THE COLONIAL HORSE 183 



the contribution which Australia makes to our Indian horse 

 supply, and of these by far the largest number is shipped from 

 Victoria (in 1888, 4,300) ; but as the principal horse-shipping 

 business is in the hands of a Victorian firm, there is reason to 

 believe that a good proportion of these are bred across the 

 border of New South Wales. 



Five or six hundred horses go from New Zealand annually. 



Speaking at a meeting of the Agricultural Society of 

 New South Wales in 1873, Sir Hercules Robinson, then 

 governor of the colony, and no mean judge of horseflesh, to 

 whose services to the New Zealand turf I have alluded, said : 



The racehorse of the colony struck him, when he came here, as 

 being very deficient both in size and power ; but on looking into 

 the question he found that as regarded speed, steadiness, and 

 capacity for running distance and carrying weight, they would 

 compare favourably with the best class of English racehorses. The 

 mean average speed of the English Derby up to 1862 was, he found, 

 2 minutes and 53^ seconds, while that of the Sydney Derby was 

 2 minutes and 48 seconds, and here the horses carried 5 Ibs. more 

 than they did in England. Since 1862, the weights have been re- 

 vised, and, like the distances, were the same in each case. The 

 mean speed also was exactly the same namely, 2 minutes and 48 

 seconds. But there was this difference, that the Sydney horses, 

 though legally three years old, were in fact not more than two years 

 and nine or ten months when they ran for the Derby, whereas the 

 English horses were generally three years and four months old. 

 The comparison was thus greatly to the advantage of the colonial 

 thoroughbred ; and if it were necessary to add any further criterion 

 he might take the last race between Reprieve and Dagworth, when 

 the distance of three miles was run in 5 minutes and 57^ seconds, 

 the race resulting in a dead heat. The deciding heat was then run 

 in 5 minutes 56 seconds, or i second less an example of strength, 

 speed, and endurance of which he scarcely remembered to have 

 known a parallel. 



The only animals which they were deficient in were those which 

 he might style fancy animals horses which were produced under 

 exceptional conditions and at a very considerable cost, and of 

 which the demand, at all events at remunerative prices, was, he 

 believed, extremely limited. The animals which he referred to were 



