EXPERIENCES OF BREEDERS. 269 



any success on these lines within the lifetime of any 

 one breeder. 



Mr. J. Anderson, who was Inspecting veterinary 

 surgeon in the Bombay Presidency, had charge of 

 the Government breeding studs in India for some 

 years. He told me that many of the best racing 

 ponies In India of which the great Mite was an 

 Instance, were sired by very old English thorough-bred 

 stallions, out of big mares. So well was this fact 

 known, that when the stallions became old, they 

 were got rid of, because their stock would not be 

 big enough for remounts. When I told him I had 

 purchased a 14. i thorough-bred to breed polo ponies, 

 he told me that he believed it to be of no use ; 

 that probably the pony would throw back ; and that 

 he was convinced that the only way to breed racing 

 and polo ponies by English sires was to select mares 

 of the size required, and to put them to English 

 thorough-bred stallions twenty years old or more. 

 But this plan would not help us In any way to establish 

 a breed of ponies which will reproduce themselves. 



Breeding to height may be a pure lottery, but, like 

 Lord Harrington, I feel pretty confident that the young- 

 stock will be valuable for some purpose, even if they 

 are too big or too small for polo. This impetus to 

 pony breeding must be an excellent thing for the 

 country. 



The fact that first-class ponies which are nearly 

 thorough-bred, are, as a rule, accidents, proves, I think, 

 that to get a real pony breed, we must use a stallion 

 whose ancestors were small. The right animal, to my 

 mind, is the high-caste Arab ; for he is just as well bred 

 as our thorough-bred, and though his produce may 



