view raw text
THOROUGHBRED INBREEDING Different Development as Result of Breeding to Spankers Dam Many Futile Attempts. I think it is generally admitted, although T have never seen it stated in print, that without the extraordinary case of close inbreeding to Spankers dam the breed of the race horse would have developed on entirely different and probably less successful lines. The mare Sister to Leedes, by Leedes Arabian, was out of a mare by Spanker, out of Spankers dam that is to say, the produce of son and mother. Sister to Leedes had a daughter by Old Careless, named Betty Leedes, which, mated with the Darley Arabian, produced Bartletts or flying Chil-ders, which established the only male line of this eastern sire, viz., that carried on by Eclipse. Tn view of the fact that Darley Arabian failed to found a second line, one may certainly argue that the close inbreeding to Spankers dam formed the strongest backbone in this cross with eastern blood. In the pedigree of Eclipse the mare by Spanker, out of Spankers dam, appears in the sixth remove, and we find her in practically the same position in the pedigree of Diomed, the first English Derby winner, and, undoubtedly, one of the most successful horses imported to the United States. Diomeds sixth dam, a mare called Betty Percival, was a sister of Sister to Leedes. This tends to prove that the strongest element in the breeding of Eclipse and Diomed appears to have been the incestuous inbreeding to Spankers dam at the tap-root. In one continuation, through Sister to Leedes, it led to the establishment of the strongest male line in England, and in another, through Betty Percival, it founded the strongest male line in the United States. Yet Bruce Lowe called this line the family No. G outside blood. The success of this particular case of inbreeding vindicated, so it was apparently thought, the advisability of employing such methods, but throughout the twenty-two volumes of the stud book we find heaps of futile, attempts to imitate the instance of Spankers dam. Failures have always outnumbered successes in fact, the latter could be counted oil the fingers of one hand. Of course, there are several methods of inbreeding, netween which we should carefully discriminate. If we inbreed, for instance, to Stockwell through Bend Or and Springfield the policy is certainly different from inbreeding to Stockwell through two lines of Bend Or. I should call close inbreeding only those cases of accumulating the blood of one and the same descendant of a given ancestor, but though it has been widely practiced, only very few successes have been recorded. There is. for instance, the case of Barcaldine, whose third dam in tail female. Darlings dam, by Bird-catcher, is also dam of his sire, Solon, and we know, from the fact that amongst Bareal-dines descendants the chestnuts on the whole are superior to the bays, that the close inbreeding to Birdcatcher was decidedly successful. The close inbreeding to Gladiateur through his Bon, Lord Cough, in the breeding of Willbrook, is another case of a successful result from this method, and I shall now allude to a third one, which to all appearances has hitherto escaped notice. XO EXrLAXATIOX OF SUCCESS. I must confess that when studying the tabulated pedigree of The White Knight I failed to find any explanation for the success of that curious out-and-out-breeding in the three removes of the pedigree of his maternal granddam, Pamela. There appear the four great-grandsires, Kingston, Ivan, Sweetmeat and Artillery an extraordinary combination, if ever there was one. Always relying on the saying, however, that "there is no effect without a cause," I extended the pedigree of Pamela and came across a very interesting key. In the center we find the mare Juanita Perez, the dam of A 1, and at the foot the horse Artillery, sire of Pamelas granddam, Sheelah, which are both out of the same mare, viz., Jeannette, by Birdcatcher Juanita Perez, by Melbourne, and Artillery, by Touchstone. Now, this tallies almost exactly with the close inbreeding in Barcaldines pedigree referred to above. Mated with West Australian, Darlings dam produced Solon, and mated with Adventurer a grandson of Touchstone she produced Barcaldines maternal granddam, Bon Accord. The White Knights ancestress, Jeannette, produced Juanita Perez to Melbourne sire of West Australian and Artillery to Touchstone. Thus in both these instances Ave have the Melbourne-Touchstone cross supported by very close inbreeding to Birdcatcher, through his daughters, Darlings dam and Jeannette. Barcaldine was undoubtedly the greatest stayer of modern times, and if a referendum were taken as to which is the second best, I think the great majority would vote for The White Knight, which won the Ascot Gold Cup twice in succession, beating such great stayers as Beppo Aleppos sire, Bridge of Canny. Badium and Torpoint. No other cup winner of recent times has shown himself superior to such formidable opposition. The inbreeding to Birdcatcher is a most important feature in the pedigree of The White Knight, and it ought to be carefully considered by those who contend that his maternal breeding leaves much to be desired. Like Barcaldine 23, The White Knight 21, belongs to an outside family. SECOND FORM OF IXBKEEMXG. There is a second and no less rare sort of inbreeding met with in the pedigree of Pella, namely, to Sweetmeat, through his sons Plum Pudding brother to the Oaks winner Mincopie and A 1. Bruce Lowe, on page 10 of his book, says: "Just as it would be productive of bad results to mate two tall, angular human beings of the same temper-ment, so would it be disastrous in horses to mate a large-boned slxteen-hands horse of the Melbourne type and strain to a mare built upon the same lines. Bather should we choose for him a mate inbred to blood of quality like Sweetmeat, Kingston and Macaroni, and, by -so doing, each individual will supply to the other horse elements which were lacking when separate." Here, quite against his principle for Bruce Lowe has never invited his readers to discriminte between the breeding value of a fifteen and sixteen-hand horse belonging to one of the standard families he advocates breeding to type rather than to figures, and, curiously enough, he hit on an instance which tallies in every detail with the case of Pellas parents. Continued on twelfth paje. THOROUGHBRED INBREEDING . Coniinned from eleventh page. Her sire, Buckshot, was by Solon, and he seems to have been one of the hardy descendants of this family, since he carried off several of the two miles and two and a half miles Queens Plates at The Curragh before he became a "lepper." His dam, Magdalen, was a daughter of Plum Pudding, by Sweetmeat. Buckshot was mated in 1S90 with Pamela which in tail male traces to Kingston, and brings in a line of Sweetmeat through A 1, and produced Pella. Thus have we here inbreeding to Sweetmeat and a dose of Kingston supporting the Melbourne blood, which is exactly the kind of breeding which Bruce -Lowe pleaded for, although, in view of the six outside figures three quantities of the No. 21, and one each of 7, 22 and 23 it is. completely at variance with his figure system. " FESTIVES DAUGHTER CARNITAL. Desmonds granddam, Festive, was a daughter of Carnival by Sweetmeat, so that The White Knight is thus strongly inbred to the son of Gladiator 22, and he gets some more of "the blood of quality" from Kingston. He does not belie this descent, as he is certainly one of the most imposing stallions to be found in the United Kingdom at the present time. In addition he has inherited great stamina from his dam, which before him produced that great steeplechaser Paddy Maher and other successful jumpers. One, therefore, need not wonder why The AVhite Knight is a Desmond of an entirely different type from the other sons of this great sire. Pella seems to have been the result of reasonable breeding to type and to stoutness of blood, instead of to figures, with the result that she produced to Desmond not only the most noble looking but also by far the best stayer amongst the many sons of this defunct son of St. Simon London Sporting Life.
