Thoroughbred Breeding in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire in the Nineteenth Century* by M J HUGGINS
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Thoroughbred Breeding in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire in the Nineteenth Century* By M J HUGGINS Abstract The article provides a case study of the operation of the thoroughbred horse breeding industry in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire during the nineteenth century as a first step towards its analysis at a national level. It analyses the changing theoretical underpinning of thoroughbred breeding practice and shows its relationship to changes in demand from the racing cormnunity. During the century the breeding industry changed from the predominantly part-time activity of famlers, racehorse trainers, innkeepers and gentry to an activity increasingly donfinated by larger stud farms and stud companies. Breeding could be carried on through the keeping of both stallions and brood mares, and changes and continuities are both identified in temas of the key places where stallions were based, of breeding costs in relation to stallions, mares, yearlings and foals, of general stud organization, of the roles of stud-grooms and stable grooms, and of the selling of stock through private treaty and auction means. Although conclusions are tentative, it would appear that only a minority of studs made a profit; although many others believed they had but failed to take sufficient account of depreciation in their accounting procedures. URING the course of the nineteenth and on major classic winners thereafter. 4 century thoroughbred horse- We know little about the industry, despite D breeding developed as an important its obvious economic importance as a rural industry. By 1873 a Select Committee source of both direct and indirect employ- of the House of Lords, examining the ment. The following case study explores general state of horse-breeding, could point the occupation's theoretical underpinning, to thoroughbred horses having increased the groups involved in the organization and significantly both in number and value, x ownership of stud farms and stud compan- In I876 the Racing Calendar estimated the ies, the keeping of stallions and brood combined value of yearlings, brood mares mares, the selling of stock, and the extent and stallions as over a million pounds. 2 By to which studs made a profit, in relation to 1892 there were nearly five thousand brood York and the East and North Ridings of mares alone in the British Isles, and nearly Yorkshire. The Yorkshire area was selected I4OO breeders involved in the industry? because over the nineteenth century it was Surprisingly historians have given this one of the key 'breeding counties'? The feature of regional English rural life little thoroughbred, the breed used for racing, attention. Writers on racing history have derives from interbreeding between ident- concentrated more on the key stallions and ified native British and Arab stock, and the foundation mares of the eighteenth century, volumes of the General Stud Book, first issued in I79I, reveal that almost all English 'tap-root mares' were based in Yorkshire, * I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments on this article. generally around Bedale. Many early Arab 'BPP, I873, XIV, House of Lords Select Connnittee on the Condition of the United Kingdom with Regard to Horses, p x. 'See W Vamplew, The Tu~." A Social and Economic History of " L H Curzon, 'The horse as an instrumentof gambling', Contemporary Horseracing, 1976, ch z2; P Willett, The Classic Racehorse, I989, Review, 3o Aug t877, p 378. chs I-3. 3C M Prior, "/71e History of the Racing Calendar and Stud Book, See Amphion, 'For the season x876', Baily's Monthly Magazine, 28, 1926, p 33. Jan I876, pp 64 ft. Ag Hist Rev, 42, II, pp II5-Iz5 115 116 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW stallions were also based in the area, whilst it was claimed that 'it is now a fact univer- York was the centre of much early racing. sally acknowledged amongst breeding men Indeed, by the early nineteenth century that the perfection and subsequent value of interest in thoroughbred breeding was an the offspring depend much more upon the expected attribute of Yorkshire gentle choice of dam'. ~ J H Walsh (Stonehenge) society. A young Quaker, Charles reflected views current in the I85Os by Fothergill, recorded in his diary in 18o5 arguing for the importance of confor- that he 'visited Hambletonian, Shuttle and mation, whilst recognizing some excellent Bagsman with the brood mares and foals at exceptions. I~ He accepted the mare's Middlethorp'. 6 Fothergill's regional pride importance, but believed that since the male led him to think the county 'the best kind was 'usually more carefully selected and of of country for breeding racers'. 