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HISTORY OF GREY HORSES * Interesting Article on Origin and Transmission of Such Color. * Few Grays in American Kaciutr, lint Increase Expected Because of Recent Importation of Gray Blood Lines. ♦ The subject of color, both in horses and dogs, has always interested me. and there is no aspect of it quite so fascinating as the story of the transmission of gray from the earliest times up to the present day. When one comes t think of it, it seems unbelievable that every gray horse running here nowadays owes his color to one of two or a mixture of both horses that were imported into this country early in the eighteenth century and that the line has descended from thf-m without a break in its continuity. Yet such is the case. The two horses were the Brownlow Turk and Alcocks Arabian, and from them came three distinct avenues of "grayness." The single line from the former just exists through the few remaining descendants of Friary, but the latters line is extinct in this country, and we have to depend on what is best described as the joint line, which had both horses as its taproot. HOW LINES JOINED. CwWXnclnS with the Brownlow Turk, lie sired Grey Grantham, which passed on his ; color to Miss Helvoir. which was ■! im of a ; gray mare to Child rs. Mated to Crab, a [son 01 Al. oiks Arabian, she threw Blos-I son, dam of tgnet. sire of a gray marc I which was .1 im of Bordeaux. This horse I was mated to Si eCBUkSa, which came from Crah through three generations of gray dims, which were Virago. Ke-r.ilus and the Sister to Otlu llo I II. te the two lines Joined again and went on thii.gh Hah. a pure gray, whi li threw ten foals of this color- to the brown horse. I Sir Peter, cue of whi. h hecame the dam of Iflpteater. The latter, though she had many [foals, only 1 ad o:ie grav. her first. This was 1 --.It afterward known M Master Bobert. I and he. mated to the Sir Walter ltalei.irh mare which was granddam of llarkaway, sired Droir li m which SfliaBW Whim, t hantich-r, [Souvenir. Strath. -onan. Jem of QenBM and l.e Sancy, which passed on the color to Tagale [dam of Tagaliei. 1 e Samaritain. sire of Bui He-ode. sire of The Tetrarch and to Nabot. Master Bolx-rt also sent another line out ! through Bust, sire of OOBBwM I has, which I was th • grandam of Oxford Mixture, the dam of lepi»er and Salt, sire of Orcy 1 eg. To make this a little more clear, let us take the iKdigree of Damon and trace his gray links back: DAMON GRAY; FOALLI 1921. BUG — His sire, Stefan the Great, gray. 1911 — His sire. The Tetrarch. gray. ISwt-— His sire, Boi Herode, gray. 1893 — His sire, Ix; Samaritain, gray. 1S84 — His sire. Be Sancy, gray. 187.! — His dam, Jem of tiems, gray. I8C0 — Her sire. Strathconan, gray. 18" 6 — His dam. Souvenir, gray. 1M3 — Her sire, thanticleer, gray. MM — His dam. Whim, gray. 182:: — Her sire, Drone, gray. 1817 — His sire. Master Bobert, gray. 1805 — His dam, Spinster, gray. •WI — Her dam. Sir Peter mare, gray. 1787 — Her dam, Bab, gray. 1778 — Her dam, Speranza, gray, and her sire, Bordeaux 1771. gray; Speranzas dam. Virago, and Bordeauxs dam unnamed, gray ; Viragos sire, Begulus, gray ; Bordeauxs dames sire. Cygnet gray; Begulus dam. gray : ygnets dam, Blcssom. gray ; Begulus dams sire. Crab, gray; Blossoms dam, by Childers. gray; Crabs sire, Alcocks Arabian, gray; Blossoms grandam. Miss Bel-voir. gray; Miss Belvoirs sire. Grey Grantham, gray; and Crey Granthams sire, Brownlow Turk, gray. In every way this is remarkable, inasmuch as it shows that in twenty-three generations, in which there are over two million names, Damon has inherited his color through a line of. at the most, thirty horses, and that it has come down, irrespective of sex. from one to the other without a break, again proving the inviolable law that to breed a gray colt or filly it is necessary to have one parent, either Bin or dam. of that color. Now let us turn to the records of gray colts and fillies in the classics. The first of this color to win was Sir Thomas Cascoipnes Hol-landaise. which took the St. Beger of 177*. By Matt hem, she was out of Virago gray — ■ s.e Damons breeding— and beat IBM Wildair tolt and Trincula. the favorite, wilh five others behind them. Three years later. Crop, by Twig Match-em, met his only defeat as a three-year-old wh.