87 



success, as they are produced on the Con- 

 tinent. 



Her Majesty's reign has seen the rapid 

 growth of demands from every civilised 

 country in the world for British horses of 

 every breed, eloquent proof of the esteem in 

 which our horses are held abroad and of the 

 success which has attended our endeavours 

 to improve them. 



We have, it must be confessed, " gone 

 back ' in our department of horse-breed- 

 ing ; the supersession of coaches and their 

 teams of fast and enduring horses by 

 railway traffic has brought about neglect 

 of this most useful stamp of animal. The 

 tens of thousands of coach horses formerly 

 required created a large and valuable in- 

 dustry, and it is only in the natural order of 

 things that when railways made an end of 

 the coaching era that horse-breeders should 

 have turned their energies into new channels. 



It is only within recent years that breeders 

 have recognised how much combined and 

 systematic endeavour can do to assist them 

 in their task of improving our several breeds ; 

 and it is worth observing that the most im- 

 portant societies for the promotion of horse- 

 breeding (apart from the General Stud Book) 

 were all founded in the short space of nine 



