DETERIORATION OF THE AUSTRALIAN HORSE 15 



eight hours. Horses had better stamina then. Mr. 

 Fisher's opinion is of the greatest weight on this 

 point, as he has been all his life more or less 

 connected with racehorses, breeding and racing 

 racehorses, and his natural prejudice would there- 

 fore seem to be in favour of the thoroughbred and 

 his present breeding. 



My father in the early fifties, living at Sarnia, 

 five to six miles south of Adelaide, used frequently 

 to visit my sister living at Manoora, seventy-five 

 miles north of Adelaide, always doing the journey 

 each way in one day — eighty miles — and thought 

 nothing special of it. As Mr. Fisher says, you don't 

 get horses to do that now. 



Mr. J. M. Borrow, a very old colonist of this State, 

 hearing that I was contemplating an article on the 

 subject, writes me to the same effect as Mr. Fisher's 

 statement, and says that Mr. H. S. Price, a former 

 owner of Canowie, used often to ride a horse which 

 he had, with Arab blood in him, from Canowie to 

 Adelaide, a distance of 130 miles, within the twenty- 

 four hours, and offers to furnish other instances of 

 similar staying-power of the old semi-Arab stock- 

 horse. 



In the sixties I rode a pony, half Arab, half Timor, 

 belonging to my sister, from Netley to Ketchowla, 

 eighty miles. I went through the Bush, there being 

 no track, which made the distance greater, between 

 8 a.m. and 1 1 p.m. The gallant little beast could 

 have gone on for half as far again with comfort. 



