78 THE HORSE. 
two or three hundred yards. Fashion, however, supported by the change in 
the agricultural management of the country, has brought the thoroughbred 
into general use ; and with a long list of more than a hundred packs of fox- 
hounds, each perhaps followed by, on the average, thirty reputed thorough: 
breds, more or less up to weight, we find 3,000 horses of this class to be 
supplied. Now the whole of the foals dropped in each year and recorded 
in the Stud-book do not altogether come up to one half of this number, 
and, deducting those horses which are unable to carry more than seven 
stone, the stallions and mares which are put to the stud here and abroad, 
and the unsound animals of both sexes, it is equally astonishing that the 
demand should be so well supplied as it is, and that there should be any 
horses able to stay a distance left. The owner of a horse will always do 
with him what he considers most to his own advantage, and, whereas 
formerly he had no choice but either to sell an aged horse as a hack, or to 
keep him in training, he now teaches him to get over a hurdle and a few 
fences, and he has a dozen customers ready for him at eight or ten times 
the old hack price. I do not for a moment contend that even the most 
valuable of these hunters are as sound on their legs as the average of race- 
horses fifty or a hundred years ago, but that they are as stout, I think, is 
quite clear, and the reason of their being more unsound is only that they 
are sooner used up. A railway locomotive will only travel a definite 
number of miles, varying in relation to the speed at which it is used, and 
if it is brought on to the rails before it is in perfect working order, it will 
very much sooner fail. So in the present day, from the facilities of 
travelling from place to place, and from the length of the racing season, 
our horses, when in training, have little or no rest, and thus, though 
their career is a short one, “the candle is burnt at both ends” while it is 
alight, and it is consumed in half the time. Look at the performances of 
Rataplan, Fisherman, and Thormanby, and compare them with the much- 
vaunted feats of the Carlisle Gelding in 1720 to 1731, and of Black 
Chance from 1736 to 1746. Even the still more celebrated Catherina, 
who ran 177 races in ten years, did not work half so hard on the race- 
course as Fisherman with his 120 races in five years. 
A hy Total Ye Left th 
cnet vane Races won. | Races lost. of aes ihe Turf, Turf 
| 
Carlisle Gelding . . 5 25 9 34 13 1731 
Arthur O’Bradly. . 5 15 10 25 4 1749 
Black Chance. . . 5 25 5 30 10 1746 
Euphrates, .. . 3 42 57 99 10 1828 
Independence. . . 2 40 44 84 10 1835 
Catherina . .. . 2 79 98 eley 10 1841 
Rataplan 42 29 71 4 1855 
Su 2 
Fisherman. . .. 2 70 50 120 5 1859 
still running and 
Thormanby .. . 9 6 15 very sound. | 
bo 
