118 RACEHORSES IN AUSTRALIA 



thought that English horses had increased an average of an inch in height 

 between 1867 and 1897, and that the average horse was six inches taller than 

 he was 200 years ago. Certain it is that pony horses don't win the Derby 

 nowadays. 



But, as I have said above, the size of the horse is not the essential point; 

 with size there must go a particular type of heart, if a horse is going to stay. 

 Anyone who saw Beragoon as a yearling might easily have mistaken him for 

 a two-year-old, and a year later he looked like a three-year-old, and he was 

 as good as he looked, for he won the Derby here and in Victoria, yet he 

 could not stay in the true sense of the word. 



While large size is the rule among stayers, yet small horses may occasion- 

 ally be good stayers and have the required pace. That marvellous horse 

 Prince Foote was very stoutly built, but he was not taller than Woorak — this 

 his trainer, Frank McGrath, assures me — yet he won everything, including 

 Derbys, Legers, and a Melbourne Cup. He had the proper staying heart and he 

 transmitted it to Prince Charles and enabled him to win a recent Sydney Cup. 

 Yet in the same stable was Furious with a Welkin heart; the one with the non- 

 staying heart was, a little before the day, almost favourite, the other went out 

 at 33 to I, and won. 



Wakeful, the finest mare over all distances ever seen on the Australian 

 turf, was on the small size, yet she won the Sydney Cup with 9.7 in the 

 saddle. 



We may at once admit that there may often be a very considerable differ- 

 ence between the conformation of the stayer and the sprinter, yet the real 

 difference lies hidden from the sight of the judge, for the difference is in the 

 particular kind of heart thai the animal has inherited. 



If my contention as regards the heart be accepted, we then have a simple 

 explanation of the common rule that staying sires produce staying stock. 

 Carbine, for instance, was the prince of stayers, and his son, Wallace, gave 

 us Trafalgar and innumerable other stayers. Positano was a stayer, and he 

 gave us four Melbourne Cup winners. Maltster, on the other hand, was an 

 indifferent stayer, and while he was one of the most successful sires in the whole 

 world, he gave us only one stayer, Alawa. Some of his sons and daughters 

 could just get a mile and a half — Malt King and Maltine were both Metro- 

 politan winners, but they could go no further. Thus it is brought home to 

 us that though a sire may be the father of hundreds of brilliant milers, it is 

 reserved for a few horses to beget stayers of two miles or more. Nothing 

 could show this better than a study of the progeny of Grafton and Linacre. 

 These sires have been the fathers of hundreds of horses that have won races 

 up to a mile, and yet we look in vain for long-distance hor.->es from either. 

 True it is that Peru won an Australian Cup, and that Lingle and Erasmus both 

 ran second in the Melbourne Cup, but three swallows don't make a spring. 



Let us then recognise this fact, that just as a man may transmit his nose, 

 his eyes or his ears to his sons and daughters, just so may a horse transmit 

 his bone, his muscle, his colour and his heart to his sons and daughters. So 

 now we come to the secret: It matters not whether a horse is black or brown 

 or chestnut — the essential thing the animal has to possess in order that he may 

 stay is a staying heart. 



Now, the first objection that will be put forward to this proposition is 

 that every now and then a true stayer arises from a non-staying sire — 1 admit 

 this is true. I have already mentioned that Alawa was a son of Maltster; 

 Lingle a son of Linacre, Peru from Grafton, while Eurythmic, the most 

 wonderful horse at present racing, who won a Sydney Cup carrying 9.8 on 



