BREEDING 271 



inevitable upshot would be that the value of yearlings would 

 deteriorate at first, but many owners of good-looking but 

 backward colts and fillies would not let them run until 

 they were three years old. 



In suggesting this I am merely putting a case, for I know 

 very well that such drastic reform is quite impossible. There 

 are too many vested interests to be considered, and no doubt 

 many would go so far as to exclaim, "After all what does 

 it matter how many young horses are ruined by being put 

 into training too early?" But the question is too great 

 to be thus shelved, and it is of the highest importance to 

 consider why it is that so many well-bred youngsters never 

 realise their yearling expectations, and why so few good 

 horses nowadays last beyond their second season, ridiculous 

 as it may seem. Early forcing as yearlings and too much 

 work as two-year-olds are the reasons, and a few recent 

 examples of many that could be cited will not be out of 

 place. There is The Bard, who won fourteen races as a 

 two-year-old without knowing defeat. As a three-year-old 

 he ran on very few occasions, and as a four-year-old was 

 not seen on a racecourse at all. Donovan was another great 

 two-year-old winner. Though beaten twice, he put together 

 a tremendous score ; still, his racing career finished with 

 the end of his second season. St. Frusquin began as a 

 two-year-old in May, and won five races out of six that 

 year, finishing up a winner at the Houghton Meeting. A 

 year later he won the Column Produce Stakes, the Two 

 Thousand Guineas, was beaten in the Derby, and then 

 won the Prince of Wales' Stakes at Newmarket, and the 

 Eclipse Stakes at Sandown. He broke down when in 

 training for the St. Leger, and never ran again. 



High-class horses that do not run after they are three 

 years old, even though they be sound when taken out of 

 training, are not of such value for the stud as they would 

 have been had they continued to win races in their third 

 or fourth season. This statement is not affected by the 

 fact that a three-year-old who distinguishes himself greatly 

 at that age can always be sold for more than he is really 

 worth, but in such cases he as often as not goes abroad, 



