210 RIDING 



of money and labour. The materials are to hand ; it is but a 

 question of what the marketable article will bring to determine 

 how much shall be spent on its production. The racehorse, 

 upon the breeding and preparation of which expense is not 

 spared, strikes a new-comer from England as equal in con- 

 dition, and generally larger in frame, than those he left on the 

 racecourses of Newmarket, Epsom, and Ascot, while he is 

 impressed with the higher trial to which they are subjected in 

 running long distances at an early age, and in travelling over 

 steeplechase courses where the manufactured fences are more 

 formidable than those provided in England. 



In the hunting-field he finds that the barbed wire and split 

 logs compel horses to jump bolder and bigger than at home, 

 while he is struck by the number and class of the population 

 who never think of going out except on horseback. He 

 misses only in the capitals of Australia the smart pairs of stepping 

 carriage-horses, to which his eye is accustomed in Piccadilly, 

 the Champs Elysees, and the Prater ; but, on the other hand, he 

 remarks how general is the average excellence of the horses in 

 hansom cabs and public conveyances. 



The conclusion which he must inevitably arrive at is that 

 the Australian soil and climate are capable of producing from 

 the parent stock any class of horse, for which such a demand 

 may exist as will make its production and preparation for market 

 a remunerative undertaking. 



