POINTS OF THE THOROUGHBRED 403 



by preventing the forehand going down at each stride, aids in 

 obtaining the much admired ' level' action in the race-horse." 

 The advantages of a lightly built forehand and absence of 

 superfluous weight, provided there is sufficient strength in 

 each part to fulfil its own proper functions, are equally 

 conspicuous in horses that have to raise their bodies on their 

 hind quarters to jump. Hayes puts the limit of height for 

 heavy cart-horses at 17.2 hands, and for racers at 16.3 hands. 

 Lower heights, that it is well not to exceed, were also stated, 

 in spite of the admitted fact that " a good big one will beat 

 a good little one." Without taking notice of the value of the 

 appearance of such animals as Sir Walter Gilbey's i/-hand 

 hackney-bred carriage-horses shown in Plates CX. and CXI., 

 Hayes goes on to say : " It is no advantage for a racer, 

 chaser, hunter, hack, or light trapper to be more than 

 15.3 hands, an Arab 14.2 hands, or a heavy cart-horse to 

 be higher than 16.3 hands. . . . The average English horse 

 is at the present day probably 6 inches taller than he was 

 two hundred years ago," and the horses in England have 

 increased about 2 inches in height since the middle of last 

 century. (See Appendix M.) 



Points of the Thoroughbred. 



The following are a few well-known and generally accepted 

 jumping records: Howard Willets' American hunter 

 " Heather-bloom " made three record high jumps that still 

 hold the field. At a Chicago show he cleared a solid wooden 

 rail fence 7 feet 4^ inches high, but mended this record first 

 to 7 feet 8 inches, and in the end to 8 feet i inch. Major 

 Peel's " Chandler " is said to have made the long jump record 

 of over 38 feet at Warwick in the seventies of last century, 

 beating the record of 37 feet 5 inches over a marl pit made in 

 1857 by Lord Ingestre's "Leather," with the Patchley Park 

 hounds, and another record of 36 feet, over water with a stiff 

 hedge on the take-off side, made by " Emblem " in 1863, in the 

 Birmingham Steeplechase at Sutton Coldfield. " In the 

 Curraghmore Plate Race (1880), ' Woodbrook,' bred by the 

 late Marquis of Waterford, cleared 35 feet over the post and 

 rail and bush fences " ; and on " Poulaphonca," a Grand 

 National winner, the Marquis, riding 18 stones, cleared 26 feet 

 with the Quorn Hounds on Ragdale Bottom. 



