NOTES 



ON 



BREEDING RACEHORSES. 



CHAPTER I. 

 GENEEAL OBSERVATIONS. 



THE principal requisite in a good racehorse is soundness, 

 again soundness, and nothing but soundness; and the object 

 of the thoroughbred is to imbue the limbs, the constitution, 

 and the nerves of the half-bred horse with that essential 

 quality, and thereby enhance its capabilities. 



The thoroughbred can, however, fulfil its mission only pro- 

 vided the yearly produce be continually subjected to severe 

 trials in public. The only appropriate test, proved by the 

 experience of two centuries, is the racecourse, although its 

 adversaries oppose it as too one-sided, and propose in its 

 stead others of more or less impracticability. The last strug- 

 gle for victory, in which culminates the exertion of the race, 

 results from the co-operation of the intellectual, the physical, 

 and the mechanical qualities of the horse, the development of 

 which combined power is higher and more reliable than any 

 that can be obtained in the same animal by other means. The 

 combination of those three qualities forms the value of the 

 horse destined for fast work : the mechanical, in respect to 

 the outward shape and construction ; the physical, as regards 

 the soundness and normal development of the digestive organs 

 and motive power ; the intellectual, or the will and the energy 

 to put the other two into motion and persevere to the utmost. 

 The attained speed is not the aim, but only the gauge, of the 

 performance. 



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