The answer to these objections is that, just as a genius _sometimes_ comes 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 his _mother_: 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 their _hearts 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] Footnote 1: This was written in April, 1922.