Cross-Breeding in Horses. 155 



those who can recognise at a glance a Derby favourite, or the 

 winner of the St. Leger ? 



The term stoutness in racing phraseology means endurance 

 connected with speed ; it has nothing to do with size and weight, 

 as a tyro might suppose : a great horse is often speedy but a 

 craven at heart, whilst most of the stoutest race-horses of the last 

 century were little more than galloways in size, and such too are 

 the untiring Arabs of the Desert. No judge, therefore, can tell 

 a stout horse by his appearance — it is necessary to know his 

 performances before this can be determined ; for, however perfect 

 the symmetry and powerful the frame, if he is only good for a 

 mile he is not stout. 



The improvement effected in the size and probably in the 

 speed of the thorough-bred horse is no doubt very great, and 

 every year produces some wonderful examples of first-class 

 winners ; yet I will venture to say that nowhere else through- 

 out Nature where the same care and vigilance is bestowed on 

 the rearing of animals, are the blanks so many and the prizes 

 so few. To justify this perhaps startling assertion, let us 

 endeavour to trace the career of the, say, fifteen hundred or 

 more thorough-bred foals which are annually dropped. These 

 foals are reared from mares of undeniable pedigree, and for the 

 most part of good size, very many among them being winners. 

 The majority are begotten by first-class horses, who have either 

 been great winners themselves or have beat great winners before 

 they have themselves broken down, or, better still, have proved 

 themselves the sires of great winners as well as winners them- 

 selves. Both care and expense are lavishly bestowed on the 

 fifty or sixty sires, the two thousand brood-mares, and also on 

 the foals themselves as soon as they are dropped. The dam's 

 milk is sustained with the most nutritious food, and the foal 

 is fed with the best as soon as it can masticate. It is an 

 error to suppose that either the mare or the foal is pampered 

 or enervated by undue care ; the well-kept paddock affords every 

 facility for taking exercise, and those who have witnessed the 

 sprightly and incessant gambols of the young animal will 

 acknowledge that the muscles and sinews of the thorough-bred 

 foal are called into play much more than those of the cart-horse. 

 Yet, with all this care, what becomes of these costly toys ? The 

 greater number go into training at two years old or earlier, no 

 small percentage having previously disappeared from disease 

 or accident, and very many succumb to the numerous mala- 

 dies and mishaps that occur in the training-stable. After this 

 ordeal the trials begin ; and then some are condemned as too 

 slow and others as too small, some are mercifully shot out of 

 the way, others submitted to the auctioneer's hammer, and many 



