SADDLE HORSES. 151 



of its sire and the strength of its dam ; but more often 

 animals thus bred are leggy, slab-sided, and nerveless. 



The same result is likely to follow when two horses 

 of about equal breeding, but of very antagonistic 

 qualities, are mated. General Knox and Lady Thome 

 were nearly, if not quite, the best trotting horse and 

 mare of their day. Lady Thome was out of a thor- 

 oughbred mare b}^ a horse bred in the same way. 

 The dam of General Knox was also by a thoroughbred. 

 But General Knox was a coarse, stout-limbed, rather 

 heavy-headed horse, whereas Lady Thome had the 

 quality of a thoroughbred, and, as might have been 

 expected, their foal, General Washington, proved to 

 be a rangy, weedy beast, far inferior to his sire and 

 dam. However, some of General Washington's colts 

 are very tine animals, the inherited excellence which 

 was latent in him having appeared, as often happens 

 in similar cases, in the second generation. 



When it comes to racing, or steeple-chasing, and 

 even to fox-hunting in the fast counties of England, 

 something different is required. Of late years the 

 best steeple-chasers have commonly been thorough- 

 bred ; and it is said that no horse with the slightest 

 taint of cold blood in his pedigree can now live in 

 " the first flight " of the Quorn hunt. 



It is a fact of some interest, that during the past 

 forty years or so both fox-hunting and prize-fighting 

 have undergone a similar change, in each case a long, 

 slow process having been replaced by a short, quick 

 one. The newly invented " hurricane rushes ' cor- 

 respond to the tremendous bursts of speed with which 

 the Leicestershire riders now chase the fox ; and the 

 loser's fate in a modern prize-fight is commonly de- 



