Transmission of Color in Horses, Daily Racing Form, 1915-12-12

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I 1 • 1 • • I 1 ! I I i • . ■ i I I . I J t t ■ I i - • • f f • • I i • s I ; - : - . t : i i i l 1 ■ ; i i TRANSMISSION OF COLOR IN HORSES. A statement which I have made some time ago in the "Sporting Life" to the effect that "there i never was a black thoroughbred which proved himself - a pure dominant for brown, bay or black, that t 75 per cent, of the blacks in the twenty-two vol- - umes of the General Stud Book have been sired by r chestnut stallions or are out of chestnut mares, anil 1 that in the pedigrees of the remaining 25 per cent, . chestnuts appear iu the second or third removes." • has been a matter of some comment iu the home, , as well as iu the colonial, press. This tends to prove that the subject is regarded to be of some ? importance to breeders. May it be said at the outset of this justification i of the above statement that I do not withdraw one : iota from it, though I admit that I might have ; been more explicit so as to avoid any misconstructions - of my arguments. Other writers before me ; have expressed the view that, as in canines, also in horses, two kinds of black colors exist between l which there is not the slightest physiological eorre- lation, though they convey absolutely the same impression ■ u|iou our power of conception. The genuine - black color — the nature of which will be explained I later — is opposed by another black which, if chemi- • cjtlly analyzed, will be found to have been chiefiy determined by browu pigment. This "false" black I is. strictly speaking, nothing else but a strong : intcnsiiicatioti of brown. It is a matter of greatest ini|K rtanee that St. Simon, the most powerful individuality that ever lived, has not sired a single black, which fact t should serve to prove that some pure dominants are I not able to produce any blacks at all, and that t all those of their foals which are registered as i blacks are in fact blackish-browns. The color of f two of St. Simons offspring is given as black in l the Stud Book, namely, Desmond which, however. . with progressing age became a dark brown, and the mare Evermore. On Bage 270 of Vol. XVII. she is 5 registered as a brown, but in the subsequent vol-I - times she appears as a black. Her case seems to lie similar to Desmonds, but in addition to the ; obvious fact that the color of both was a blackish i brown, it offers some interesting evidence of a dif-i - ferent kind. Evermore was a daughter of the brown mare Immortelle by Paul Jones, which i some years previously bred the brown filly Padua i to Thurio. Padua proved herself a pure dominant. as of her fourteen foals eleven are browns and 1 three bays. Amongst them we Had the brown mare ; Paducah" by Victor Wild, a chestnut, which, up to 1910, produced two chestnut colts, one black c colt, and one brown filly. Tlie black colt is Duke of Padua, which won the Molyneux Stakes at Liv-1 . orpool in lull. Not the slightest doubt can pre- . vail that this horse is a genuine black, and that t this coat-color was determined by the paternal brown color and the factors for chestnut representing Vie- . tor Wild I transmitted by his dam. Reverting to the case of Padua, a daughter of t Thurio. it may lie noted that in all the pedigrees s of Dark Ronalds stock the color of Thurio the , sire of Dark Ronalds dam. Darkie, is given as ■ black. 1 have gone very minutely into this partieu-t lar case and made careful enquiries, which eluci-i dated the interesting fact that Thurio was a black* , ish-brown horse, as is his daughter Darkie re- " gistered as black, which from 1893 to 1910 pro-I duced thirteen foals — nine browns and four bays. " Thus her breeding record as far as color inheri-: " tance is concerned is similar to that of her half-sister, Padua, in its feature of a great major-t ity of browns over bays and of an absence of any . blacks. Nor has Dark Ronald so far sired a single black. Amongst his stock dark brown, sometimes almost black, foals greatly outnumber the bays. That this color inheritance which, as may be readily admitted, is somewhat out of the common, has J been determined by a predominance of the Thurio | element in Dark Ronalds hereditary constitution 1 may be gathered from the fact that the first three crops of his half-brother Bayardo, did not contain 1 a single brown foal. It thus may be surmised