No. 521] SHORTER ARTICLES AND CORRESPONDENCE 307 



out being too accurate in decimals, I will briefly state the situ- 

 ation as it exists. The immediate sires of our 2 :10 trotters are 

 of an average age of 10.4 years. The grandsires are the im- 

 mediate sires of the sires and dams of 2:10 trotters, and as 

 immediate sires they should be 10.4 years of age, which was 

 the average age of sires at the time they became sires in these 

 pedigrees. But they are not. In these pedigrees they are 12.5 

 years of age. Evidently something has happened to disturb the 

 normal conditions. 



Again, the great-grandsires were the immediate sires of the 

 grandsires. and they became such when the Hambletonian family 

 was breeding at 10.4 years between generations. But they did 

 not become sires in these pedigrees at their own average age at 

 reproduction, but at 13.5 years. Going back one more genera- 

 tion in these pedigrees we find the sires to be 14.5 years, going 

 another generation we find them at 15 years, and going still 

 another generation we find a total of 467 horses being sires at 

 an average age of 15.98 years ! 



Certainly, no one in his senses will believe that horses were 

 ever bred in this or any other country at such average ages as 

 these for any considerable body of them. Something extraordi- 

 nary has occurred, and that something deserves careful thought 

 and a reasonable explanation. That this matter is really extraor- 

 dinary I will illustrate by calling attention to another feature. 

 Some of the horses which appear as sires in the different gen- 

 erations were sent to the race track, while others were never 

 raced. When a horse is raced, he spends his early years on the 

 race track and is retired to the stud after his racing career is 

 over. As a consequence, of two brothers, one of which went to 

 the track and the other of which went directly to the stud, the 

 one which is raced becomes a sire at the higher average age. and 

 they should appear so in these pedigrees. But they do not. 

 The ages previously given are the ages of the sires which had 

 no standard records. The sires with records which appear in 

 these pedigrees appear in each and every generation at an aver- 

 age age of less than 10 years. 



Now, why is this? No reference to a formative period is an 

 explanation when both kinds of horses were living and breeding 

 at the same time. In the best pedigrees, those horses which had 

 standard records appear at less than the average breeding age, 

 while those which had no records appear at about four 

 above the average breeding age. Casper L. Redfield 



ELD. 