7 Certainly purer blood' it exerted more influence on the county's temperate climate, plentiful offspring. I3 The earl of Suffolk, writing in rainfall, and soil and water constituents I886, having reviewed 'many theories ... sometimes created almost 'ideal conditions upheld by various authorities', also intro- for breeding thoroughbreds', s duced constitution, arguing that few breed- ers took sufficient notice of the health of horse and mare at the time of mating. '4 I The mare's role was re-stressed by the During the nineteenth century breeders Yorkshire sportswriter W .Allison, who had limited knowledge of and were incon- sistent in using the range of theoretical championed the theories of Bruce Lowe. principles governing breeding. Initially, Lowe identified 'chief winning families' from statistics showing how much had most relied on practical experience, been won in terms of the three key classic emphasizing the stallion's pedigree and races by the descendants of 'tap-root racing success. Then the York Herald and mares'. Further data revealed the extent to journals such as The Sporting Magazine began disseminating statistical details about which each mare had produced great sires -'chief sire families'. Allison argued that a stallion's offspring, including their win- breeding of 'winning' with 'sire' families nings and numbers of races entered and would achieve best results. '5 Mthough won. Such data made certain stallions based on false statistical premi.ses, it led fashionable. Breeders also followed individ- many to accept that 'the success of every ual theories: Richard Watt of Bishop breeding stud depends more on its mares Burton, for example, successfully used than on anything else'. '6 But views were inbreeding from Eclipse. Most focused on still mixed. Allison's contemporary key qualities like speed or stamina or a J Osborne, in his equally influential The limited combination of qualities. This led Horse Breeder's Handbook (1898), rejected to rapid progress in both key aspects of racing performance up to the I87OS. 9 Alongside this came increasing awareness " Anon, 'Thoughts upon breeding and rearing blood stock', New Sporting Mallazine, May 184o, p a92. Sir C Leicester, Bloodstock of the importance of the mare. I° By 184o, Breeding, I983 ed, p 3, makes it clear that at the dine of mating each parent contributed an equal number of cl~romosonles, ~P Romsey, ed, Diary of Charh,s Fothergill 08o5), 1985, entry for although dominant genes can vary. Clearly thereafter the mare 26 May I8o5. contributes enviromnentally to the foal. 7lbid, 2 Oct I8o5. '"Stonehenge tJ H Walsh], Tile Horse in the Stable and Field, I892 8 Willett, The Classic Racehorse, p 253. ed, pp 82-3. 9See the comments of modem geneticists quoted in WiUett, Tile ,3 Ibid, eh io: 'The principles of breeding applicable to the horse', Classic Racehorse, pp 256-7. p t39. to The standard work on the history of the turf mistakenly argues ,4 Earl of Suffolk, Racing and Steeldechasil~, 1886, p 1 t7. that nineteenth-century breeders 'did not realise that the female ,5 W Allison, Tile British Thorol(~hbred Horse, 19oi, passim; Vamplew, line could contribute as much to the development of the breed as Tile Tu~, pp 186- 7. could that of the stallion': Vamplew, The Tu~, p I86. '~ Country Life Illustrated, 2 Feb 1897, pp 216 ft. J THOROUGHBRED BREEDING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY I17 Lowe's ideas in favour of a return to categories. Breeders can be placed on a inbreeding to the three key early sires, continuum from private owner-breeders, Eclipse, Herod and Matchem/7 usually aspiring to produce a winner in the Breeders also responded to a series of great weight for age and classic events, to changes within racing itself. In the early fully commercial breeders. Somewhere nineteenth century the majority of provin- between the two, private owner-breeders cial races were run in heats. Runners were might sell their apparently poorer stock, or three- to six-year olds, racing over longer keep mares of their own, whilst leasing distances, with weight for age. Breeders their stallion's services to owners of other then bred more for middle distance and mares. stanfina demanding events like the high A majority of owner-breeders in status classics. By the I88os a majority of Yorkshire were wealthy, landowning, and races were either handicaps, where poorer of gentry background. Most kept a small horses could compete, or shorter sprint stud of fewer than six mares. While at the races by two- or three-year olds, which start of the nineteenth century this group, attracted nmch of the prize money. In and its attitudes and expectations, were consequence, most commercial breeders predominant among Yorkshire breeders, bred for the latter. Some breeders by the end nine-tenths of thoroughbreds developed 'forcing systems' to help achieve were bred for sale. ~° A late century example this. ,s Stamina was unimportant: more from the earl of P,.oseberry's York horses broke down, or became roarers. Gimcrack speech summarizes the owner- Only a minority, maMy breeder-owners, breeder philosophy. He chimed not to stay bred more patiently for the speculative in the tuff for gain.