Inbreeding, Past and Present 



You cannot expect to avoid in-breeding at this late day, when all the galloping 

 horses in the world are descended in male tail-line, from one of three horses Matchem, 

 Herod and Eclipse all foaled between 1748 and 1764. What you have got to do is 

 to breed intelligently and avoid mating that is in anywise incestuous. The English 

 mated mares with stallions by different sires but from the same dam ; or sometimes 

 mated sons and daughters of the same stallion as in the case of Lollypop, the dam 

 of Sweetmeat. The early Virginia breeders did worse than that and backed his own 

 daughters up to old Sir Archy. In either case the action was most reprehensible. The 

 truth is you have got to inbreed to a greater or less extent, but will you do so in- 

 telligently or not? I stand here prepared to prove that the most successful stallions 

 of the past century, generally speaking, were the inbred horses and not the outV 

 crossed. Leamington is America's best and most important of all her foreign-bred 

 sires. He goes back to Pot-8-os, son of Eclipse, at the sixth generation on his sire's 

 side, having two Herod horses, one Matchem mare and two Eclipse mares between 

 himself and Pot-8-os; and on his dam's side there were a Pantaloon mare and one by 

 Champion (son of Selim), two Herod mares, against Daphne by Laurel, Etiquette 

 by Orville and Boadicea by Alexander, the last three being Eclipse horses. 



I believe much trouble would be avoided if men would quit breeding a mare to 

 the same stallion in consecutive years. I should never go into the business except at 

 some place like Lexington, Ky., where I could have access to all sorts of stallions. 

 If my mare was a Herod-line mare, I should only mate her with Eclipse >and Matchem 

 stallions, but would not hesitate to mate her daughters with a good Herod horse. If 

 an Eclipse mare, breed her twice to another Eclipse horse, twice to a Matchem horse 

 and once to a Herod horse. If a Matchem mare, say by Odd Fellow (for whose 

 daughters I have a great fancy) or Carlton Grange, breed at least once in five years 

 to an American-bred Matchem horse like Kingston or Lamplighter, giving the other 

 four years to Eclipse and Herod horses,, equally divided. 



I fancy converse in-breeding, as in the cases of Ayrshire in England, a highly suc- 

 cessful sire, by the way; Sir Modred and his brother, Cheviot, in New Zealand; and 

 Chester in Australia, the last two being dealt with in more detail in the Australian 

 portion of this work. I am fully aware that this is not always practicable but rec- 

 ommend it whenever it is possible. Certainly such horses as the three just above 

 named are not to be regarded lightly, either as performers or sires. Chester was only 

 "outside the money" four times in forty-one races, most of them at long distances ; 

 and as a sire, he would have been deemed great if he had gotten nothing but the 

 magnificent Abercorn. Sir Modred started seventeen times and won nine races, all 

 of which were high-class events; and as a sire he was the best one ever imported if 

 you count up the number of races won by his get in proportion to the number of starts. 

 And as for Ayrshire, he is already the sire of an Oaks winner and no end of "firsts" 

 in races of less note. Sir Dixon's dam was a full sister to Iroquois, the only Amer- 



