120 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



thoroughbred or Arab blood in his veins is, that from 

 no other source can he derive the necessary nervous 

 energy. This is even more important than the supe- 

 rior bony structure of the thoroughbred or Arabian. 

 Exactly what nervous energy is, nobody, I presume, 

 can tell ; but it is something that, in horses at least, 

 develops the physical system early, makes it capable 

 of great exertion, and enables it to recover quickly 

 from fatigue. The same, or, more correctly, a similar 

 capacity, is remarked in mankind. Headers of Arctic 

 travels, for example, must often have been struck by 

 the fact that it is almost invariably the men, and not 

 the officers, who succumb to the labor and exposure 

 of a sledge journey. Loosely speaking, it may be that 

 in the educated man, especially in the man whose 

 ancestors also have been educated, the mind has ac- 

 quired a degree of control over the body which can- 

 not otherwise be attained. So also with horses. A 

 thoroughbred is one whose progenitors for many gen- 

 erations have been called upon to exert themselves to 

 the utmost ; they have run hard and long, and strug- 

 gled to beat their competitors. Moreover, they have 

 had an abundance of the food best adapted to develop 

 bone and muscle. Then, again, the care, the groom- 

 ing, the warm housing and blanketing, which they 

 have received, tend to make the skin delicate, the 

 hair fine, the mane silky, the whole organization more 

 sensitive to impressions, and consequently the nervous 

 system more active and controlling. 



This same nervous energy usually prevents the road- 

 ster from being what is known as a family horse, for 

 he lacks the repose, the placidity and phlegm, of that 

 useful but commonplace animal ; he is apt to jump 



