38 England's horses, 



to allow the knowledge its efforts has awoke to be veiled 

 from a too frequently hood- winked public. 



To effectually eradicate any evil, it becomes necessary to 

 strike at its root. Therefore, with this incontrovertible 

 axiom before me, it is scarcely necessary to disclaim any 

 crusade against racing and its votaries ; where in en- 

 deavouring to get at that "root," I trench upon the 

 delicately and jealously guarded portals of the turf. Be 

 it therefore borne in mind, that I seek not to travel 

 beyond a lament that the grievances of deterioration in 

 our general horses can unmistakably be traced to the 

 pernicious influence of a weedy and unsound type of 

 horse, that the advent of a different system of racing to 

 that which our ancestors indulged in eventually brought 

 into our Isthmean Arena, to be afterwards most un- 

 fortunately foisted upon a blood-loving public, through the 

 medium of high-sounding and pretentious pedigrees, en- 

 hanced by winning brackets in the records of Weatherhy 

 and Bally. 



To our racing stables we may look for the origin of the 

 cause of complaint as to want of as much bone and sound- 

 ness in the horses of our day for general use as distinguished 

 those of former times ; and to the same source let us turn 

 for an explanation, for from them became scattered over the 

 length and breadth of these kingdoms that bane to the 

 improvement and certain begetter of degeneracy in the 

 British or any other horse; the worn out and unsound 

 racer, who, with contracted disease, false action — promoting 

 and fostering false shapes — and when past all "patching 

 and piecing," is too frequently inducted into those duties of 

 progeniture which all physiological examples teach, should, 

 for improvement and perpetuation of excellence in any 

 breed, be intrusted judiciously and systematically to only 

 the best and jpurest bred males. Surely from no such 



