The General Stud Book

The General Stud Book is a breed registry for horses in Great Britain and Ireland. More specifically, it documents the breeding of Thoroughbreds and related foundation bloodstock such as the Arabian horse. Today, it is published every four years by Weatherby's.

John Cheny of Arundel in 1726 had announced his intention to publish annually for seven years a list of all races. The first volume appeared in 1727 with the title "An Historical list of all Horse-Matches Run, and of all Plates and Prizes Run for in England (of the value of Ten Pounds or upwards). 

In his preface, he tells us that he 'travelled the Kingdom over, contracting a correspondence in every part wit persons who, at the very time of the sport, are to take accounts for me where I do not appear.' He included in his books a large number of pedigrees directly and to identify individual horses competing in races. In 1739, he was commanded by the King's Master of the Horse, Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, to publish revised rules for the running of King's Plates. In 1741, he conceived a plan for taking the pedigrees out of his Calendars and putting them in a separate stud book, but he had not done this by the time he died in 1750.

Reginald Heber, in his Racing Calendar for 1756, explored the idea of a stud book and even created a template to guide its compilation.

Despite the obvious merits of this suggestion, no further progress was made until 1786, when the turf historian William Pick published his 'Authentic Historical Racing Calendar,' which gave records of races run in Yorkshire from 1709 to 1785 and contained pedigrees and performances for the leading stallions.

James Weatherby had served the Jockey Club as 'Keeper of the Match-book at Newmarket' since 1770 and the proprietor of the only racing calendar then in publication. In 1791, he promoted the publication of The General Stud Book, a definitive record of the pedigrees of approximately 400 horses, which were seen as the foundation for all thoroughbred stock worldwide.

Weatherby published 'Introduction to a General Stud Book' in the same year. For pre-1750 pedigrees, he relied heavily on publications by Cheny, Heber, and Pick, old sales catalogues, and his own private enquiries.

The 'Introduction to a General Stud Book' was filled with errors and was not at all complete, but it was popular and led in 1793 to the first volume of the General Stud Book, which had many more pedigrees and was more accurate. Volume one was revised many times, the most important being in 1803, 1808, 1827, 1859 and 1891.

Since then, the General Stud Book has been owned and maintained by the business James Weatherby and his brother created.