48 NOTES ON BREEDING RACEHORSES. 



the uninterrupted trials of the produce of this or that principle 

 in breeding are made public, and their results, as collected in 

 the racing statistics of one hundred and seventy years, accessi- 

 ble to everybody. The inference drawn will, however, fre- 

 quently prove the reverse of what follows from the same in- 

 vestigations, when applied to the untried half-bred, where the 

 analysis of the calculation is based on the personal opinion of 

 the investigator. 



If we take, for instance, the pedigree of Friponnier, we find 

 that he is the produce of uncle and niece, consequently of very 

 close in-breeding. Friponnier, although the fastest horse of his 

 day, proved himself a failure as a sire of racehorses, because he 

 wanted the individual power to transfer his racing qualities to 

 his descendants. He is, therefore, quoted as a warning exam- 

 ple of too close in-breeding in thoroughbreds. He then was 

 sent to a half-bred stud in Germany, and there has unquestion- 

 ably proved a great success. Writers on zoology, unfamiliar 

 with the thoroughbred and its public trials, will therefore prob- 

 ably quote Friponnier as a brilliant example of that very same 

 close relationship in the parents, on account of which he was in 

 the first instance discarded. 



But, before we enter more deeply into this matter, it is neces- 

 sary to come to a clear understanding as to the meaning, with 

 regard to the thoroughbred, of the terms : in-breeding, moderate 

 relationship, and out-crossing. If they are not clearly defined, 

 all real discussion is rendered futile. Stonehenge's disquisitions 

 on the subject are indistinct, because not worked out on a 

 firmly established system. If he instances Stockwell and Rata- 

 plan as in-bred, but Partisan and Emilius as out-crossed, he 

 overlooks, that those celebrated brothers are doubly and trebly 

 as far removed from their common ancestor on the male and 

 female side, as the latter two from theirs. This proportion is 

 by no means altered by the circumstance, that in Stockwell and 

 Rataplan's pedigree Waxy occurs not twice, but three times ; 

 for even then they have only -fa Waxy blood in their veins, 

 whereas Partisan has -^ and Emilius i + T V = A Highflyer 

 blood. 



