view raw text
TRANSMISSION OF GRAYS Gr.y Color Coats Descend from the Alcock Arabian Through Two Centuries. In view of the success of the gray stock of The Tetrarch and his sire, Roi Herode, it may be instructive to recall how nearly, just over a hundred years ago, the gray color was within an ace of being practically extinguished and on what a slender thread Its future existence hung. We find that the gray mare Spinster, sent to Ireland about 1910, had been bred from gray dams for six generations, the color being originally inherited from the Alcock Arabian, beyond which, of course, it is impossible to trace it At the stud, though she produced many foals, only her first born was a gray, and had he not been so grays would have been practically extinct at the present time. This colt, afterward known as Master Robert 1811, on being mated with the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh mare, dam Miss Tpoley granddam of the immortal Hark-away, sired the gray horse Drone, and as he subsequently became a sire of some moment was thus instrumental in keeping the color alive. From Drone, and more particularly through his well-known daughter, Wlnl?.;- fivery thoroughbred gray is now descended, with the exception of a few, chiefly daughters of FriaryF which inherit their color through a totally different channel, tracing to a gray son of the Brownlow Turk, and every gray derives the color from either this horse or the Alcock Arabian. A table is appended showing how the gray color has been handed down without a break to The Tetrarch from its original source : The Tetrarch, gray horse, foaled 1911. 1904 His sire, Roi Ilerode Gray 1805 His sire, Le Samaritaiue Gray 1SS-1 His sire, Le Sancy Gray 1S73 His daiu, Gem of Gems Gray 1803 Her sire, Stratheonan Gray 1855 His dam, Souvenir Gray 1S43 Chanticleer Gray 1832 His dam, Whim Gray 1823 Her sire. Drone Gray 1817 His sire, Master Robert ... ...Gray 1805 His dam, Spinster .Gray 1797 Her dam. Sir Peter mare Gray 1787 Her dam, Bab Gray 1778 Her dam, Speranza Gray 1764 Virago : Gray 1757 Her dam, Regulus mare Gray 1750 Her dam, sister to Black and All Black. .Gray 1722 Her sire. Crab Gray His sire, the Alcock Arabian, which was also known as Mr. Pelhams Gray Arab, and was afterward the property of the Duke of Ancaster. It is remarkable that though the color is constant it is derived indiscriminately either in the male or female line, thus confirming the rule that one or both parents must be a gray in order to produce a gray. The fact that this color cannot be inherited unless one or other of the actual parents are gray accounts for their numbers being, of late years, so reduced compared with a hundred years ago, when, as the old Calendars show, they were plentiful on our race courses. In the early days of the St. Leger, for instance, it is noticeable how many of the runners were gray. At Carlisle, in 1732, the six starters for a particular race were all grays, and at Hambleton one year the first four were grays, as were six others of the twenty starters for the Mares Plate. As examples of mares breeding true to color, one may mention Mr. Garforths famous mare Vesta 1801, which bred thirteen gray foals in succession to nine different sires; Barrosa 180S, which bred sixteen bays or browns when mated with eight horses of varying colors, and Persepolis 1803, all of whose fifteen foals were chestnuts, but as she was usually mated with the chestnut horse Quiz they could be of no other color, and the ten she had by this sire between them won sixty-six races, value 10,390 pounds sterling, a large sum in those days. It may be noted that all the cases above quoted date from over a hundred years ago, but it is readily accounted for by the fact that, whereas in the earlier volumes, it is usually possible to see the whole of a mares produce at one reference, necessity now compels the return to be given piecemeal, and thus with a mares record spread over several volumes such details are no longer apparent at a glance, and entail considerable research. A few instances occur of mares producing foals of only one sex, a notable example being Lord Roseberys well-known mare Montem, by Ladas, whose eleven produce were all fillies, and her daughters seem disposed to follow her example, though not quite so exclusively. Other mares are frequently to be met with whose colts win races while their fillies are worthless and vice versa, a circumstance highly interesting to the biologist. C. M. Prior in Manchester Sporting Chronicle.
