1076 New York State Breeders' Association 



sell them at auction, and give the Government an option on any 

 foals at some age at a specified price. Xo results can be obtained 

 from the Government's present efforts for at least six years, and 

 what these results are likely to average then, the outcome of the 

 breeding experiment of the Jockey Club with its thoroughbred 

 sires for the past five or six years in New York affords con- 

 clusive proof, and a horrible convincing demonstration of " how 

 not to do it." 



The Jockey Club put out some 70 thoroughbred stallions, a few 

 of them high-class, most of them very far from that, quite a num- 

 ber dreadful wretches, among the farmers of New York. Some 

 4,000 mares were bred in all these years; 1,700 offspring 

 materialized. Of these stallions, but 216 now remain in service. 

 Most of you have seen the product, if not the horses. Did they 

 impress you as being the sort a farmer could use, could sell 

 profitably, would produce in quantity if he could? Were they 

 the sort any market would assimilate in numbers for any purpose, 

 or were they absolutely no-account nondescripts — equine jokes 

 — and most expensive ones ? I can only testify that I sold for 

 various people, youngsters from one to four years old, both at 

 private sale, and under the hammer, at $20, $25, $40, $60 per 

 head, and oh how dear at that ! I have judged numbers of these 

 '^ creatures " at horse shows, and never have seen one I would give 

 the cash values of the ribbons I had to award for it. You gentle- 

 men who live in the New York localities have probably seen many, 

 possibly own some, of them. Will you not give your opinion, and 

 experience — not of your one ewe-lamb, but of the average quality 

 of the half-breeds you know in your own or any other locality. 



That most marvelous of nations, the Japanese, with their 

 extraordinary faculty of digging the " meat " out of any under- 

 taking, and discarding forthwith the rubbish, discovered some 

 years ago that they, as a nation, were sadly deficient in horse 

 flesh. Now listen to what they did. First, they appropriated 

 about $5,000,000 to be spent within twenty years in importing 

 stallions of every breed, and of the highest class of each breed. 

 Second, they sent emissaries — one committee — to all other 

 countries to inspect their horses, and to study their methods of 

 handling and breeding. Third, they bought young, sound, clean- 



