| The Great Sire Lines
W.H.E. Wanklyn, 1912, 38cm x 43cm brown cloth boards, edgewear. Unusual format, with smaller index book attached to inside of back board (front hinge of index repaired unprofessionally w/brown tape). Large format tables, including nearly all sires at stud in England, France, and the Australian Colonies at the time of publication, clearly illustrating the descent of successful sire lines, and the extinction of those not as fortunate. Full indexed by name of horse, and all tables numbered - well organized for research. From the Introduction: "These tables . . . are compiled, not to indicate the successful sire lines, but to demonstrate how and why certain lines necessarily fail . . . their aim is to make clear..my reasons for believing that the fundamental cause of the failure of any sire line, however promising at the outset, is universally attributable to a particular form of inbreeding. There is no instance of the male line surviving where its founder and his dam's sire descend within three generations from the same horse. The male line also fails when there are continuous repetitions in its female alliances of stallions belonging to its own line . . . ". |