PREFACE XV 



we might regard this deterioration with less concern ; 

 but, as everyone knows, the thoroughbred horse is 

 used to ' improve ' our hunters and saddle-horses. 



Time was when the thoroughbred could do this : 

 in the days when the racehorse ran four-mile heats 

 under 1 1 or 12 stone, and ran such heats twice or 

 three times on the same day ; when, in a word, his 

 Arab character had not been bred out of him to 

 develop higher speed, he was admirably qualified to 

 get hunters that would gallop and stay, saddle- 

 horses that would carry weight, and troop-horses 

 that could endure the hardships of campaigning on 

 scanty fare. The misfortune is that the deserved 

 reputation of the old-time thoroughbred has de- 

 scended to the modern thoroughbred, which is a 

 very different animal in size, make, shape, stamina, 

 and constitution. 



It is unreasonable to expect a horse which for a 

 generation has been bred to gallop short distances 

 at high speed to beget a horse that shall go all day 

 under a heavy weight, at all paces, as the exigences 

 of the chase may require. We have only to com- 

 pare the make and shape of the typical modern race- 

 horse with those of the heavy-weight hunter to see 

 how impossible it is that he should do so. 



To obtain improvement in all the best qualities 

 of the horse — soundness, stamina, endurance, and 

 docility — we cannot do better than revert to the 

 pure Arab, which continues unspoiled by artificial 

 treatment. 



