46 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



depicted it, or even imagined, for he states tliat, out 

 of the enormous number of English thoroughbreds 

 foaled in 1900, only seven were good enough to go 

 to the post and oppose a French horse in the last 

 Derby, and the French horse beat six of them. 

 He denounces the modern Turf and breedinof as 

 ' hysterical money-juggling,' and he adds to the 

 hints that I hereafter respectfully vouchsafe to 

 Governor Sir George Clarke and others by the 

 severe sentence : ' The greater the names of those 

 who stand highest in the racing world, the deeper 

 is the scandal that they should leave untouched the 

 plague-spot which contaminates the whole.' 



The Australasian (January 30, 1904) quotes the 

 Field as stating that in sober truth the Turf, viewed 

 from the standpoint of its mission to improve the 

 breed of horses, does not advance, rather does it 

 retrograde, and that the winning of valuable handi- 

 caps is no criterion of blood, the bottom weight 

 being more likely than the top weight to win. That 

 means, of course, that the worst horse is more likely 

 to win than the best horse. Is that likely to 

 improve the breed ? 



There is a book, written in 1901, 'The English 

 Turf : a Record of Horses and Courses,' by Charles 

 Richardson. It is written in a very fair spirit, and I 

 should say likely to become a classic on the subject 

 which it deals with. What the writer does not 

 know on races and racehorses, and racecourses 

 and racing training, is evidently not worth knowing. 



