DETERIORATION OF THE HORSE IN ENGLAND 47 



He does not approve of sprinting. He describes 

 many, perhaps a majority of sprinters as high on the 

 leg, too short from shoulder to quarters, narrow, split- 

 up, and short of bone, which he naively enough says 

 are not the sort of horses to breed. He complains of 

 the breeding from roarers, and states that, though 

 a roarer may produce a great horse, he also sires 

 many worse roarers than himself, and he is inclined 

 to think that roaring is greatly on the increase. Of 

 course it must be if you breed from roarers ! 



He says that it is quite a common thing to see up 

 to half a dozen horses in one afternoon's steeple- 

 chasing with the tube after tracheotomy in their 

 throats. I had no idea when I began these papers 

 that things were as bad as that. He says that 

 stamina is greater in the Eastern horse than in the 

 breeds indigenous to any other country, and that the 

 thoroughbred, where he has stamina, gets this quality 

 from his Arab ancestor. 



On a deputation, March 8, 1904, to Lord Onslow, 

 President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 

 Lieutenant-General Sir John Freyer stated that, as a 

 purchaser of remounts for the army for many years, 

 he found that 80 per cent, of the horses presented 

 were unsound. That is a very recent authority for 

 deterioration in England. Will anybody dare say 

 that a similar percentage of English horses were 

 unsound fifty years ago, when the influence of the 

 Arab was more recent and direct ? Eighty per 

 cent. ! Are not those authorities justified whom I 



