as to the male line. It was by the study of the female line that the
most cunning of the sporting journalists were able to eliminate
Tetratema from the list of probable winners. Tetratema, as son of the
Tetrarch, was excellently fathered for staying the mile-and-a-half
course at Epsom. More than this, as a writer in _The Sportsman_
pointed out: "The Tetrarch himself is by Roi Herode, a fine stayer,
and his maternal grand-dam was by Hagioscope, who rarely failed to
transmit stamina." It is when we turn to Tetratema's mother, Scotch
Gift--or is it his grandmother something else?--apparently, that we
discover his hereditary vice. This mare our journalist exposed to
scathing and searching criticism, and concluded that "there can be
nothing unreasonable in the inference, based on the records of this
family, that the chances are against a Derby winner having descended
from the least distinguished of ... four sisters." Even so, however,
the writer a few sentences later abjures Calvinism, and denies that
there is anything certain in what he calls breeding problems. "It
seemed," he writes, "wildly improbable at one time that Flying Duchess
would produce a Derby winner, for I believe it is correct that two of
Galopin's elder brothers ran in a bus, and there were two others quite
useless So, on the face of it, the chances were against Galopin, the
youngest brother." I quote these passages as evidence of the immense
demand the serious pursuit of horse-racing puts on the intellect. The
betting man must be as well versed in precedents as a lawyer and in
genealogical trees as a historian. At school, I always found the
genealogical trees the most difficult and bewildering part of history.
Yet the genealogical tree of a king is a simple matter compared to
that of a horse. All you have to learn about a king is the names of
his relations: regarding a horse, however, you must know not only the
names but the character, staying power and domestic virtues of every
male and female with whom he is connected during several generations.