68 England's horses, 



course. If we have a few such horses contending in such 

 races, what happens them ? Their superior merit brings 

 them to the front, which causes them to be penalized with 

 weight in some subsequent contest, sufficient to have victory 

 snatched from them by some miserable " plating " cripple. 

 " We cannot gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles !" 

 Neither can we expect the sound and stout race-horse to be 

 propagated as the rule, not the exception, from such means. 

 Admiral Rous, in writing upon the subject we have 

 under consideration, has evidenced the performances of 

 steeple-chase horses in the present day as exemplifying the 

 solidity of his anti-degeneracy theory. " The Admiral " is 

 80 fond of seizing upon singular examples to bolster up 

 his untenable generalities, that, I think, independent of a 

 wish not to appear personally hostile in my writing to one 

 so deservedly liked and respected, I can give strong support 

 to my antagonistic opinions, by wielding, through the facile 

 means of a long quotation, a more trenchant force than 

 any individual opinion could bring to bear. In an admi- 

 rable article from the Field newspaper of Saturday, March 

 14, 1874, we read the following : — 



" Noticeably enough, at just about the very same time when 

 the gentlemen sportsmen were protesting in the Vale last week 

 against the Grand National Hunt line as being too big and stiff, 

 the Grand National Hunt Committee was issuing a protest on 

 its own account. The owners or managers of horses at Ayles- 

 bury would not run because they considered the country to be 

 dangerously strong, whereas the committee considers the country 

 as too often adopted now-a-days to be dangerously weak ; ' the 

 manner in which lessees of courses have lowered and cut down 

 fences during the last few seasons is most detrimental to steeple- 

 chasing;' and, again, the committee begs to suggest that lessees 

 ' keep up the fences to a proper standard, as they used to be 

 some years ago, and have the hurdles in the straight run planted 



