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Nine mares and fillies auctioned off at the Newmarket December sales for prices in excess of 0,000 ! Simply demonstrating that Edward E. Coussell knew whereof he spoke when he told us at Saratoga last summer that British breeders are determined that the best blood lines shall not leave Great Britain. Coussell is agent in England for numerous American breeders and he also represents Daily Racing Form. He seldom misses the yearling sales at Saratoga, and it Was the night of the Himyar Stud sale last summer that we talked with him regarding some phenomenally high prices obtained in England for brood mares. "We had been reading of the ever increasing shortage of multimillionaires in Britain, and it rather puzzled us to hear of untried young mares bringing from ?30,000 to ?15,000 at tho Newmarket sales. Not one mare brought those figures at the 1923 December sales, but cightroandlthem. And the oldest was but five years, of age ! It is hard to conceive of a man crying out under the burden of excessive taxation witli no relief in sight, yet stepping out at the same time, paying between one and two hundred thousand dollars for brood mares. But that is just what Lords "Woolavington and Dewar did a year ago, and Dewar came right back and purchased liberally of the very best at the recent sales. But to get at the pscychology behind it all, one must talk with a man like Coussell, who knows his England and his racing, and above all, Icnows his Englishmen. And, having talked with Coussell, it seems to us that "the big underlying thing behind it all is, that the breeders over there have laid down an unwritten law that no mare, whoso bloodlines and conformation hold out the slightest hope of her producing a first-class race horse, is to be allowed to leave the British Isles at any cost they can find a way to meet, no matter the sacrifice involved. Breeding good race horses is a part of the industrial life of Great Britain. They have wittingly or otherwise, mapped oiit a policy of holding tenaciously to the best the best for purposes of reproduction and the rest of the world may buy from them the ones in which they have little or no faith. "Witness the case of Tracery. The Britons acknowledged him a racer of the highest type. Immediately on his retirement to the stud, he was partonized liberally. Then came his first crop. The Panther loomed up a potential Derby candidate, then flivvered, and no others of the first few crops of Tracerys jrave promise of being the racing equal of their sire. While many Britons were against his being sold for export, even at the then xmheard of figure -of 65,000, having faith that he must eventually get race horses, the weight of expert opinion was that the son of Rock Sand wouldnt do. Then, just as Commandos later crops smashingly vindicated Major Daingerfields confidence in the son of Domino, so did the Tracerys come to the front and proceed to sweep the English and Irish stake boards. Some there are who will tell you that but for the war Tracery would never have been allowed to go to the Argentine. But 65,000 is a lot of money, in any times, war, peace, or merely hard times. Yet, times with Britons last year were harder than when Tracery was sold. But when the sons and daughters of the product of Major Belmonts Nursery Stud came into their own and captured classic after classic, the British breeders promptly formed a syndicate to bring Tracery back to England; thirty of them agreed to subscribe to a season to the son of Rock Sand, at ?2,000 for a period of three years. "Weigh those facts, credit British determi-., nation, and it becomes evident that Ameri-r. can breeders will get the desired English brood mares only by paying more money than British breeders can raise. Otherwise we must be content to take the mares they do d not rate so high and trust to luck to get a is few super-producers. ie And have some of them we must, if we are e to go on improving the American thoroughbred. For it is true today, as it always has been, that most of our best racers come from t- good English stallions mated with American g mares of aproved bloodlines, or from mares J- that are English in the first or second genera-ie tion mated with the best stallions of blood-h lines largely American. 1- s Look over the pedigrees of our champions of recent years and the number of foreign m crosses quite close up, if not in the first genii eration, is convincing.
