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HORSES AND TRAVELING Special Commissioner of London Sportsman Discusses Subject, t Holds That Change of Air Helps Stallions and Race Horses as Much as It Often Benefits Human Beings. 1 "William Allison, the Special Commissioner of the London Sportsman, does not agree with the experts who hold that travel injures a stallion or a race horse. He contends on the other hand that achange of air and climate improves the chances of a thoroughbred for successful effort either on the track or in the stud and gives many examples to reinforce his arguments. Ho writes on the subject as follows: "Mankato" last Saturday queried my opinion that travel and change of air benefit a stallion or, indeed, any living thing. Ho seemed to think it a new opnion of mine, though it is one that I have entertained ever since I have had the capacity for a reasoned opinion ; and we may, by inference, assume that he believes we should be none the worse in health if we all lived perpetually at home and never traveled about at all not even to the seaside or for a day in the country. That appears to be "Mankatos" meaning in so far as he has a meaning for he advised it to controvert my view that Tracery is all the better for his travels from the U. S. A. to England, to the Argentine and back to England again ; just as Melton derived marked benefit from his sojourn in Italy, and was a far more successful stallion when he came back than he waa before he left England. SOME PARALLEL CASES. I am amazed to find a clever and experienced man ilke "Mankato" promulgating such, heresies. Does he really think that ha himself would be what he is now had he spent all his life in Lancaster, or that "slum" children would grow up to be equally1 healthy and successful if they never left the "slums"? Even the vegetable creation finds the need ol change. Tou cannot carry on with seeds always grown on the same land. I have mentioned the case of Melton aa illustrating my point, but there are almost innumerable others. Take, for instance, Rock Sand. He got a certain number of winners in England, but none of the highest class. Then he was sent to the U. S. A., and forthwith became the sire of Tracery, an immeasurably better horse than any of his English-bred stock. Silvio was a dead failure as a stallion in England, though he was mated with Lord. Falmouths best mares. He was exported to France and with the stock of his first season there he went to the head of the list of winning stallions. What Roi Herode would have done had he stayed in France is a mere matter of guesswork, but it is pretty safe to assume that he would not have led off with such a son as The Tetrarch. DIAMOTTD JUBILEES IMPROVEMENT. Then we may take Diamond Jubilee, who was anything but a successful stallion in England, but was transformed into a top class one from the time he reached the -Argentine to the day of his death. Both Gladiator and The Flying Dutchman had to go to France before they could establish a male line, and the same may be said bt Glencoe in regard to the U. S. A. Numbers of moderate horses have attained to fame as stallions when exported to Australasia, and Irish breeders have derived no end of benefit from horses of similar class imported from this country, such, for instance, as Gallinule, Winkfleld, Captiva-tion, Desmond and others. In short, the advantage gained from change of air and environment is so obvious that I should not labor the question were it not that "Mankato" must have something at the back of his mind which leads him to think that always to vegetate in the same place is the most desirable and healthy scheme of life and reproduction. To me it has always seemed a sure thing that breeders who keep their mares at home to mate with their own stallions also kept at home handicap themselves very seriously as compared with breeders who send their mares away to other horses, and thus give them an annual outing for two or three months. ST. SIMON AND THE WELBECK MAKES. This has been again and again demonstrated -by the greater success of the home stallion with visiting mares when he is failing to do much good with the home ones. St. Simon got great winners to the end of his career, but not from the Welbeck mares in his later years. It used to be thought that visiting mares are, as- a rule, more carefully selected for the horse than are the home matrons, and there may be something in this, but I am convinced that the main essential of success is change of air; and that if half a dozen of the best stallions were located at Sled-mere Stud, and the mares kept there from year end to year end the fame of the Sled-meres bred sock would decline from that day. The best foal list Collar ever had was after I had sent him to spend the winter months at Newmarket. 1 "Mankato" diverges into a somewhat labored comparison of the relative merits of Tracery and Swynford. Into "this I do not propose to follow him, . holding, as I do, with Mrs. Malaprop, that comparisons aro "ordorous." Besides, each of these great horses is and always has been an almost equal favorite of mine, though I am naturally partial to Tracery. This has never prevented me from ranking Tranquil as the best filly we have seen since Sceptre and probably the best three--year-old of either sex this year. It is easy enough to say that after the St Leger, but I made the statement several times when Tranquil was under a cloud.
