Hr>o 



TOE MODERN SYSTEM 



poor bear to be so ill-used. The bear-guard 

 (blackguard, if you will,) exclaimed, " the 

 bear isn't hurt ; dug's got no teeth ; knocked 

 'em out wi' chisel." True enough it was, the 

 dosT had not a sinsrle tooth left ! 



Cockfighting has always appeared to us a 

 most v/anton and cruel sport. Pugilism has 

 brought sufficient disgrace upon itself, never 

 we hope, to rear its head again. The cruel- 

 ties of the race-course, arising from the se- 

 verity of punishment administered to Horses, 

 sometimes by jockies, no man of any humanity 

 can defend. The Turf has, no doubt, been in 

 many instances degraded by practices which 

 are indefensible ; still looking upon it in a 

 national and general way, it is of immense 

 importance in supporting and maintaining the 

 character of the English Horse. 



THE RACE HORSE. 



The term thorough-bred, in Britain and 

 Ireland, indicates the Horse to be either a re- 

 mote or immediate pure, unmixed descendant 

 of the South Eastern courser, Arabian, Barb, 

 Turk, Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, or of the 

 neighbouring countries ; the preference for 

 antiquity and purity of racing blood being 

 always due to the produce of the Arabian and 

 African deserts. 



The modern English race Horse resembles 

 most the Arabian, in the general outline of his 

 figure, his limbs, the form of his head, and in 

 his countenance ; but from the great care and 

 high keep which he has enjoyed in this country 

 through so many descents, he is of far greater 

 height and bulk and equally superior powers. 

 Art is the handmaid and improver of nature ; 

 and notwithslanding the boasted speed of 

 animals in the natural state, there is no doubt 

 oi" the superiority of the trained courser. Thus 



the British race Horse, even at an equality of 

 size and power to carry weight, is far more 

 swift and more stout, in the turf phrase, more 

 lasting, than the natural courser of the desert 

 of the oldest pedigree. Such is the universal 

 experience from trials in tliis country, and such 

 would in all probability be the result, were the 

 rival Horses taken young, and trained and 

 tried upon an equidistant and neutral soil. 

 This opinion may not altogether coincide with 

 the sentiments of those, who have been ac- 

 customed to read and swallow without investi- 

 gation, those proper supplements to the 

 Arabian Nights, relations of the speed and 

 exient of the journies performed in a given 

 time by Arabian Horses : a little aid may be 

 given to the judgment of these gentlemen, by 

 the suggestion, in the desert, are no mile posts, 

 no clocks or watches, wherewith to measure 

 time, no clerks of the course to start the 

 Horses, nor judges to drop the flag at the end- 

 ing post ; but that the jockey himself is otlen 

 the only spectator and detailer of his Horse's 

 performance ; and that in all the Easteni 

 writings, ancient or modern, exaggeration is 

 the predominant figure. 



In the early periods of the turf, recourse 

 must have been had for racers to foreign Horses, 

 and to the bastard breeds, as they were thee 

 styled, or mixtures between foreigners and. 

 the lightest native breed of the coimtry. 

 Spanish jennets, the descendants of Barbs, 

 were trained : in short, any well-shaped nag 

 with good action in the gallop, was deemed a 

 racer. 



The idea of thorough -breed and its peculiar 

 qualities, had not then taken place, but was 

 afterwards gradually and experimentally de- 

 veloped. The mild climate and gramineous 

 soil of this country, always congenial with the 



