INHERITANCE IN RAGE HORSES 79 



mare when foaling nor aiiy of ' the Stud warders 

 had the slightest doubt that this colt had always 

 been a chestnut and that nobody could explain how 

 this misstatement came into the Stud Book. 



Now, looking into the fifteen exceptions given 

 above, in the first place I would point out that it is 

 very often an impossibility to state exactly what 

 colour a recently born foal is, for it may look exactly 

 like a bay — with the exception that it has no black 

 tail and black mane — and yet after having shed its 

 first woolly coat it may develope into a real chestnut. 

 There is another fact worthy of notice. The entry 

 of a foal's colour into the Stud Book may be made 

 before it sheds its first woolly coat, and if its coat 

 changes at its first or later moult, this entry obvi- 

 ously becomes erroneous in as far as the real or 

 definitive coat-colour is concerned. It is only in very 

 few cases, and never if the foal happens to die 

 before it is put into training, that anybody troubles 

 to alter the erroneous entry in the Stud Book. It 

 remains there as it was originally entered. But even 

 after a foal has been put into training, there are still 

 some cases in which the original entry of the first 

 or foal colour remains as it was. Even the 

 Racing Calendars, which give in their index the 

 colours of the horses which have performed on a 

 racecourse, still preserve the erroneous entry. The 

 reason for this is largely a clerical matter. The 

 man who compiles the index is a member of the 

 office staff, he never comes to the racecourse, and 

 has only one book from which he can obtain the 



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