The General Stud Book

The General Stud Book is a breed registry for horses in Great Britain and Ireland. It documents the breeding of Thoroughbreds and related foundation bloodstock, such as oriental horses (which modern DNA studies have shown are erroneously described as Arabian. Today, Weatherby's publishes it every four years.

John Cheny of Arundel announced in 1726 his intention to publish a list of all races annually for seven years. 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 says 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 to identify individual horses competing in races. In 1739, the King's Master of the Horse, Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, commanded him to publish revised rules for the running of King's Plates. In 1741, he conceived a plan to take the pedigrees out of his Calendars and put them in a separate stud book, but he had not done so 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 turf historian William Pick published his 'Authentic Historical Racing Calendar,' which recorded races run in Yorkshire from 1709 to 1785 and included 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 was 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 full of errors and far from 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, most notably in 1803, 1808, 1827, 1859, and 1891.

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