168 THE HORSE 



CAUSES OF A "HIT" 



A " HIT," in breeding, is understood to mean an instance of success , 

 but though it often occurs, the reason for it is not always very clear. My 

 own belief is that it generally results, as I have laid down in the 16th 

 axiom, from the reunion of lines which have been often kept separate for 

 several generations. Thus, it is a fact (so patent that every writer on the 

 breeding of the horse, of late years, has admitted its truth), that the 

 Touchstone and Sultan blood have almost invariably hit. The reason, 

 granting the premises which I lay down, is plain enough — each goes back 

 to Selim, the former through the dam of his sire, Camel, and the latter 

 being son of that horse. Many other examples of a similar nature might be 

 adduced, though not observed so extensively as in the case of Touchstone, 

 because few horses have been put to so many mares as he has. I do not 

 mean to assert that no hit can occur without such a reunion of previously 

 separated lines, but I believe that, under other circumstances, it will rarely 

 be found to show itself ; and if, as I before observed, there is a relationship 

 between all thoroughbred horses, either remote or near-, there must be this 

 reunion to some extent. This, however, is not what I mean ; the retui-n 

 must be to a line only removed two, three, or four generations, in order to 

 be at all marked ; and if more than these intervals exist, the hit cannot 

 be said to depend upon the reunion, since this must occur in all cases ; and 

 what is common to all cannot be instanced as a particular cause of any 

 subsequent result. 



The fact really is, as proved by thousands of examples, that by 

 putting A and B together, the produce is not necessarily made up of half 

 of each. Both parents have qualities belonging to the several members 

 of a long line of ancestors, and their son (or daughter) may possibly be 

 made ujd of as many as seven proportions of one parent, and one propor- 

 i ion of the other. It generally happens, that if there is any considerable 

 degree of consanguinity, or even a great resemblance in form, to some of 

 the ancestry on each side, the produce will draw together those elements, 

 and will be made up of the characteristics peculiar to them in a very large 

 proportion. This accounts for the preponderance of the Touchstone form 

 in the West Australian stock ; while the same horse is overpowered in 

 Orlando and his stock, by the greater infusion of Selim blood in the dam 

 Vulture, who is removed exactly in the same degree as Touchstone from 

 Selim and his bx'other Castrel ; and the two latter, therefore, have more 

 influence on the stock than the former. Here, then, we have two remark- 

 able instances, which each .show a hit from the reunion of strains after two 

 out-crosses ; while, at the same time, they severally display an example of 

 two lines overpowering one in the stock of the same horse. It may be 

 argued, that in each case it is the blood of the dam which has overpowered 

 that of the sire, — West Australian being by ISIelbourne, out of a daughter 

 of Touchstone ; while Orlando is by Touchstone, out of a mare descended 

 from two lines of Selim and his brother Castrel. Now, I am myself a 

 j/reat believer in the influence of the dam over her progeny, and therefore 

 1 should be ready to accept this argument, were it not that, under ordinary 



