.13«» Baaaymede 14 Voter i isit.!t7l Fair Flay !t Hastings Ll 143. _* ;» Imle 4 Siar Shoot 9 1 :»;,; T,9:t superman 11 Commando 1:2 iL."i.u7l Ogees c. Kllwsrlis » 117. 0t 4 Light Brigade... 8 Pietaa 7 111.779 Zen- U Adam 2 HS„-,97 Olambala 21 Oraaa 9 9!.9i7 King .lames .... |2 Ilaudit 21 9.".IH4 .lack Atkia 2d Sain 3 93.876 Transvaal 8 Commando 12 93.011 Vnh-ain 4 Bock Sand 4 92.4til Dick Finnell I King Brie 3 91.414 Now, one of the -upiiosetllv meat valuable features of the "Figure System" is the fact ? that it enables ns to di-tiie-uish first, the "running fatnil-ie-" and. second, the "-ire families." one from the other. In this manner we CSS lieed either for performer- or for sire-: and. most particularly, we can diacera which of our pnfmariai arc best calculated to succeed a- -ires when -en, to the stud. What light, therefore, does the table throw u on these questions? If the "Figure System" is cor-tect, it should depict the "Twenty Leading Sires of i;r_l" as bred with tew exception* from the leading "-ire families." Bee* it do so.- FIGURE SYSTEM MIXED PICKLES. Alas, il doe- nothing of the kind! As you glance down tin- ladei rorams of "family figurea" you discover a ease of mixed pickles, indeed. These Twenty Leading Sire* belong to no ten than tbir-tees different "fignn families." It approximate in thi- respect, "confusion worse confounded ." What ia nan I . a- regards Btuce Lowes specific "sire fsmilie*," it simply "plays bah" with them. To begin nrith, Celt, the premier -ire of 1921. is of the No. 1 family, and of this Braie Lowe -tars out by -.lying, "Tin- is essentially a running as di-tinguished from a lira lire." Vet we find it t have produced slso Wrack, the sixth aire on tiie list: and B0 Other family ha- two sin* standing -o high! A dose BCeoad Is Celt is Star Shoot. He is from the o. 9 family, which Brace Lowe stigmatised as never hsviag produced "one really high-elass Tel Star Ma-el ha- beea the most prolific -ire f arinaen in latter day American breeding annals. Moreover, the No. 9 family is reasaasible for wo oiher she* in the tabfc — Fair Flay, whbii rank- ninth, and Dick Finnell. twentieth. UcGee, which ranks third, i- from the No. 3 family, arhach Braes Lowe proasaaced "a- a sire line. nearly if not unite at the tup of the tree. However, Mi ice is its single, lonely representative anion? the Twenty Leader- Following him comes Ballet, which ranks fourth. He is a No. 14 family horse. and this family Lswe places among his sire Uses. It also has a Reread representative in the table, vis., Biinnymede. which ranks eighth. But the Bags-ble fact sheet these two Bares, Hallot and Runny-mede, is not that they trace to the sanio far-distant "tap root." but that they IN both exemplars of :l common, rises "nick." Both horses are sons of Voter: while Merry B.ince. granddam of Ballot, and Iretty Bailee. Ihird dam of Rnnnymede. were own si-ters. both being by PoacSBter — Highland Fling. MEASURE SHOWS FUTILITY. I will not undertake to discuss the entire twenty siies separately but will merely state that when they are collectively "measured" on a "figure" ba-is they lev.-al il to be absolutely without until-ity as a guide for the -election of sires. In dismissing them I will Befall to the fact that Bruce Lowe singled out two families— the No. 3 and No. S a- the two sire lines pa r excellence, and that these tare lines have produced only four of the twenty leaders, and that of these four two stand thirteenth and eighteenth, respectively. When we proceed to the examination of the sires of the "Twenty Leaders." we find a similar condition of affairs. They belong to nine asteaSBBBS and ten a real different families: for of the four horses given as of the No. 12 family only one. The White Knight, really belongs to it. Commando, which ap-I ears three times, is always given as a No. 12 horse, but as a matter of fa i, as was team ago established, has no right to inclusion la that family, as the remote extension of his maternal family is fraudulent and his correct classification is out-Bkss the "Figure System" and as a native American product. There are only three progenitors which are credited with siring more than one of the "Twenty Leading Sires of 1921." These are Commando 3, Ben Brush 2 and Voter 2. Commando and Ben Brush are both from American families outside the Bruce Lowe system: while Voter is .if the No. 1 family, which, as we have seen. is all wrong, as it is a running and not a sire line.
