DETERIORATION OF THE AUSTRALIAN HORSE 17 



they did not recall the difference between the old 

 times and now: that it required more than speedy 

 weeds to win the events of those days. The infer- 

 ence is, of course, plain, that now the winners are 

 merely speedy weeds. 



The Leader, a great Victorian weekly (October 6, 

 1890), points out that the Auckland Association, a 

 New Zealand Society, submitted to the Minister 

 two chief causes for the preponderance of unsuit- 

 able animals, one cause being unfit stallions ; and a 

 letter-writer in that same paper verifies the state- 

 ment that there is a lamentable want of good 

 stallions ; yet the New Zealand horses are said to 

 be better than the Australian horses. The stallions 

 are unfit because their best qualities have been bred 

 out of them in favour of sprinting. 



' Carbine,' writing in the Queenslander, the great 

 country paper of Queensland (April 25, 1891), 

 where large numbers of horses are bred, says that it 

 is admitted on all sides that of late years stayers 

 have been exceedingly scarce in England, putting' 

 short-distance races as the cause, and stating that 

 in Australia we are following the bad example. But 

 even without breeding for short-distance racing 

 here, it would follow that if we get all our best 

 blood from England, and that is bad, we can expect 

 nothing else but bad here. If the best blood which 

 Australia can get from England cannot stay, and if 

 Australia breed from that, so as to be able to sprint, 

 how can Australia expect to get her horse-flesh to stay.'* 



2 



