Stud Book of New South Wales: Pedigrees of Race Horses

The Stud book of New South Wales, Containing Pedigrees of Race Horses, andc., andc., andc. from the earliest arrivals in the colony to the present time.' Volumes 1, 2 and 3, 1859-73, compiled and edited by Price, Mostyn, Cox and Scarr. Varioushardcover bindings, vols 1 and 3 complete, vol.2 lacks introductory pages. Ferguson, 14383b (v.1), 12898a (v.2) and 8772a (v.3), Seventeen years after the AJC's call for a Stud Book, Fowler Boyd Price succeeded in publishing Volume 1 of the Stud Book of New South Wales in 1859, offered not as a universal stud book, nor perfectly free of error, but confident it contained the most concise and approved collection of authentic pedigree information. Price decided that, due to the paucity of records of imported horses and breeders' own records, the only broodmares he would allow in the book were those which were wholly thoroughbred. This meant many mares, bordering on being wholly thoroughbred, were omitted. Harry P Mostyn compiled and edited a second volume in 1868 which was published by Bell's Sporting Life, and in which he begged forgiveness for the delay and the number of errors caused by studmasters holding back information. The Agricultural Society of New South Wales published a third in 1873, compiled by Edward King Cox and John Agar Scarr. Both volumes suffered from the same fate as other colonial stud books: lack of co-operation and hostility. Cox, a principal of Fernhill Stud, and Scarr an AJC handicapper, took 'nothing on trust where it could be verified by search. The AJC, in 1860, established 1st August as the official birthdate of all horses born in Australia, to correct the climactic, breeding and pastoral imbalances caused by the Northern Hemisphere's 1st January birthday. [TBheritage.com].