DETERIORATION OF THE HORSE IN ENGLAND 31 



because the creature has been bred only as an article 

 to gamble with, and his useful qualities ignored. He 

 quotes ' Stonehenge ' as affirming that one chief 

 difficulty of the trainer now is to keep his horse 

 sound, and that, unfortunately, as disease was in most 

 cases hereditary, and too many unsound stallions 

 were bred from, the difficulty is yearly on the 

 increase ; and then he refers to ' roaring ' and 

 ' enlarged joints ' as being ' the rule instead of the 

 exception.' 



In another place he says that, in spite of the best 

 food and the sparing of no expense or labour, there 

 was no class of horses among which the mortality was 

 so high as it is among our thoroughbred stallions, and 

 the appalling proofs of this could be cited in abund- 

 ance. Note the word ' appalling.' This from Mr. 

 William Day, the great racing authority ! Why, if 

 you could make a hybrid between a racehorse and a 

 cow, things could not be very much worse than is 

 depicted by Mr. William Day, probably the greatest 

 racing trainer we ever had in England, and who is 

 often cited as proving the excellence of the English 

 thoroughbred. 



In another book, 'The Racehorse in Training,' 

 Mr. Day says that year after year trainers have sent 

 to them large, heavy-shouldered, slack-loined, little- 

 legged brutes that would fall over a straw. He 

 advises breeders to breed sound animals, instead of 

 breeding, as most do, from any crooked-legged, 

 deformed brutes, if only they have a brother's or 



