654 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Ireland, has Ion at the top of his pedigree and The Flying Dutchman at the bottom. 

 Dog Rose at the Weston Rhyn stud is another Herod horse. This means that 

 Matchem and Herod between them only won ^4,547 out of .38,006, and all the 

 rest of the money at Ascot was carried off by Eclipse and The Darley Arabian, St. 

 Simon and four of his sons claiming no less than 10 of the 28 Ascot winners. 



It is perhaps strange that Matchem, Herod, and Eclipse, of all the stallions in 

 Weatherby's first Stud Book, are now the only ones represented in tailmale on the 

 modern English Turf. And among these three it is noteworthy that, of the .492, 125 

 won by the produce of sires in the United Kingdom in 1903, no less than .442,010 

 was scored by winners tracing back to Eclipse alone. Matchem s descendants in 



'the list of winning stal- 



r 



lions were Bartizan, The 

 Deemster, Freemason, 

 Kilwarlin, Kingston, 

 Marco, Morion, Sir 

 Visto, Winkfield, and 

 Wolf's Crag, to whom 

 traced the winners of 

 .33,041. Herod's line 

 was represented in the 

 same list by Curio, 

 Despair, Grey Leg, Le 

 Sancy, Loved One, Mac 

 Mahon, Ocean Wave, 

 Omnium II., St. George, 



whose descendants won 17,759. Even ; more significant than any of these 

 facts is the predominance of two families in the Eclipse line itself; for the Irish 

 sire Birdcatcher is represented by 57 winners of 181,671, and Blacklock had 

 33 winners of ,158,607. Next to them comes the Touchstone family with 34 winners 

 of 92,982. 



All this is surely a clear indication of such perpetual in-breeding to "fashionable 

 stock " that unfortunate results can scarcely be avoided if the same process is too 

 long continued. It seems obvious that Matchem and Herod blood must be brought 

 back, and must be more freely used, if we are to have any regard for consequences 

 beyond the immediate present. 



'Australian Star 1 ' (1896, Australia). 



