Horse-Breeding Methods 63 



strong contrast in the treatment given these 

 stallions on large breeding farms makes a 

 great difference in the amount of energy they 

 acquire by work performed, and the appear- 

 ance of one or the other kind in the best 

 pedigrees as they are found some thirty or 

 forty years later is both interesting and 

 instructive. 



Up to about 1890, and to limited extent 

 up to the present time, there has been a 

 strong prejudice among breeders against us- 

 ing for breeding purposes those stallions and 

 mares which had also been used for racing. 

 The theory was that the strain of racing 

 impaired the vitality of the horse and ruined 

 it for breeding purposes. This theory is 

 based on the fact that mares which have been 

 a long time on the race track frequently prove 

 barren, and the fact that stallions which have 

 been raced hard are not good foal getters 

 until after they have been retired for two or 

 three years. The impairment of fertility was 

 construed to mean the impairment of vital- 

 ity. The maxim was "breed to the blood 



