At twelve shows of the Highland and Agricultural Society held since the Londonderry Stud was broken up in 1899, a hundred and sixteen first and second prizes have been awarded in Shetland pony classes. Of these, a hundred and fourteen have been gained by the progeny of sires actually in use in the Londonderry Stud: Laird of Noss, Lord of the Isles, Odin, Oman, and Thor; and of their sons and grandsons. Laird of Noss, his sons Harold (117), Duncan (147), and Hector (183), and his grandson Merry Hero (244), sired fifteen; Lord of the Isles, his sons Multum in Parvo (28), Sigurd (103), Vespa (166), and Naughty (204), and his grandson Rattler (210), twenty-one; Odin, his sons Olaf (59), Bonaparte (168), Uniacke (177), Palmer (228), Besieger (235), Diamond (257), and Peace (325), and his grandsons Monkshood (274) and Norman (276), twenty-eight; Oman, his sons Frederick (223) and Seaweed (333), and his grandson Glencairn (314), twenty-five; while Thor was himself sire of twenty-five; and it is noteworthy that the winner of the two distinctions not gained by the offspring of Londonderry sires was bred from a dam inbred to Jack’s grandson Multum in Parvo. Taken as a whole, this practically exclusive domination of the showyard, for twelve years, by twenty-six sires of Londonderry origin, of which three are sons and fifteen are grandsons of Jack, while the remaining eight are descended from him, and all of them without exception are otherwise closely related to his stock, is a remarkable demonstration of the influence of a single stud and a single horse upon the breed as we have it to-day. [Illustration: ODIN (32.)] Of Jack’s parentage nothing is known. It is probable, however, that he was himself an inbred animal; for close inbreeding is still, and always has been, the general practice among pony breeders in Shetland, probably rather through necessity or carelessness than as the result of deliberate intention; and Jack’s prepotency as a sire lends colour to this supposition. He was a black, 40 inches high, and the only portrait of him which we possess shows him to have been a short-backed and close-coupled horse of remarkable bone and substance, finely proportioned, and with a bold and upright carriage. He must have had a sound and vigorous constitution, since he lived to the age of thirty, and was at stud to the end of his life. His most famous son, Odin, also a black horse, was 38 inches high. Odin’s dam, Nugget, was sired by Tom Thumb (44), whose height is stated as 34 inches, and who was brought back from work in the pits in 1879 with the view of producing ponies of small size.