176 THE HORSE 



act upon the general rule that " like produces like," and cannot take advan- 

 tage of the addition which I have made to the 12 th axiom, at page 163, of 

 the words, "or the likeness of some ancestor." In such cases, for the reason 

 which I have given, disappointment will constantly attend upon the first 

 experiments, and until the mare has produced her first foal, and he has gone 

 on to his third or fourth year, the value of the dam can hardly be ascer- 

 tained. Breeding is always, more or less, a lottery, but when it is carried 

 on with dams of unknown parentage, it is ten times more so than it need 

 be. Were I to commence the establishment of a breeding stud, whether of 

 cart or carriage horses, hacks or hunters, 1 would never introduce a single 

 mare whose dam and grand- dam as well as the sire and grand-sire would not 

 be produceable as good specimens of their respective kinds. Beyond the 

 second remove there would always be some difficulty in going with the 

 lower-bred mares, but I would certainly go as far as this in all cases. If 

 the sire and dam, grand-sire and grand-dam, were, on the whole, of desir- 

 able form and performances, I would choose the produce as a brood mare, 

 but not otherwise ; and though, of course, I should be obliged to pass over 

 some important defects in individuals, I would not do so if they were 

 common to all, or nearly all, of the four. In this way I should expect 

 to do more than by simply choosing " a great roomy mare " without know- 

 ing her pedigree, in the belief that she would be sure to reproduce her 

 likeness 



SELECTION OF BLOOD IN EACH CLASS OF 



HORSE 



In the race-horse the choice of blood will always greatly depend upon 

 the fashion of the day, if the produce is to be profitably disposed of, and 

 even by following this plan great risk is incurred, for what is fashionable 

 one year is often despised the next. The winner of the Derby, more 

 especially if he can also pull off the St. Leger, raises the fame of his sire 

 from twenty to a hundred per cent. ; and if the next year his stock go on 

 well the value put upon them is still further advanced. These remarks 

 especially apply to the choice of a stallion, but at the onset they more 

 or less influence every person who is purchasing mares for the stud. 

 When, however, these are already procured, the investment must be con- 

 sidered in the main to be permanent, as it would be ruinous to be 

 constantly changing the blood. But beyond the reach of fashion there 

 are several broad lines of demarcation between the strains of blood which 

 are prevalent in the present day, and which it is well to notice. It is 

 now idle to go back to the days of Eclipse, Herod, and Matchem, for their 

 descendants ai-e so intermixed that no mare could be found possessing the 

 blood of one without that of another also, and generally of all three. We 

 must, therefore, confine our observations to strains coming much nearer to 

 our own times. 



In British Rural Sports, I enumerated ten distinct strains of blood as 

 those at all likely to be useful in the racing stud. Since that time there 

 has been a means of testing the truth of my observations, and I shall there- 



