58 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



his life that the thoroughbred is perfection, when he 

 will not give two or three pounds for a useful sire. 



The disease has taken root in Canada, where it 

 is said that, instead of encouraging and patronizing 

 the best sires, they prefer to use any kind of a brute 

 at half-price — the old story, penny-wise and pound- 

 foolish. 



Mr. C. B. Fisher tells us Australians that the 

 intention of racing was to improve the breed of 

 horses, but that that certainly is not the case now, as 

 sprinting horses lack stamina. I do not think that 

 that was the intention of racing. The intention 

 was to have some sport. But if it really were the 

 intention, it sadly fails of being carried into effect, 

 yet when a clergyman denounces racing as leading 

 to gambling, he is told, ' Oh, but racing is necessary 

 to improve the breed of horses,' and people pretend 

 to believe it. They actually did believe it thirty 

 years ago. But nobody believes it now. Everyone 

 knows to the contrar}^ Mr. Fred Adye, in his 

 book on horse-breeding (1903), says that while he 

 believes there was an honest desire to improve the 

 breed by those who first introduced racing, ' yet 

 that any such commendable motive animates and 

 inspires any considerable portion of it, and parti- 

 cularly the ignoble army of welshers, gulls, loafers, 

 and tipsters, who frequent every racecourse in the 

 kingdom, is manifestly incredible.' How many 

 thousands of the best men of England were killed 

 or wounded by the breakdown of weedy horse-flesh 



