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men out of their money : among the re^st, a young gentleman, a parti- 

 cular friend of mine, although he was under very able tuition. Dam- 

 per giving Humbug eleven pounds, two-mile heats, five to four on 

 Damjjer, and four to one against Humbug, seemed to me a curious 

 rate of betting. 



The performances of individual racers will demonstrate, that the 

 character of the English Race-horse had attained, perhaps its utmost 

 perfection, nearly a century since, and that modern superiority consists 

 in that perfection being more generally diffused, as the breed has in- 

 creased. A retrospect too seems to evince great superiority in the fo- 

 reign Horses of former times, many of the best racers in these days, 

 being the immediate descendants, on both sides, of Arabs, Barbs, or 

 Turks, or their sires and dams ; such an advantage from imported stock 

 is unknown in later times. In all our old pedigrees, the Arab, Barb, 

 and Turk, seem pretty equally mixed. 



The training, or preparatory labour of the modern Race-horse, is cer- 

 tainly far more favourable than the training of old times ; the racin-j- 

 weights carried on niany occasions lighter, and long distances not so 

 frequent; but Horses now run much oftener, from the vast increase of 

 plates, and of the general business of the turf, and they are, besides, put 

 to work, and to earn their subsistence, much earlier than many of the 

 old racers, which did not start in public until five, and even six years old, 

 to which favourable circumstance, no doubt, the great superiority of 

 some, is in part to be attributed. I have already pointed out a case, 

 in which such delay may be advantageous, and perhaps, on reflection, 

 the plan would admit of some extension. 



Bay Bolton was five years old when he first started. Brockelsby 

 Betty, rising five. Bonny Black, rising four. Buckhunter, the famous 

 Carlisle gelding, and the toughest Horse for work, of which we have 

 any record, was six years old off, before he started for the Gold Cup, his 

 first race. It was the same with great numbers, until we reach the 

 da3^s of Eclipse. That he did not appear in public, until five years old, 

 was probably owing to his being amiss, or to some cause which had no 

 relation to the preservation of his strength. 



The earliest racer of very high eminence for performance:, of \^hicb 



we 



