I have heard many track veterinarians lament that “we are breeding the legs and feet right off these horses.” I submit that 90 percent of performance-enhancing drug use at the racetrack would disappear if 2-year-olds could not race.

given to opening the Thoroughbred stud book. It is notable that many of the horses who have won the Italian Gran Premio Merano and the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris have not, strictly speaking, been purebreds; they have ancestors, generally on the distaff side of the pedigree, whose ancestry cannot be fully verified. They are classified as “autre que de pur sang” or AQPS. Their inclusion in this division of Thoroughbred sport is analogous on the one hand to the highly valuable American champion Lexington, whose female ancestry is partly unknown and whose progeny are therefore not registrable by the British Jockey Club. AQPS parallels the “appendix” concept in Quarter Horse breeding, whereby Thoroughbreds can earn their way to full Quarter Horse registration by