Weatherby’s
General Stud Book, started in 1791 by James Weatherby, became
the world’s greatest stud record. It is called ‘General’
to differentiate it from the various private herd books that
had been kept since the previous century by numerous breeders.
Mr Weatherby was primarily motivated by a desire to produce
a comprehensive register calculated to reduce the risks of
fraud and error in attributing pedigrees.
James Weatherby, writing in a Preface to the first edition
of the present series, explained that he had been prevailed
upon to produce ‘an introduction to the General Stud
Book’ in 1971, consisting of a small collection of pedigrees
extracted from Racing Calendars and Sale Papers. He described
how it had grown into a bulky volume which he was now offering
to the public as Volume One. It contained pedigrees of race
horses from the earliest accounts to the year 1826 and he
believed it consisted of a ‘greater mass of authentic
information respecting Pedigrees of Horses than has ever before
been collected together.’
This first edition of the GSB had 414 pages in four sections.
Part Four lists Arabians, Barbs and Turks, giving notes on
the history, colour, size, etc., of several Arabians, including
the famous Godolphin Arabian. In Volume II the Arabian section
is dropped but a number of horses with the name ‘……....’s
Arabian (usually the name of the owner) indicates that Weatherby
still accepted new imports into the main body of the book
and therefore counted them as a continuation of the foundation
stock of the Thoroughbred racehorse.
The stud books continued on the lines of Volume II up to 1876
when the Arabian section was established again with two mares,
a stallion and a colt imported in 1874, and two mares and
two colts imported in 1875 from the Sebaa-Anazeh - thus beginning
the registration of imported Arabians.
Volume 14, printed in 1881 and with records up to 1880, contains
a notice that ‘a recent importation of Arabians from
the believed best Desert strains, will, it is hoped, when
the increase of size has been gained by training, feeding
and acclimatisation, give a valuable new line of blood from
the original source of the English Thoroughbred’. This
of course refers to the Blunt’s importation’s,
the first 22 of which are entered in the Arabian section of
Volume 14.
The Arabian section in Volume 15 (1881 - 1884) contains 28
horses, and the number increases slowly up to Volume 25 (1921
- 1924) in which the breeding record of 47 mares is given.
The majority of these are descended from the Blunt foundation
stock, most of the other early lines having disappeared from
the G.S.B. The
last imported living Arabian to be registered in the G.S.B.
was Skowronek in Volume 24, which includes
records up to 1921, but Dwarka is posthumously
entered in Volume 25, with a note that he was destroyed at
the Tor Royal Stud in 1921. Thereafter, in line with their
policy of excluding new lines of Thoroughbreds, only the produce
of Arab horses already entered in the G.S.B. were accepted
in future volumes.
This policy was continued by Weatherby up to Volume 35 in
which 148 Arabian mares are entered with their progeny; the
total number of Thoroughbreds for the four years covered by
this volume (1962-1965) is 8,631, 9,335, 9,896 and 10,467
respectively - so it can be seen that the Arabians were a
very small percentage of the whole. The wording in the front
of this Volume states that to be eligible a horse must be
‘traced in all points of its pedigree to strains already
appearing in pedigrees in earlier volumes of the G.S.B.’
and ‘the proprietors of the G.S.B. reserve themselves
the sole right to decide what horses or mares (under the Above
qualifications) be admitted to our excluded from the book
and have decided to discontinue the Arab Section. After 1st
January 1965, the produce of horses and mares which have appeared
in this section as the produce of a sire and dam which have
been described in the G.S.B. as Arabs, will not be considered
eligible for inclusion in the G.S.B.’
When Weatherbys announced that they intended to take this
action, a strong representation was made by The Arab Horse
Society asking them to retain the Arabian Section. At that
time, the A.H.S. had been publishing its own Stud Book for
46 years but it was more of a register than stud book and
did not give the same complete breeding record of mares as
that contained in the G.S.B. Weatherbys intended to change
to a computer system: they explained that the G.S.B. had reached
an alarming size and that the number of Arabians registered
in proportion to Thoroughbreds was very small indeed; they
pointed out that the A.H.S. had its own stud book and also
intimated that if the horses registered in the G.S.B. had
been used for crossing with Thoroughbreds to produce racehorses,
they might have been interested in retaining the Arabian Section
but there was no question of a reservoir of pure Arab blood
being kept for possible future use. It was finally accepted
that the present Mr Weatherby did not appear to have the same
interest in Arabians as Mr James Weatherby, the founder of
the Stud Book, and there was no chance of his changing his
mind - ‘it is sad’, Weatherbys’ spokesman
conceded, ‘after so many years, but there it is.’
After Weatherbys closed the Arabian Section, the Arab Horse
Society changed the format of its stud book to the style of
the G.S.B.
Up to that
time, many breeders around the world would buy only G.S.B.
registered Arab horses, such was the reputation of Weatherby’s
Stud Book. Most breeders in England used dual registration
for their stock in both the G.S.B. and the A.H.S.B. Lady Wentworth,
however, did not always enter her horses in the A.H.S.B. if
they were sold when young or were going overseas but every
foal born at Crabbet Park was registered in the G.S.B.
The
G.S.B. eligible Arabians of today are descended from a fairly
small number of original mares and stallions (some lines having
died out in England) forming a unique and homogenous group.
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