that Bayardo is not strongly imbued with the Galopin 1 blood of his dam, and that he ought to do particu-i larly well with such mares which, like the brown Popinjay the dam of Good and Gay, may safely be relied tqion to return it to him. That "false" blacks which, in fact, are nothing else but blackish browns may prove pure dominants 1 is beyond any dispute. Indeed. I am inclined to J take the view that, should a "black" prove himself a pure dominant, it may be taken for granted that he is a blackish brown. To this category undoubtedly the two brothers. Thunderbolt and Smolensko, belonged. Their dam, Wowski. is registered as a black, but could not pwMMy have been a genuine black, in view of the following facts: Her dam. Maria, was a bay mare by Herod, and, to all indication, a pare dominant, as of her nine foals produced during the period from 17S5 to 1790, six were bay fillies aud three bay colts. Of these, seven, including the famous Waxy, were sired by the chestnuts. Satellite and Pot-S-os, both sons of Eclipse. Then, in 1797, tlie "black" filly, Wowski, arrived, a sister to the bay Quiz foaled the year previous, by Mentor, a brown horse, by Justice, a brown son of Herod. Marias dam. Lisette, produced three bay fillies and one brown colt, and, again, the latters dam. Miss Windsor, nine bays aud two browns. None of these ancestresses of Wowski have produced a single chestnut or black. I therefore have not the slightest doubt that Wowski was a blackish brown mare, and that the pure bay element of her maternal line, in collaboration with factors for either bay. brown or blackish brown, transmitted by Sorcerer, led to an extreme intensification of the brown color and determined pura dominance in Thunderbolt and Smolensko. I contend that the genuine black color which, bv the way. is easily determinable in the foal during its earliest days from the black color of the skin is due to a blending between chestnut and bay. Ultra-Meudelians assert that such blending is not possible, but from the color of the mulatto, the offspring of a white and a black, we know otherwise. The two most famous blacks were Sir Hercules and Sorcerer. The formers dam. Peri, was a daughter of the bay Wanderer and of Thalestris. a black mare, by the chestnut Alexander out of the brown Rival. Sorcerer was a son of the black Trumpator by Conductor, a chestnut and of the bay Young Giantess, by the chestnut Diouied. Of the most successful produce of these two genuine blacks I may mention only the following: Bird-catcher chestnut!. Cruiskeen chestnut!, winner of the first Cesarewitch. The Corsair black, winner of the Two Thousand Guineas. Coronation hay. winner of the Derby l. Faugii-a-Ballagh brown, sire of the chestnut Fille de 1Air, winner of the Oaks, the gelding Landgrave black, winner of the Cambridgeshire in 1846, Morel chestnut, winner of the Oaks. Wizard chestnut, winner of the Two Thousand Guineas. Maid of Orleans bay. winner of the Oaks, Trophnnius black, winner of the Two Thousand Guineas, Sorcery bay. winner of the Oaks. Soothsayer chestnut, winner of the St. Leger i. and the chestnut Couius, which handed on the line of Matchem. These records clearly indicate that in the genuine black the chestnut blood is of stronger efficiency than that of the bay. Of modern cases those of Aquascutum. Mauvezin. and Sir Archibald, all three genuine blacks — lend further support to this argument. To demonstrate the close relation between the black and chestnut color I may allude to the instance of Soulouque a brother to Xeii Gowi. which is described as a chestnut or black: thus his true coat-color api ears to be as undeterminable as that of some of Tredennis stock, the color of which is more black than chestnut. A great number of genuine blacks have been produced by such impure bays as St. Fntsquin. for instance, in whose pedigree chestnut blood appears in the first remove. To sum up. there are blacks and blacks. The color of the one category is genuine, and presents itself as such at the earliest foalhood: if not transmitted in its pure form it segregates into chestnut and bay or brown, but never in bay and bay. The "black" color of the other category is merely an optica! delusion. If any doubt exists as to whether the color of a foal is brown or black it should be numbered with the former group of color. — "Boulangcr." in London Sporting Life.


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