up with the thoroughbred breeders, for in this question breeders of heavy stock do not 

 count. If the general public or the farming breeders should ever happen to think 

 at all about the subject, they think as they have been educated from their youth up, 

 having been taught to believe that the thoroughbred is the final outcome of every- 

 thing that is wonderful in living matter. Beyond that they do not think, because 

 most of them have no interest in thinking, and they have never heard anything to 

 the contrary to make them think. It is therefore no wonder that very little had been 

 heard about the Arab in Australia, the Arab thoroughbred — for thoroughbred he is, 

 and he only — the wonder would be to have heard much. 



"It has often been said 'the British public is a fool. Thirty-nine millions, 

 mostly fools.' I do not say it. I deny it. The saying is only a popular way of 

 putting the advice of the Times in favor of much advertising. But when every- 

 body tells the British public to fall down and worship the English thoroughbred, 

 forthwith it does — at least it does so in Australia. Why not? Nobody says anything 

 to the contrary. It does not much concern the public, so it has no call to think. 

 Perhaps, however, some of my Australian fellow colonists who are breeders of or- 

 dinary horses for useful purposes, and who may read this little book, may deem it 

 worth while to indulge in a thought or two. If they do, they will have plenty of 

 material gathered in from many of the greatest men of the world. 



"I may for convenience's sake mention what I propose to show, viz : 



"i. The general — indeed almost universal^deterioration of thoroughbred 

 horses both in England and Australia, and if in England necessarily in Australia, 

 because the most of the best sires here have come from England. 



"2. That the cause of the deterioration is chiefly the breeding for short-race 

 gambling. 



"3. That the root of the English thoroughbred and all that is good in him is 

 Arab. 



"4. The excellence of the Arab, and that he has not deteriorated. 



"5. That the most certain mode of recuperating the breed of saddle and buggy 

 horses, and even of the thoroughbred himself, as a real race horse, would be the 

 infusion of a large amount of pure and fresh Arab blood of the desert breed. 



"Notwithstanding the affected and adventitious worship of the English thor- 

 oughbred — it has almost become a religion — there is at bottom a nearly uni- 

 versal consensus of opinion as to his sad deterioration, and as to the 

 cause of his deterioration. The opinion of one or two gentlemen might 

 not be accepted, but on these points it is nearly everybody's opinion. The 

 most sanguine and fanatic thoroughbred supporters hardly venture to affirm 

 the contrary. I can hardly find a single man who does. They will tell you that 

 the best horses are as good as ever, which I doubt. They may be as fast for short 

 distances; the very statement that the best horses are as good as ever is pregnant 

 with the admission that the general run is deteriorated, and that the breed, as a breed, 

 is being ruined. And in the face of such opinions as I shall quote it would be foolish 

 for the general horse breeder to be further carried away by the 'thoroughbred cult' 

 without making inquiry. The authorities I shall cite on this are irrefragible, and if 

 there were any who pretended that the thoroughbred had not deteriorated before 

 the Transvaal war, they have had to admit since that war that they were wrong. 

 The Boers, mounted on their Arab ponies, laughed at the pick of our English and 

 Australian horses and literally ran rings around them. I have two sons who, with my 

 consent, threw up their situations in my State to help the Empire, and joined Austral- 

 ian contingents to fight the Boers, so I claim to have something rather more than 

 mere book-learning. Viva voce information giving the practical experience of prac- 

 tical soldiers who have fought hard is, I take it, somewhat more than book-learning. 



"So long ago as 1874, Mr. DeVere Hunt, in his book, 'England's Horses in 

 Peace and War,' wrote that England stood in great danger of really losing the horse 



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