BRITISH TURF. 135 



system, no sooner have they won, or even run well 

 for any of our great three year old stakes, than 

 they are put into the stud (frequently broken down) 

 to breed racing stock, which is necessarily defec- 

 tive, and which in turn undergoes the same disad- 

 vantageous system. 



But, how^ever, the British race horse of the pre- 

 sent day may suffer in comparison with the racers 

 of the past century, they nevertheless maintain a 

 proud superiority over every other breed in the 

 world. We are impelled to make this observation, 

 and to adduce the fact which we shall give in evi- 

 dence of its truth, from having frequently of late ob- 

 served with surprise in several of our leading me- 

 tropolitan dailyjournals, paragraphs copied from the 

 German papers, and professing to give accounts of 

 races in Russia. According to these statements not 

 only are the Cossack horses made to equal our pre^ 

 sent highest bred and carefully trained race horses, 

 but without regard to either due preparation or 

 weight, are stated to run distances in periods that 

 out herod Herod, and eclipse Eclipse. With these 

 veracious scribes a mile in a minute is about che per- 

 formance of the last horse ; as for the winner the 

 pen of a Gulliver or a Munchausen is required to 

 portray his speed and power of endurance. Now 

 what is the real fact, is sufficiently shown in the 

 following trial between the rival breeds. On the 

 4th of August, 1825, two second rate English 



