CAUSE OF DETERIORATION 6i 



Mr. W. H. Lang says that it is evident that 

 horse-racing is not improving our breed ; that two 

 years ago he wrote to that effect, and that things are 

 quite as bad now, or a good deal worse, because we 

 do not hesitate to breed from hereditary non-stayers, 

 sires and dams, 



Mr. Adye advises his readers not to breed costly 

 exotics, and says that breeding for size results in a 

 huge overgrown brute, soft and clumsy as a rule, 

 and nearly always deficient in quality and character. 



Mr. J. I. Lupton, F.R.C.V.S., in his book on the 

 horse ( 1 88 1 ), says that the cause of deterioration is 

 racing, that it causes deficient stamina, militates 

 against producing stout stallions, and that it is 

 strange that English intellect should be absorbed 

 in breeding such horses. He states that nineteen 

 out of every twenty colts are unable to withstand 

 the ordeal of training. 



Sir George Chetwynd, in his racing reminiscences, 

 says that the enormous number of two-year-old 

 stakes has to answer for sad deterioration, and year 

 after year foreigners come over and buy our 

 soundest horses for stallions and our best mares for 

 brood mares to an extent which is positively dis- 

 tressing. Mr. Day writes that out of forty-six 

 runners only six carried 8 stone 7 pounds or over, 

 while forty carried less weights down to 5 stone 

 7 pounds. But disheartening as such a discovery is, 

 it is positively pleasurable, he says, when contrasted 

 with Newmarket, where in three handicaps, out of 



