SELECTION OF BLOOD 151 
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 1 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 are 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. 
Six YEARS Aco, 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 obser- 
vations, and I shall therefore insert my remarks here entire, adding to each 
strain, in a parenthesis, what may occur to me as bearing upon the question. 
‘1, The almost pure, in-bred Waxys, exhibiting, of course, a mixture 
with other strains, but in all cases being chiefly of Waxy blood. These 
are—Cotherstone, The Baron, Chanticleer, Chatham, Chabron, and Idle 
Boy. This strain of blood is admirably adapted as the foundation of a 
general breeding-stud, being likely to turn out stock which will serve him 
as hunters or hacks, if they fail as racehorses.” 
(Among these The Baron and Chanticleer had previously distinguished 
themselves, the former as the sire of Stockwell and Rataplan ; the latter, 
to a less extent, as having got several good second class horses. The Baron 
has, since that time, been in France; and Chanticleer has gone down in 
public estimation, having only been credited with twelve foals in the 
“Calendar” for 1860. Cotherstone, Chabron, Chatham, and Idle Boy 
have done little for the turf, but they have fulfilled my expectations as 
sires of hunters, all having obtained considerable celebrity in that depart- 
ment. In addition to those above- mentioned, Sir Hercules and his son, 
Gemma Di Vergy, should not be forgotten, nor the further descendants 
of the former—Birdcatcher (now dead) and Daniel O’ Rourke.) 
“2. The union of Waxy and Orville, as seen in Retriever, Drayton, 
Ambrose, Robert de Gorham, The Hero, Mathematician, and Theon. 
These will be almost equally useful as a general breeding-stock with those 
included under No. 1; but I suspect will produce fewer first-class race- 
horses.” 
(These remarks have been verified to the letter. Ambrose has certainly 
got a Cynricus, but he is far from first-rate, and the single exception goes 
to prove the rule. On the other hand, Drayton and Theon have been 
celebrated as sires of hunters.) 
“3. The Buzzard blood, not of course pure, but comparatively so, as in 
Epirus, Bay Middleton, and the Flying Dutchman. Calculated to get 
first-class racehorses rather than general stock.” 
(I believe there is no exception to this rule.) 
“4, The Waxy, Orville, and Buzzard united in the following celebrated 
horses :—Touchstene, Orlando, Surplice, Windfall, Longbow, The Libel, 
