VALUATION IMPOSSIBLE 187 



It is not so difficult to estimate the absolutely top- 

 class lots. Thus when Mr Goculdas cabled me in 

 December 1920 to recommend him the four best mares 

 coming up at the sales, and my idea of value, I recom- 

 mended Sourabaya, Monisima, Snow Marten and 

 Salamandra, at 5000 guineas each. I was instructed to 

 buy them at those prices, and got the first three for 

 15,200 guineas, but such are the eccentricities of sales 

 that Salamandra realised 16,000 guineas, and, honestly 

 speaking, I would sooner have any one of the other 

 three. 



Of course when you are among mares of this class 

 there is no such thing as buying them cheaply, but the 

 point is that many a good mare, with less immediate 

 pretensions, has been bought cheaply, and people in 

 other parts of the world won't look at them unless at a 

 large price. Senor Ignacio Correas, who, through Mr 

 Casares, gave 970 guineas for Rosaline at the December 

 sales, was horrified the following spring when he found 

 that I had originally bought her for 25 guineas, but as 

 her daughter Rosedrop won the Oaks that year the 

 mare was by that time worth more like 5000 guineas. 



Valuation of blood stock is impossible. 



Years ago I bought Lady Sterling, by Silver, for 

 10 guineas, and from that inauspicious beginning she 

 proceeded to prove herself an extraordinarily successful 

 brood mare, producing nine winners out of ten foals, and 

 some of them were of good class. The fillies out of her 

 did equally well as matrons ; notably Cooee (dam of 

 Last Call, Cooya, Bill and Coo, Call o' the Wild, 

 etc.) and Queen Gold (dam of Gera and other good 

 ones). 



On the other hand, that grand mare Flair, who, 



