184 The American Thoroughbred 



Guineas and St. Leger of 1846, beating the Derby winner of that year in the latter 

 race. Mr. J. B. Haggin owns about sixty entire horses and, of those I can find, Fresno, 

 good but not great, is the only one containing a cross of Margrave. The Master o 

 Elmendorf, who is a very close student of blood lines, evidently knows what to let alone. 

 Yet the breeding doctrinaires will tell you that you cannot get too much of Sir Her- 

 cules, Voltigeur or Lord Clifden, all No. 2 horses like Margrave. 



The most prominent horses of the No. 3 family can all be in-bred with perfect 

 safety. By these I mean Stockwell, Rataplan, King Tom, Lanercost, Flying Dutchman 

 and Pyrrhus the First. The latter would be hard to in-breed, partly because he died 

 young and partly because most of his best sons were sold to Australian buyers ; and 

 Flying Dutchman and Lanercost, because they were exiled into France, like Ion and 

 The Baron, and doomed to die in undeserved obscurity. Galopin, also a No. 3 horse, has 

 in-bred well in the only case within my knowledge, that of Flying Fox, who won more 

 at three years old than any other horse yet foaled, and who, though but eight years 

 old, is already the sire of a winner of the Grand Prix de Paris. 



The No. 4 family is a difficult one to size up correctly. Most people would say that 

 the Thormanby branch is the best because it survives so strongly in France through 

 Atlantic and Le Sancy, both of which got winners of the Grand Prix. Yet that branch 

 of it which comes down to us through Manganese cannot be dismissed hastily for 

 Thormanby, The Provost nor Annandale, neither of whom ever got as good a colt as 

 Kisber nor as good a filly as Apology, but the strength of the Manganese branch seems 

 to lie in mares rather than stallions, Kisber being the best of the lot with Wenlock sec- 

 ond and The Miner "beaten off," as you might say. 



The Nos. 10 and 14 families both in-bred well. Darebin, a No. 14 horse, has bred 

 well in America, so far as performers go, with very limited opportunities ; and in ad- 

 dition to that has imparted a degree of substance and bone of which we were sadly in 

 need. He has a double cross of Touchstone and three crosses of Touchstone's dam ; 

 and yet the best horses he has gotten had two or more crosses of Touchstone through 

 their dams. Leamington, also a No. 14 horse and the best sire ever imported to Amer- 

 ica, got a great horse wherever he crossed a mare that had a cross of Touchstone. And, 

 hoping that what I have said on this question may be of use to the breeders of Amer- 

 ica, I pass on to another, and, as I believe, more difficult branch of my work. 



