Many contemporary writers on the history of thoroughbred horses have commented on this ascendancy of the Eclipse male line, and some have attempted to account for it by ascribing it to chance and fashion. Mr. W. Allison, in his interesting book, “The British Thoroughbred,” devotes a whole chapter to the subject, and is quite satisfied that the “great success of Eclipse is due to Sir Hercules, Camel, and fashion.” He also points out the necessity which seems to exist of reviving the blood. But just how this revival is to be effected is what is puzzling, and always will puzzle, breeders.
Perhaps the most feasible explanation of why the Herod blood in the male line is dying out, and why the Eclipse male line is so preponderant, can be found in a close analysis of the pedigrees of the two horses, and by comparing the results with the conditions which prevail among horses in their natural state. It will then be found that the dying-out of the Herod line is more a working out of the laws of Nature than anything else, and is probably beyond human control.
Let us first take the pedigree of a wild horse, and see how he is made up. It may seem an anomaly to talk of the pedigree of a wild horse, but every animal has a pedigree if we could but trace it. The horse in a state of Nature is a gregarious animal, living in herds or groups, each group having its premier stallion, who is literally “lord of the harem.” A stallion remains at the head of his group until he gets too old to be effective, and he is then driven away by one of the younger stallions, probably one of his own sons. In a wild state the mare breeds young, dropping her foal when about three years old. A wild stallion will probably remain vigorous and capable of holding his own until ten or twelve years old. He will then probably be breeding with his own daughters and possibly granddaughters. When he is ousted and his son reigns in his stead, he in his turn will be cohabiting with his sisters, aunts, and cousins, until eventually you have the whole herd very much in-bred. In fact, the wild horse is a very much more in-bred animal than the tame horse, and Nature evidently intends the horse to be an in-bred animal.
Now let us take the pedigrees of Herod and Eclipse, and analyse them. Without going too deeply into detail, which might be bewildering to those unskilled in pedigree lore, it will be sufficient to state broadly that Herod is a cross-bred or out-bred horse; while Eclipse is an in-bred one. We have to go back six generations in Herod’s pedigree before we get the same name occurring twice, as that of Spanker, and the same name occurs in the seventh and eighth generations. Herod, therefore, has four crosses of Spanker, and no other instances of in-breeding. Eclipse, on the other hand, has crosses of Hautboy at his fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth removes—nine of them in all—while he also possesses seven crosses of Spanker.
A curious point about the pedigrees of both Herod and Eclipse is that this same Spanker blood has been handed down to us through only one channel, and that by the incestuous mating of Spanker and his dam. The produce of this mare was the grand-dam of Betty Leedes, who in her turn was the dam of the two Childers. This piece of incestuous breeding seems to have been the rock on which the British thoroughbred was built, for it will be found, on examining all the old pedigrees, that their strength lies in their in-breeding to the two Childers (the No. 6 family).
We have already seen that the wild horse is incestuously in-bred, and we know that, of Herod and Eclipse, the latter was the more incestuously in-bred of the two. Does it not seem, then, a simple working out of the laws of Nature that the Eclipse male line should be more prepotent than the Herod male line, bearing as it does, though artificially produced, a closer resemblance to the breeding of the horse in a state of Nature?
The fact that Herod’s name occurs more often than that of Eclipse in modern pedigrees would seem to go to strengthen this theory, for the Herod blood is more diluted, so to speak, than that of Eclipse, and seems unable to resist the concentrated force of the more incestuously in-bred Eclipse line.
S. C. Burke.