THE SECRET OF STAYING POWER

By Dr. W. J. STEWART McKAY

The ambition of every man that breeds racehorses is to produce a good stayer. That this is a difficult matter is made evident by the large number of horses entered for the Derby and St. Leger and the few that run.

Therefore the question is naturally asked: Why cannot all horses run a distance? The answer is that all horses can run a distance; it’s thetime they takethat is the important point.

In dealing with the questions relating to “staying,” we must take into considerationdistance,time, andweight. We must try and find out the difference between the horses that can sprint six furlongs in 1.12 and the horses that can go two miles in 3.24, and ask how they differ from the horses that can go 80 miles from sunrise to sunset.

If a number of racing men and breeders of racehorses were to gather round a ring, and five horses—say, Soultline, Prince Foote, Woorak, Desert Gold and Poitrel—were brought into the ring, would it be possible, if the onlookers did not know the horses or their pedigree—would it be possible, I ask—to pick out the real stayers? Could a good judge tell that Woorak could just get a mile, and that Prince Foote, who was about the same size and build, could stay all day? Could a good judge say that Soultline could not stay a mile? and tell that Desert Gold, the champion of her day, was no champion once she was asked to go much more than a mile and a half? I doubt very much whether any judge could place these horses in the true order of their staying powers by merely inspecting them. The late Andrew Town, who may be regarded as one who knew everything that was to be known about the points of a horse, once said to me that had he seen Carbine with a rough coat in a country sale-yard that he would not have rushed to buy him.

If judges were able to tell the future of racehorses by their conformation, then yearlings that are sold at 1,500 guineas would not be such consistent failures. Let us never forget that the father of English racehorses, the immortal Eclipse, was sold as a yearling for less than a hundred guineas; yet he was the ancestor of Sceptre, who was sold for 10,000 guineas as a yearling, and the ancestor of Flying Fox, who fetched 39,375 guineas at public auction.

What, let us ask, is the secret of Staying Power?

We may say at the outset that all the horses that we have mentioned above had the requisite bone and muscle. Soultline and Woorak could each have carried a sixteen-stone man without turning a hair, and the same could have been said of Desert Gold. While, then, we must grant that a given horse must have the proper development of bone and muscle, this development must be of a particular pattern. This, of course, is obvious; a Clydesdale has far more muscle and bone than any racehorse, but the type of muscle is of no use for speed, though suitable for endurance, and we shall see later on that endurance is a very different thing to staying power. Mere size is not the secret, since some of the finest-looking horses ever seen at Randwick have been non-stayers—Machine Gun, Malt King and Tangalooma, for instance. But it is because size so largely influences one’s mind that high prices are given for well-grown colts in the hope that they will prove “Derby colts.” If we study the history of the evolution of the racehorse we shall find some justification for this idea, for the present-day horse is a bigger animal than he was in former days. While the average racehorse nowadays, among the best horses, would be over 16 hands, we find, if we go back to 1745, that 15.2 (the height of Sampson) was considered almost gigantic. Captain Hayesthought that English horses had increased an average of an inch in height between 1867 and 1897, and that the average horse was six inches taller than he was 200 years ago. Certain it is that pony horses don’t win the Derby nowadays.

But, as I have said above, the size of the horse is not the essential point; with size there must go a particular type of heart, if a horse is going to stay. Anyone who saw Beragoon as a yearling might easily have mistaken him for a two-year-old, and a year later he looked like a three-year-old, and he was as good as he looked, for he won the Derby here and in Victoria, yet he could not stay in the true sense of the word.

While large size is the rule among stayers, yet small horses may occasionally be good stayers and have the required pace. That marvellous horse Prince Foote was very stoutly built, but he was not taller than Woorak—this his trainer, Frank McGrath, assures me—yet he won everything, including Derbys, Legers, and a Melbourne Cup. He had the proper staying heart and he transmitted it to Prince Charles and enabled him to win a recent Sydney Cup. Yet in the same stable was Furious with a Welkin heart; the one with the non-staying heart was, a little before the day, almost favourite, the other went out at 33 to 1, and won.

