DETERIORATION OF THE HORSE IN ENGLAND 29 



the carelessness with regard to brood mares and 

 stallions, the dearth of good stallions, and the con- 

 sequent improbability that the poor horse-breeders 

 could make use of a superior but expensive sire, and 

 the introduction generally of fashionable rather than 

 sound and useful blood. ' Fashionable blood !' 

 Hyde Park ! And he adds to these causes the pur- 

 chase of our best horses for foreign Governments, 

 whose agents were ever on the look-out for our best 

 horses, over the sale of which we had no control. 

 Plain common-sense men will do well to note the 

 word ' fashionable,' which means, of course, what the 

 fad of the day approves of. The fad of the day is 

 sprinting and tall, leggy animals for the parks. 

 Rudyard Kipling's ' flannelled fools ' of the wicket. 

 Captain Upton's ' dandies,' make the ' fashion,' partly 

 by the influence of the bookmaker and the trainer, 

 and partly because they think they show off better 

 on such creatures. Is it not time that the farmer, 

 the breeder for use, the War Office, and the gentle- 

 men of England, set their faces against such a 

 fashion ? 



Mr. Sydney Gal vayne, in his 'War- Horses, Pre- 

 sent and Future,' speaks of the English horse as 'a 

 pampered stock,' ' not the animal he is supposed to 

 be,' 'not in it for saddle purposes,' 'not having one 

 single recommendation '; and, as before mentioned, 

 of the Australian drafts to South Africa — of course, 

 descended from English horses — ' as a most wretched 

 lot.' 



