1 64 RIDING 



The Nordenfelt yearlings fetched last year 4,415 guineas, an 

 average of 339^ each. The cost of running this establishment 

 is about 2oo/. a month, the staff consisting of a superintendent, 

 a groom and assistant to take charge of the stallions, one 

 groom to look after the brood mares, and one groom with an 

 assistant for the care of the yearlings. The company's estate 

 is laid out in grass paddocks, on which they maintain sixty brood 

 mares and five stallions, and dispose annually of from forty-five 

 or fifty yearlings. 



Some of the mares from which the company's stock are 

 bred were bought in 1880, at the break-up sale of the Middle 

 Park Stud Company, by Sir Hercules Robinson, a former 

 governor and part-owner of racehorses in New Zealand, and 

 others were purchased from Mr. G. G. Stead, one of the largest 

 individual importers of thoroughbred stock in the colonies. 



The company unfortunately got into difficulties, and it was 

 feared would have to be broken up. Colonel Carre, R. A. (who 

 has made a special study of horse-breeding in different parts of 

 Australia, to whom I am indebted for many valuable notes), 

 and a few other gentlemen now propose to raise the sum of 

 i5,ooo/. by the creation of 150 paid-up shares of TOO/, each. 

 The statement of expenditure and income appended to the 

 prospectus shows that last year there was a balance of 2,ooo/. 

 in favour of the latter item, and there seems a very reasonable 

 prospect of this sum being largely increased. The raising of 

 the i5,ooo/. necessary to take over the stud should not be a 

 work of very great trouble, and it is earnestly to be desired 

 that a breeding establishment which has been so successful and 

 situated in a climate so eminently suited to the raising of 

 thoroughbred stock may continue to maintain the reputation 

 which New Zealand has achieved in the racing annals of the 

 Pacific. 



The most successful stud on the neighbouring continent is 

 that of the recently deceased Mr. White, who, with a laudable 

 desire of trying whether any comparison could be formed 

 between English and Australian horses on a more trustworthy 



