48 THE BREEDING PROBLEM. 



The practice of close in-breeding that has prevailed among Short- 

 horn breeders will not successfully apply to horses. Our blood horses 

 have too many elements from the same Arab stock, and the tendency 

 is strongly toward their standard. 



This is clearly shown in our attempts to cross our Messenger trot- 

 ting blood on our Diomed and other thoroughbred strains. The}'' 

 lose the trotting gait instead of concentrating and strengthening 

 trotting inclination. Hence, exjDcrience shows that we must constantly 

 re-enforce the trotting elements, in-breeding in these families making it 

 necessary. So will close in-breeding in the Messenger famih^, by reason 

 of the large element of Arab blood in that strain, as we shall see in 

 the course of the chapter devoted to that family. 



In the course of Chapter V, attention will he called to the fact 

 that outcrosses have alreadv advanced the success of the Messeno-er 

 blood, and still further advancement may be within reach, as still 

 further need of outcrossing niay be found to exist. 



Our practice in regard to in-breeding must be controlled by the 

 peculiarities — the demands, deficiencies and excesses in quality of the 

 stock in Avhich we are dealing. In our American roadster Messenger 

 blood forms so large an element that we must study its composition 

 and traits, and this will reveal to us the fact that they are "of a two- 

 fold nature — both contradictory. The one derived from long in-breed- 

 ing in the blood of the desert, inclining the horse to gallojD rather 

 than to trot, and that this is really a more powerful inclination than 

 that which would lead him to trot, and that in-breeding in that blood 

 directly, without the introduction of other elements, has the effect to 

 diminish the trotting impulses. While in-breeding in the same blood 

 after the interposition of other elements which operate to disturb 

 this tendency to go back to the Arab or thoroughbred instinct, tends 

 to strengthen and bring out in new force and vigor the trotting 

 qualities of the Messenger blood. In-breeding in the Hambletonian 

 family has the effect to strengthen the Bellfounder element, which at 

 first was struggling against odds, as will be seen in the chapter on 

 Hambletonian. 



If I am asked to indicate the kind of outcrosses for the Hanible- 

 tonian mares — and by these I mean the daughters or granddaughters 

 — I would say that I should seek such a cross as would tend to coun- 

 teract the effect of the Messenger blood as displayed in that tendency 

 in the Hambletonians toward the short measure from hip to hock — and 

 at the same time avoid a cross that sets the hock at a point high above 



