CAVALEY HORSES. 171 



and a series of experiments has demonstrated that the blood horse will stand 

 up under a load that no mongrel animal can bear. This is probably the result 

 of superior courage, no doubt, but also of superior strength. It is a note- 

 worthy fact that the bones of the thorough-bred are of the finest possible tex- 

 ture, and actually weigh more ban those of the mongrel cart-horse, though 

 much smaller. The bones of the latter are honey-combed in structure, while 

 those of the former are hard, closed-grained, and almost like ivory. 



In England, while from twenty-two to twenty-five hundred blood horses are 

 produced each year, the really i-cmarkable ones are exceedingly rare. Four or 

 five extraordinary racers may be considered the annual maximum ; and the 

 number of stallions that throw first-class colts possessing the qualities of the 

 sire is far smaller, only one appearing in three or four years ; this with all the 

 encouragement and _ testing that the turf can give in a country where it is a 

 time-honored and royally-patronized institution. What, then, would be the 

 efiect if racing were to be discontinued ? None could know which sires and 

 dams nicked, or which got the fastest foals. Animals with like infirmities would 

 be bred together, and the infirm colts thus produced would be in-bred again 

 until there Avould be no sound horses left to breed from, and a mongrel sort of 

 mustang would take the place ot the noble animals that now flash down the 

 English course, the delight of the sovereign and the pride of the nation. How 

 could we have known that such a famous stallion as Glencoe Avould have added 

 so many splendid brood mares to the stock of America, had it not been for the 

 race ? How else could we have foreseen that Lexington would have given an 

 Idlewild, a Lightning, or a Thunder 1 Who could have divined that Stock- 

 well would have produced such colts as St. Albans and Kettledrum ; or, that 

 Melbourne, a singularly coarse, common-looking stallion, would produce foals 

 like West Australian the best racer of fifty years — -Blink Bonny, and Thor- 

 manby ; or, that Touchstone — of whom all the connoisseurs cried, on seemg him 

 stripped for the race, " Bah, he's a butcher's hack" — would turn out the greatest 

 producer of modern days? 



But while the importance of the race, as a test of purity of blood and breed, 

 cannot be overestimated, the race itself may be abused in the case of mares des- 

 tined for breeding purposes. It has been observed that many of the best racing 

 mares on record, after retiring from the course they had honored by scores of 

 noble contests, have failed to reproduce their brilliant qualities in their offspring. 

 Their nervous energies and vit.ality had been expended in the labor of training 

 and the excitement of the race. Breeders should make a note of this truth, in 

 selecting brood mares, and choose those whose exploits are few but wonderful, 

 and whose constitutions have not been impaired by age and over-exertion, rather 

 than the veteran winners of a hundred prizes. The melancholy example of 

 Black Maria, Trifle, Fashion, Peytona, and hosts of others, should be a R'arning 

 to those who fiincy that a mare can be run imtil she is entirely exhausted and 

 grown old, and then put to breeding. Like all other rules this has its excep- 

 tions, but they are rare. 



Another widely prevailing error among breeders is, that after having brought 

 the stock up to a given degree of purity, it is no longer necessary to employ 

 genuine thorough-breds. They seem to imagine that their three-quarters or 

 seven-eighths bred animals, breeding together, will get thorough-bred foals. 

 Would a generation of mulattoes or quadroons, intermarrying continually, pro- 

 duce white children ? The fact is, that constant infusions of the purest blood 

 are necessary, not only to improve all stock, human and equine, but to keep it 

 up to its standard. The service of a thorough-bred cannot be dispensed With 

 for any length of time, or degeneration must surely follow. If we arrive at a 

 desirable point of excellence for saddle horses for cavalry and other uses, it will 

 not do to rest there and breed solely from them. The " sang pur" must be im- 

 mingled frequently in order to keep the race from deterioration, and so improve 