Wakeful, the finest mare over all distances ever seen on the Australian turf, was on the small size, yet she won the Sydney Cup with 9.7 in the saddle.

We may at once admit that there may often be a very considerable difference between the conformation of the stayer and the sprinter, yet the real difference lies hidden from the sight of the judge, for the difference is in theparticular kind of heart that the animal has inherited.

If my contention as regards the heart be accepted, we then have a simple explanation of the common rule that staying sires produce staying stock. Carbine, for instance, was the prince of stayers, and his son, Wallace, gave us Trafalgar and innumerable other stayers. Positano was a stayer, and he gave us four Melbourne Cup winners. Maltster, on the other hand, was an indifferent stayer, and while he was one of the most successful sires in the whole world, he gave us only one stayer, Alawa. Some of his sons and daughters could just get a mile and a half—Malt King and Maltine were both Metropolitan winners, but they could go no further. Thus it is brought home to us that though a sire may be the father of hundreds of brilliant milers, it is reserved for a few horses to beget stayers of two miles or more. Nothing could show this better than a study of the progeny of Grafton and Linacre. These sires have been the fathers of hundreds of horses that have won races up to a mile, and yet we look in vain for long-distance horses from either. True it is that Peru won an Australian Cup, and that Lingle and Erasmus both ran second in the Melbourne Cup, but three swallows don’t make a spring.

Let us then recognise this fact, that just as a man may transmit his nose, his eyes or his ears to his sons and daughters, just so may a horse transmit his bone, his muscle, his colour and hisheartto his sons and daughters. So now we come to the secret: It matters not whether a horse is black or brown or chestnut—the essential thing the animal has to possess in order that he may stay is astaying heart.

Now, the first objection that will be put forward to this proposition is that every now and then a true stayer arises from a non-staying sire—I admit this is true. I have already mentioned that Alawa was a son of Maltster; Lingle a son of Linacre, Peru from Grafton, while Eurythmic, the most wonderful horse at present racing, who won a Sydney Cup carrying 9.8 onhis back, with a run that will for ever make him famous, had for a sire Eudorus, a brilliant horse for a mile, especially when that mile was in the mud!

The answer to these objections is that, just as a geniussometimescomes from a back-lane; just as a poet is born in a hovel; just as some great orator comes from a peasant stock; so with a sprinter for a sire we get sometimes a stayer. This would have been explained by Darwin by his theory of Atavism—throwing back to a former ancestor for hidden powers—and this is a reasonable explanation. Thus we may reasonably say that David, through his granddam Wakeful, did inherit some of her ancestor Musket’s power to stay. But this leads up to another explanation that can be put forth with plenty of examples to back it up—i.e., that the horse may get his staying powers from hismother: that is, that he has inherited his dam’s heart, not his sire’s. Eurythmic must be regarded as an excellent example of this, for, as we have just mentioned, Eudorus was but a good miler, and his other sons do not show staying powers in spite of the fact that Eusebius won a Derby and a V.R.C. St. Leger, both, however, in shocking time! But when we come to examine the pedigree of Bob Cherry, the dam of Eurythmic, we find that staying is spelt in every line of her pedigree, being by Bodadil from Ardea by Wallace.

Now that I have enunciated my theory, let me suggest why it is that some horses begin their career in brilliant fashion, and look from their first performances as though they would stay, and yet go off and never come back. My opinion is that some of these horses have poor hearts and are made too much use of during their two-year-old period; while some horses during their early three-year-old career are asked to do more than their hearts are fit to do, as a consequence theirhearts become dilated. They fail time after time, and are consequently called rogues; in reality, they may be quite honest animals, but their strained hearts cannot respond when called upon—Bigaroon, I think, is an example.

