6 THE ENGLISH TURF 



far too high a price. Then the demand for unfashionably 

 bred yearlings seems to grow smaller everywhere, and though 

 there may be some slight increase of private breeders, it 

 seems quite possible that the supply of the raw material will 

 before long show a falling off. What will happen then 

 (what has already happened, indeed) will be that more 

 American and Colonial horses will be imported. I need 

 hardly remind my readers that over a hundred American 

 yearlings were sold by Messrs. Tattersall at a single New- 

 market fixture in 1899, and we learnt that thoroughbred 

 yearlings, which have been bred in America, can be brought 

 to the sale ring in this country, having individually cost 

 a smaller sum per head — even with the expenses of a long 

 land journey and a sea voyage thrown in — than do English 

 yearlings. The yearlings to which I refer were reared in 

 California, where land is of much less value than it is in 

 England, and where there is, I am told, an enormous area 

 of good pasturage. Very small stud fees are demanded 

 for the services of horses which are not located on the ranch ; 

 but Californian horse breeding is on a big scale, and such 

 a ranch as that of Mr. Haggin — who sent the large consign- 

 ment to Newmarket — maintains half a dozen stallions or 

 more, so that it is seldom necessary to send a brood mare 

 away from home. The upshot is that each yearling costs 

 per head quite a small sum to rear, and even when the 

 travelling charges are taken into account, the youngsters can 

 be delivered at an English sale ring, and there sold at a 

 profit which to the average English breeder would represent 

 a certain loss. Brood mares cost less to buy in America 

 than they do here, but I have never been able to ascertain 

 the amount of interest on capital which should be charged 

 to each American yearling, and it is quite possible that some 

 of the millionaire owners of large ranches take little or no 

 account of the original outlay when once they begin to 

 breed on a large scale. 



Even with English breeders this is often a difficult matter 

 to ascertain. One man succeeds to ancestral acres, which 

 include breeding paddocks, a stud of brood mares, and very 

 likely a sire or two as well. A second rents suitable land, 



