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Regulations were made to adapt and compel Horse-breeding, upon 

 a scale of rank and circumstances. Every Archbishop and Duke was 

 obliged, under certain penalties, to keep seven trotting stone-horses 

 lor the saddle, each to be fourteen hands high, at the age of three 

 years. A graduated scale was set forth for other ranks, downwards, 

 with very minute directions; among which we fmd, that each person 

 having benefices to the amount of one hundred pounds yearly, or a 

 layman, whose wife shall wear any French hood, or velvet bonnet, are 

 obliged, under the penalty of twenty pounds, to keep one ' trottyngc 

 stone-horse,' of the stated size, for the saddle. All persons who had 

 j)arks, or proper enclosures, were directed to keep at least two brood- 

 mares. The fostering and scrutinizing care of this Horse-breeding 

 Parliament, extended even to the bread the animals ate, concerning 

 which certain regulations were made. In those days, instead of raw oats. 

 Horses were fed on baked bread, and pease were much used ; a custom 

 which continued in the running stables, I believe, until the reign of 

 George I. 



By these powerful recommendations of the trotting Horse, it would 

 seem, that the fashion of pacing was on the wane, and the regulations 

 being carried into effect with great diligence, the consequence was a 

 universal improvement, in the size at least, of the native stock, and a 

 proportionate decrease of the breed of the hobbies, particularly in the 

 principality of Wales, which had, until that period, bred scarcely any 

 other species; and of the gonellies (hobbies) of Cornwall. The act 

 Avhich enforced the above regulations, was, however, partially repealed 

 in the eighth year of Elizabeth, as far as respected Cambridgeshire 

 and the fen counties, on their representation that their land, from its 

 moisture and Avant of firmness, Avas unable to carry stock of such 

 weight: and afterwards totally, in the twenty-first of James I. 



Previously to the above regulations, Avhich, from their effects, Ave are 

 compelled to style salutary, it had been the general usage of the coun- 

 try, to sufier their ordinary herds of Horses, to run promiscuously, 

 stallions and mares together, and a comparatively Avorthless, ill-shaped 

 race of mongrels, Avas the natural result. This absence of all care 



or 