I regard the failure of Eurythmic, when matched against Beauford, as an instance of the dilated heart. Eurythmic was asked to carry the record weight of 10.7 in the Futurity Stakes. He won, and critics said that it was merely a welter race, and that he had nothing to beat. When he came to Sydney to run against Beauford, almost every trainer gave their opinion that Eurythmic would win. What happened? He pulled up absolutely in distress, and a few days later was beaten by David and Furious over two miles. The real explanation is that no matter what may be said to the contrary, Eurythmic did not have a true staying heart, having inherited it from his mother; that it probably became strained in the Futurity and probably dilated, and that while he may win at a mile or a little more, I think it unlikely that he will ever win at two miles again.[1]

1. This was written in April, 1922.

Let me make my meaning about the dilated heart quite clear. First of all, one must understand that the heart is a pump; that its walls are composed of muscle—though not of the same kind of muscle that the flesh of the arms and legs is made of. Then the valves of this wonderful pump are made of very strong tissue almost as strong as fine canvas. Considering the amount of work that the heart is called upon to do, getting no entire rest either night or day, the wonder is that it can keep on for sixty or seventy years in man, and twenty or more in the horse, in such a very efficient manner.

Now, if a man who has been working in an office gets “run down” from overwork, and takes it into his head to go off for a holiday, and part of that holiday is devoted to climbing mountains, he will often come back to hisoffice in a worse condition than when he started. What has happened? He has tried to make his heart muscle do work which it is not prepared to do. He has strained his heart. In other words, this wonderful pump has done its best to cope with the extra work that it was called upon to do, and while it may have succeeded, the effort has affected it, and the result of the extra work performed is that the heart has becomedilated, and, for the time being, it is not able to do the ordinary work that it is called upon to perform. Provided such a heart is rested and nursed it may come back, but if the possessor of such a heart tries to drive it, and does not rest it, then that heart will fail to do ordinary work, and will most certainly fail if asked to perform extra work.

What happens to the untrained office-man happens over and over again on the racecourse to horses that are asked to win races when they are not “ready”—that is, when they are only half-trained; and while they may succeed they often dilate their unprepared hearts in their honest efforts to succeed. The most recent example of this is Salrak, injured by his Newcastle race.

Again, when a horse is “ready” and his muscles are fit and he is quite able to run a mile and carry a decent weight, he is asked to run a mile and a half; he makes a mighty effort, and from that day on he never does himself justice in a race, for his effort strained his heart; and not being allowed to rest, his heart remains dilated till the end of his days.

Let me illustrate these general remarks by a few concrete instances. Woorak was a most brilliant two-year-old; his bones were short and strong, his hindquarters were perfect, while his muscles were so exquisite that had he been cast in bronze he would have been a joy for ever. He ran in the Chelmsford stakes as a three-year-old, and won, beating his great rival Mountain Knight. Then came the Derby a few weeks later. Everyone who had seen Woorak race recognised the fact that he must be given his head, and that to check him would be fatal. He was a very pronounced favourite, and one of the most experienced trainers said to me: “If you don’t back Woorak don’t bet on the race.” But I remembered that Woorak’s sire had been only a brilliant sprinter in England, so I backed Mountain Knight at six to one simply because his sire, Mountain King, had a Wallace-Carbine heart and could run a mile and a half, and even further, at a brilliant pace. The Derby was run and Woorak put up the effort of his career, but was beaten in the last hundred yards by a very narrow margin. Now we come to the after-history. Five days later Woorak was brought out to run in the Craven Plate, ten furlongs, and he won in record time; some of the field being at the half-distance when he was walking in. From that day onwards Woorak never won at a distance again. These two races dilated his heart, and a mile was the length of his tether. Watching him do his training gallops at Randwick during the winter of 1916, I became convinced that as he had to carry less than weight-for-age in the Epsom that he would be able to run the mile right out. I backed him well and truly, and was rewarded by seeing him win the Epsom by six lengths in a common canter. Now this form so impressed the public that a few days later they simply rushed to back him in the Craven Plate, he having only four opponents. He was at odds-on, and ran in front to the half-distance, then his dilated heart failed suddenly and he was easily beaten by St. Carwyne and Reputation.

