44 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



country [England] is overrun.' And he affirms that 

 'short races are doing incalculable harm to the breed- 

 ing of sound racehorses '; that ' the strenuous desire 

 to make the game pay overrides any laudable hope 

 that the highest and best attributes of our thorough- 

 breds may be solidly maintained.' 



February 9, 1904: 'Although there were plenty 

 of runners, they were of poor class ... a fair 

 sample of the everlasting crocks.' 



February 10, 1904: 'The quality of the com- 

 petitors was singularly bad, with few exceptions.' 



February 12, 1904: 'A very indifferent lot to beat.' 



February 13, 1904: 'None of those who ran 

 except two have been regarded seriously.' 



February 17, 1904: ' The business was singularly 

 tame, owing to the weakness of the fields. Not 

 even increase of stakes can provide a panacea for 

 the painful deficiency in workable material.' 



It is no answer to ' Hotspur's' observations to say 

 that there are some good horses. The merits of a 

 breed for use does not depend on the quality of the 

 few ; it depends on the general quality of the many, 

 of the breed as a whole, which, except as to the 

 very few, seems from the accounts of everyone to 

 be sadly wanting. 



I very much question whether, in all the books 

 that have ever been written about the horse, from the 

 Christian era down to date, you can find so many 

 contemptuous criticisms of the pure Arab as those 

 I have culled from ' Hotspur ' alone in a few short 



