IMPROVING THE HORSE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1774, 12 June 1913, Page 8

IMPROVING THE HORSE.

PREMIUMS &■ PURCHASE. BRITISH GOVERNMENT SCHEME. In the endeavour to encourage and improve- the breeding of light horses, to liiaiutain the supply for military purposes, the British Government has during tho past couple of years made large grants, amounting to about ,£IO,OOO per annum, under the departmental schcme. The service season of 1012, it is officially reported, proved very satisfactory, the number of mares taken being 3-138, on average of 0!) per stallion. The payments made by the Board of Agriculture in respect of King's premium stallions average J!22li per horse, with a maximum of .£334 10s. On this basis, with tho -addition of the service fee of .£2 payable by owners of mares, the average 'earnings of a stallion amounted to '.£33ti, and the maximum to .£.(84 10s.

Another form of assistance is by the Board of Agriculture's premiums. The procedure of awarding these is the selection of a stallion by a county committee, and, provided the horse has been registered and forms in other respects to the prescribed conditions, approval is given .to tho recommendations of the committee. Last year these premiums were awarded to 25 stallions . (20 thoroughbreds), 3 hunters, 1. Yorkshire coach, and 1 Cleveland bay), to travel various districts in England (10), Scotland (5), and Wales (-1). The number of marcs taken was 1055, or an average of 61! per stallion. The amounts paid to -owners by the -board averaged Jilo2, giving an average earning l of .£15(5, inclusive of fees paid by the owners of marcs. And, in addition, a further fee of ss. per foal is payable at tho end of tho foaling season. Freo nominations to premium stallions are "iven to small farmers and others to whom the fee charged for tho use. of such high-class sires is a serious item. The value of a nomination to a mare for service by a King's premium stallion is .E2, and Ml in the case of a board's premium stallion. Nominations . aro issued by county committees in favour only of marcs which have been examined by veterinary surgeons and passed as sound for breeding purposes. In. 1911 the county committees issued IiTG nominations to King's premium slallions,'and U25 of these were used; 138 freo nominations were issued to board's premium stallions and 128 of them were taken up. -For the year 1912. ■ 738 free nominations were issued to King's premium stallions and 693 were used. The comparative figures for board's premium stallions were 340 and 305.'

Representations were made to the board that, in ninny parts of the country there was'a. serious shortage of mares of tho hunter type, and that farmers and others wero giving up breeding, owing to the in-creasing-difficulty of getting good brood marcs of: that class, and to the lack of suitable thoroughbred stallions available for matin.? 1 with them at a reasonable fee. The board recognised that it would be very inadvisable to encourage fariu:rs to breed light horses of a type for which there is but little demand, and in view of the fact that there is always a good market for horses of the heavy-weight hunter type, they decided to provide funds for tho purchase of mares which, when mated with suitable thoroughbred stallions, were likely to produce stock of the class'mentioned. With this object in view, grants amounting approximately to liavo been made to 36 county committees for the ,pu,rcliase of mares for leasing at a rental of £.1 to suitable customers for brteding purposes. One of the conditions of a grant is that the averago price of the mare is not to exceed .£SO, and many excellent mares have been purchased below that figure. Over -100 mares have been purchased after veterinary examination. Another phase of tho Board of Agriculture work in horse improvement is the voluntary registration of stallions. In Iflll the number registered, after veterinary examination, was 313, while 14 were rejected. Last year 715 were registered and 90 rejected. In Australia life certificates are issued to all five-year-old stallions that pass the inspection'. Upon this point the report of the British Board of Agriculture states:—

"It has frequently been urged that the regulations for registration should bo amended to as to provido exemption from examination for stallions that have been passed sound on one or more occasions up to a certain age limit. Opinions dilfer as to what that limit should be, the age suggested varying between four years and eight vears. No satisfactory or convincing evidence has been submitted showing that any period can be accepted after which hereditary disease will not appear, and until information of this nature is forthcoming it would seem very undesirable that the board should exempt horses of any age from the annual examination at present prescribed. In this connection it is, of interest to note that the ages of the stallions rejected for registration ill 1912 included all ages from three to eighteen, with the (xccption of 11 and (3, but as many of these stallions had possibly been unsound for several years prior to their examination, more instructive data is afforded by tiie ages of the 20 stallion* rejected in 1912, which had been certified as sound in 1911, Five of them were four years old, four five years old, and tlure wero two each of six, seven, eight, ami twelve years old, and the ages of the remainder were 16, 17, and 23, thus showing a very wide variation in the agesxit which stallions may develop hereditary disease."

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