CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



practical question involved is not whether breeding 

 is a matter of chance, but whether it is possible 

 to arrive at any system of principles which are 

 sound enough and exact enough to be a useful guide 

 to the breeder. The Stud Book, of course, abounds 

 in the results of opposite theories, for race-horse 

 breeding is, and always will be, an inexact and 

 largely conjectural science. 



Disraeli pointed to the example of his friend 

 Baron Meyer de Rothschild. The wealth of a 

 Monte Cristo combined with the shrewd judgment 

 of a financier had founded a superb stud. Still, 

 as in the case of Lord Bradford, the Baron had 

 to wait for Fortune's favours, and to endure dis- 

 appointment before his anmis mirahilis arrived. 

 That came in 1871. The Zephyr colt, aptly 

 christened Favonius — a name which originated in 

 the Common Room of Trinity College, Dubhn, 

 and which was communicated to the Baron on 

 the eve of the race by a distinguished classical 

 scholar of that fraternity — won the Derby with 

 two good horses behind him. He was a chestnut 

 colt by Parmesan, his dam Zephyr, a daughter 

 of the horse Disraeli mentions, King Tom, out of 

 Mentmore Lass by Melbourne. In Hannah, a 

 rather small bay filly, sister to Zephyr, Baron 

 de Rothschild owned a remarkable animal. Her 

 record was wonderful. In this year when the 

 stable won the Derby with Favonius, Hannah 

 was successful in the One Thousand, the Oaks 

 and the St. Leger, the feat of an owner winning 

 the Derby and the Oaks having been accompUshed 

 previously on only three occasions. And yet, 

 wonderful to say, the stable sheltered in Corisande 



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