OF FARRIERY. 



^ — 393 



b« as good race-horses in England as there 

 ever had been. 



" Notwilhstanding many sad tricks have 

 been played in cocktail racing, yet I conceive 

 much good has resulted from it. It may be 

 proved that some first-raters have been really 

 not thorough- bred, and it is to their bearing 

 no degrading mark to distinguish them from 

 their more aristocratic brethren that has in- 

 duced men to bring out thorough-bred horses 

 for half-bred stakes. It is not many years 

 since a Sportsman might be highly gratified at 

 seeins: the Horses saddled for the Billesdon 

 Coplow Stakes at Cro.xton Park, and if a 

 thorough-bred one was smuggled in, there 

 was no certainty about his winning : at all 

 events he had no chance unless he was a fine 

 powerful animal, for he had to carry a man 

 upon his back : a weedy devil would not have 

 been accepted (for such purposes, at a gift. 

 At the period to which I allude, cocktail- racing 

 was about its zenith ;. and we can but re- 

 member such nags as Gossoon, Optimus, 

 Tartar, Brother to Hexgrave, Rufus, Contra- 

 band, cum mnltis aliis ; all of them able, as 

 many of them did, to finish their honourable 

 course as hunters, and carrying men in their 

 teens. Now the world said that all these nags 

 were thorough-bred, and there can be little 

 dor^jt about it : at all events they proved 

 themselves race-horses in spite of English 

 blood ; and I heard an experienced trainer at 

 that time declare that the only difference 

 that he could see between the cocktails 

 and the acknowledged thorough-bred Horses 

 was this, that the cocktails were the better 

 sort. Now does not this induce us to believe 

 that powerful blood-horses may be bred if 

 men will but set about it? The materials are 

 still at hand and in full force, hut not the in- 



ducement. The reason why owners of large 

 racing studs, who are hunting men, find a 

 diflSculty even with their advantages to carrj 

 them in the field, is merely because these said 

 Horses are all bred expressly for racing after 

 the present fashion : and if Nature now and 

 then goes out of her way, and throws them a 

 great bony animal that requires time to brino- 

 his powers to perfection, should he survive the 

 tender mercies of Mr. Trainer, who has tried 

 him (poor devil) at two years old to be as 

 slow as a top, why he is a cast Horse, and has 

 the honour of becoming a hunter. Now did i 

 any man (possessed of the means) set about 

 breeding blood-horses for the field only, and 

 select proper materials, and merely train them 

 for hunting, and prohibit their being used till 

 tliey came to maturity, after a course of years 

 it would be the refuse of his stud that would 

 be sought after for modern racing. If half J 

 bred Horses intended for hunting had to gp\ 

 through the drilling that the thorough-bred 

 Horse of the present day does, and at the same 

 time of life, where would men find hunters 

 even of this descri[4ion ? We may grumble 

 at and lament the degeneracy of our present 

 race of blood-horses, but we have the means 

 at hand for restoring them, and, from the 

 enormous increase of numbers during the last 

 half century, a manifest advantage over our 

 grandfathers. The danger is only to be man- 

 fully faced to be overcome. But, alas ! who 

 will ' bell the cat V who, for experiment 

 sake only, will shew us what can be done." 

 We might extend these remarks to a much 

 lenath ; but we think enougch has 



greater 



been said to arouse attention to the fact that 

 the early and severe training of our modern 

 race-horses must have contributed to their 

 want of strength and durability. 

 6 G 



