DETERIORATION OF THE HORSE IN ENGLAND 33 



breds for 1897 the four-figured yearlings were only 

 twenty-four in number, and fetched 25,950 guineas, 

 whereas in 1896 thirty-two yielded 51,250 guineas, 

 and he regretfully adds that the almost unbroken 

 failure of these expensive colts and fillies is evidently 

 making itself felt. Persimmon ! the great horse of 

 His Most Gracious Majesty the King ! This is 

 trumpet-tongued, not only because of the means of 

 knowledge and the sources of information at the 

 command of His Majesty, but because we may be 

 perfectly sure that his popularity and the loyalty and 

 admiration felt for him would make everyone in any 

 way concerned with his horses extremely anxious to 

 do the very utmost that could possibly be done to 

 give him satisfaction and to avoid allowing him to 

 become possessed of an inferior animal. And Mr. 

 Charles Richardson says in his book on the Turf that 

 Persimmon was fairly entitled to be called the best 

 horse of his year ! 



If this is found to be the case with the very pick 

 of the picked stock of England ('the ;^i,ooo 

 yearlings '), what is to be thought of the ruck ? 

 Sir George Chetwynd, in his racing reminiscences, 

 says that there are hundreds of five- furlong and six-fur- 

 long sprinters, but the real stayers you could almost 

 count on your fingers, and that even then it was a 

 pitiable sight to see the way some of the men are 

 mounted in our first-class cavalry regiments. This 

 was years before the Boer War. Again I ask. Is it 

 a wonder that the Boers laughed at us ? Is it not 



