By thoroughbred is meant a horse or mare whose pedigree is registered in the StudBook kept by Messrs Weatherby, the official agents of the Jockey Club - originally termed the keepers of the match-bookas well as publishers of the Racing Calendar.
The StudBook, although silent as to the date of his birth, says he was a common country stallion in Lincolnshire until Partner was six years old - and we know from the same authority that Partner was foaled in 1718; we may therefore conclude that Jigg was a later foal than Basto, who, according to Whyte's History of the Turf, was a brown horse foaled in 1703.
Snip too had a celebrated son called Snap (1750), and it is chiefly in the female line through the mares by these horses, of which there are fully thirty in the StudBook, that the blood of Flying Childers is handed down to us.
The first studbook for a wild animal in captivity was for the European bison.
The studbook keeper must then obtain information by asking every collection that has ever kept that species for their records.