Let me take another example. Wallace Isinglass was a fine upstanding three-year-old with plenty of bone and plenty of muscle, and had a proper Derby-Wallace-Carbine inherited heart. He ran in the Rosehill Guineas a few weeks before the Derby of 1916, the distance being increased from seven furlongs to a mile and a furlong, and he was made an odds-on favourite. Bysome means he got into a bad position, and when he entered the straight he seemed to have no chance of beating Cetigne. Then he made a wonderful effort; it was the effort of a horse with a stout heart, and he put every ounce of reserve he had into the final run, and inch by inch he gained on the brilliant, honest Cetigne, and won by a nose! Never was a braver effort ever seen on a racecourse, and I felt that he had to thank his Wallace heart—not to mention what his dam (Glass Queen) may have added—for his victory.

This victory made him an odds-on favourite for the Derby, and Bobby Lewis, thinking that he had a real Wallace stayer to handle, determined to “make the running” and knock Cetigne out; but he failed for two reasons. In the first place, he hurried his mount most unwisely for the first half-mile, forgetting what Fred Archer had laid down as a rule, that if you hurry a stayer enough for the first half-mile you will kill him dead; and, in the second place, Bobby not being a pathologist did not know anything about dilated hearts, so he evidently took it for granted that his mount’s heart was of the true Wallace brand. But he found to his dismay that he had made so much use of his horse that he died in his hands in the last fifty yards and Cetigne won. The effort certainly did not do Cetigne’s non-staying heart any good, for he never ran a decent race over a distance afterwards, though he lived to win the most dramatic race ever seen at Randwick when he won the Craven Plate in record time in 1918. Now, though Cetigne had a non-staying heart—Grafton being no sire of stayers—yet he must have had a very sound heart to win a Newmarket six furlongs with 9 stone in 1.13½, a Villiers mile in 1.38¼ with 9.4 in the saddle, and lower Woorak’s Craven Plate record of 2.5¼ to 2.4½; and yet he could not run a mile and a half with success in good company.

Let me say that a heart that is dilated may recover if the animal is properly rested. Wallace Isinglass being bred to have a staying heart on his sire’s side as well as on his dam’s side, was judiciously nursed by his rich owner, and, as a result, as a four-year-old and a five-year-old he did well over a distance, and lived to defeat Desert Gold at two miles in Melbourne, and to run Lanius and Westcourt to a neck over the Cumberland Stakes two miles.

Let us see if we can learn anything of use from the above remarks. The chief lesson that is to be learnt is:That you can’t make a stayer out of a horse that has not inherited a staying heart, train him as you will. The old ideal that if you wanted a horse to run two miles you had to train him over that distance was absurd. You must, of course, get the animal’s muscles in a fit condition, and that can be done by slow, long work, and by running him at a fast pace from time to time over a mile or so; but you can’t make his heart carry him two milesat the requisite paceif he does not inherit the proper kind of heart,no matter how you train him! It is quite true that a horse in some cases stays better the older he gets, because his heart improves; still the fact remains that the true stayer isborn, not made.

After all in staying it is thepacethat tells; in other words, a great stayer must have the power to run at a great pace all the way and to have something out of the common to finish with; and unless the horse has an inherited staying heart it is quite impossible for him to finish well. When we think of the run that Poitrel with 9.9 on his back made when Kennaquhair won the Sydney Cup in 3.22¾; when we think of the run he made in the Spring Stakes when he beat Desert Gold in 2.31 one year, and Gloaming in the same race the following year; when we think how he finished in his Melbourne Cup, carrying ten stone, then we realise what a true staying heart is capable of doing when called upon.

It has often been observed that great stayers are wont to hang behind in the early stages of a long-distance race. No one, for instance, ever sawanything of old Tartan until the distance was reached, then he would come along like a bolt from the blue and smother his opponents, as he did with 9.6 in the Australian Cup. This is quite characteristic of the stayer. If you hurry him too much in the early stages of a long race you will defeat him. The reason is that his heart must not be asked to do too much too quickly. You must let him gradually get his heart beating in a slow, methodical way, and then all goes well, and when the time comes everything is as it should be; his lungs being unimpeded in their work co-operate with the heart. If, however, you hurry the stayer too much in the first part of the race the circulation becomes upset—that is, the circulation in the lungs causes an engorgement that interferes with the breathing of the horse, and with the smooth working of his heart.

