8 NOTES ON BREEDING RACEHORSES. 



The grand ideal principle which places this test so incom- 

 parably higher than any other based upon the individual 

 opinion of one or more judges is the absolute and blind 

 justice, personified in the inflexible winning-post, which alone 

 decides on the racecourse, and the irrefutable certainty that 

 neither fashion nor fancy, neither favor nor hatred, neither 

 personal prejudice nor time-serving frequently observable in 

 the awards at horse-shows has biassed the decision of hotly- 

 contested struggles as recorded in the Racing Calendar for the 

 space of one hundred and seventy years. This it is that gives 

 to the English thoroughbred horse a value for breeding pur- 

 poses unequalled and looked for in vain in any other species 

 of animal creation. 



I apprehend great danger from the endeavor to improve 

 horse-racing like any other human institution, not without 

 its shortcomings by corrective measures, which might inter- 

 fere with that principle of blind justice ; its fundamental laws 

 would thereby become undermined, and the building, which it 

 took centuries to erect, fall to ruins. 



Nothing but the framing of the racing propositions ought to 

 serve as indicator of what is required of the thoroughbred ; 

 every state in need of an efficient cavalry should be careful 

 how to place authority for that purpose in experienced hands, 

 and see it used leniently, but on clearly-established principles. 

 As for the rest, it should be left to the immutable laws of 

 Nature to gradually mould, in outward form and inward com- 

 position, that horse which best answers those requirements. 



The centre of gravity in all trials of strength and endurance 

 is to be found on the racecourse : the straighter the running- 

 track the more infallible the result ; the longer and steeper the 

 gradient the severer the test. 



As to the distances to be run over, I would recommend for 

 three-year-olds and upwards from one mile to two miles at the 

 scale of weights adopted in the rules of racing at present in 

 force in Prussia, which is about ten pounds above English 

 weights. 



Two-year-olds should due regard being had to the time of 



