BREEDING. 113 



had carried all before him in his own country), at weight for 

 age over a two-mile course. 



Our jockeys looked as if they were riding their Newmarket 

 ponies, and were mostly more tired than their steeds, who could 

 never go beyond one pace all the way, but could have carried 

 that pace on for ever. The trainers who brought these horses 

 (eight running out of fifteen entries) all agreed that a common 

 English selling-plater could give them two stone and beat them.; 

 on the other hand, their soundness, and the little heed they 

 took of the hard ground, were remarkable. 



The estimate arrived at by the trainers, as to the compara- 

 tive merit of these Children of the Desert and the sorriest of 

 our English platers, was signally verified in the following year, 

 when, on the Wednesday of the Second Spring Meeting at 

 Newmarket, 1885, Iambic, in a match over the last three miles 

 of the Beacon Course, gave the Arab champion Asil no less 

 than 4 St. 7 lbs., and such a beating into the bargain as has 

 seldom been seen ; thus we seem almost driven to the con- 

 clusion that the prospects of improving the true Arab resolve 

 themselves into this : that half a century of care and acclimati- 

 sation may possibly result in the production of a second 

 Iambic of Oriental extraction ! 



Meanwhile, the European prototype. Iambic, was, we be- 

 lieve, presented by his owner, the Duke of Portland, to Lord 

 Algernon Lennox, who for some time rode as hack this horse, 

 utterly worthless for racing purposes when opposed to English 

 racehorses, but 4 st. 7 lbs. better than the best available Arab, 

 and that be it observed over a three-mile course, which would 

 have been absurdly out of Iambic's distance, if he had ever 

 had a distance. 



Mr. Blount had had the advantage of breeding from the 

 best Eastern blood for some time, and the size of his foals and 

 yearlings speaks in favour of his principle ; but he was unfor- 

 tunate in being prevented through illness from producing his 

 best specimens of a more mature age, or he might have proved 

 his theory, that the increase of size which results from the 



I 