Some stayers have a particular kind of heart which enables them to sprint, and, at the same time, it allows them to begin quickly in a distance race, to get into a good position early, and to keep their places. Poseidon was such a horse. He was a perfect stayer, could sprint like a pure sprinter, and was so clever in a big field that he could take up any position he liked in any race no matter the distance. Mooltan, another horse with a Positano heart, could run a mile (second in the Epsom), win a Metropolitan, and run second in a Melbourne Cup. No better example of this type of horse could be found now than Sasanoff—a perfect sprinter and a perfect stayer. Wakeful was another.

Again, there are some horses who can run in front of the field for a distance and keep up the pace. They, in fact, run a waiting race in front. These horses, however, are often nottruestayers. Desert Gold, Biplane and Gloaming could each do this for a mile and a half; for two miles Prince Bardolph did it in the Sydney Cup with success, and tried to do the same thing in the Australian Cup, but when he had gone two miles and a furlong a horse with a Carbine heart—Defence—caught and beat him easily. Posinatus won his Melbourne Cup in this way from start to finish, and I fancy Newhaven did the same thing, while Harvest King, with a Comedy King staying heart, won the last Australian Cup and led throughout.

Now a word onEndurance: this is not the same thing as staying. The difference between the two is a matter of pace. For instance, some horses in East India can sprint quite well for three furlongs, but cannot go fast for any distance, yet they are capable of going 80 miles in a cart from sunrise to sunset. This brings home to us that staying power—that is, the ability to go two miles at a very rapid pace—requires a different type of heart to the endurance heart. We may admit that this latter must be a good type of heart, but it is a different type to the staying heart. The endurance heart is well illustrated when we come to deal with jumping horses. We all know of horses that could only get a mile on the flat—say, for instance, Lord Nagar, who won the Villiers—yet when these horses become hurdlers we see them putting up records and winning over two miles in quite brilliant fashion. The explanation is that it is only a matter ofpace. A cab horse can run two miles, but his pace is nothing. A hurdler can run two miles, but the time he takes would leave him a furlong or two behind in a weight-for-age race. Therefore when we say a horse canstay, we imply the possession of a heart that can stand the enormous strain of running two miles, or more, in time that will not much exceed three minutes twenty-six seconds, carrying a good weight.

And now that I have mentioned weight, let us ask: What effect has weight on a horse in regard to staying?

If we walk and carry a weight we can go a certain distance and not feel fatigued, but if we attempt to run with the same weight we soon find out the difference. In walking we always have one foot on the ground; in running we are entirely off the ground at times. In walking we put little strain on the heart, for the foot that is always on the ground helps us; while in running we have to lift the whole weight of the body from the ground, and so we call on the heart to do much more work. If then, we have to carry a weight and run, we have not only to lift the body from the ground but also the weight. Naturally, the heart is called upon to do more work and becomes exhausted in proportion to the amount of weight carried, the distance it is carried, and the time consumed. The heart muscle, as a matter of fact, in great exertion has to work at eight times its normal rate, and so it becomes tired, and the effect of fatigue is simply to reduce the output of the heart.

Weight acts on the heart in the same way that distance does—that is, weight tires the heart after a certain amount of energy has been expended, and distance exhausts the heart in galloping on account of the amount of work required from the heart; a horse may trot fifty miles who cannot gallop two; the reason being that in the trot his body is not entirely off the ground, in the gallop it is. It is the pace that tells.

There are many horses capable of carrying a huge weight at a great pace for a short distance, and yet they cannot carry a light weight for a long distance. Thus Woorak, as he got on in years, could carry weight-for-age for a mile, but we saw 9.12 send him into second place in the Doncaster; yet he ran away with the Oakleigh Plate, 5½ furlongs, with ten stone five in the saddle. What a heart the immortal Carbine must have had when he carried this very same weight to victory in his celebrated Melbourne Cup! Is it any wonder that Wallace and Trafalgar inherited great staying hearts?

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