-n Young Kclipse beat him for the Derby, and in 17S4 Carlo Khan, a son of the gray Man .brino, occupied a similar position behind Sergeant. The following year Crantham. a half-brother to Maid of the Oaks, which won the Oaks in 17S.1, was second to Aim well, a direct descendant in tail-mate of Alcocks Arabian. ♦SHABBY LITTLE GRAY." Bcverting to the Doncaster race in 1794, then- were eight starters of which four. Prior, Brilliant. Allegro, and a filly by Delpini. were grays, and finished in the order given behind Beiininborough. Then came a win by Scotia, she by Delpini, in the Oaks of 1S02, while seven years later Uisette, by Harnbletonian, ran third to Ashton in the St Ijeger. In 1818 prays were second in the l erby and third in the St. Leper Raby running-up to Sam for the former, and Marshall being third to Reveller at Doncaster. This leads up to the year 1S21. when Ius-tavus. which was. according to "The Druid." "a shabby little gray." won the Derby or Mr. Hunter from a field of thirteen, starting at 2 to 1. Though costing only 23 pounds as a yearling, this colt had a most interesting jK*digre»- as. except in his sires sires quarter, he had gray ancestors in all of the other three-quarters. He traced back through Virago to Alcooks Arabian: through Grey Countess to the same horse and through the dam of Election, to Skim, a gray son of the Bolton Grey Starling. STID FEE— It GUINEAS. Gustavus was unplaced in Che St. Lege-but won a couple of "matches* at the Newmarket Houghton meeting and retired to the stud at Six-Mile Cottage Paddocks, where he had 1 een bred, at a fee of S sovereigns, which included the grooms fee. In 1824 this was increased to 10 guineas, but he only sired a few winners of moderate class, the l est being Forester, which won the July Stakes and the Newmarket Stakes. Eight years later. The Exquisite, owned by the Michel Grove trainer-jockey. Forth, succumbed by a head to Frederick, which had also won the Two Thousand Guineas. Then. In 1S3S. Grey Momus. after winning the "Guineas." was third to Amato for the Derby, and went on to take the Ascot Gold Cup. of which, to date, he is the only gray winner. Grey Momus traces back to the great mare. Faith, a gray, by Pacolet. which won the Doncaster Gold Cup as a four-year-old from Fortitude and others. The only other of her color to emulate her performance was Chanticler, whicn won in 1848, and was second to Van Tromp for the Emperor of Russias Plate at Ascot the following year. In 1833, WarlocK. a roan son of Irish Bird-catcher, won the St. Deger and Great Ebor Handicap, and from then until Grey Friars beat Silvio and Belphoebc at Newmarket in 1877 no gray was prominent. COMING OF KOI IIEBODE. There was another lapse of years till, -a 1893 and 1894. Grey Leg proved himself to be a really good handieapper by taking the City and Suburban, the Portland Plate, etc., while the next event of note was the coming of Roi Herode and his children, culminating in the win of Tagalie in the One Thousand Guineas and the I erby, in which race she holds the record of being the only gray filly that ever won it, though the fifth of her sex to do so. Whether we shall have to add further names to the list this year remains to be seen, but the probabilities are that the grays of today are, at best, "milers," and that horses like Caligula are few and far between. — Special Commissioner in London Sporting Life. Gray race horses have never been numerous in the Cnited States. Last year there were 7,218 horses that started in races over North American tracks and, of that number, only forty-five were gray in color. However, the prospects of an increasing number of gray horses in our racing is certain, in view of the addition of a number of foreign-bred stallions of that color. For instance, there are Stefan the Great. Coq Gaulois. Sir Grey-steel, Princeps, Prince Philip and others, sons and daughters of Roi Herode and The Tet-rarch that are bound to make the grey color flourish, more or less in this country. «
