XXIX 



"We have during the past dozen years drawn from our 

 tap of Anglomania a mug brimful of good. How easy it 

 is to blow away the froth which rests on the excellent 

 draug'ht below ! One of the most exhilarating of our im- 

 ported sports is polo, and as it happens that our plains 

 furnish so excellent a mount, and our increasing out-of- 

 doors habits so many players, the game may well become 

 a national one. The motto of the day in English sports 

 is speed. Fox-hunting of the last generation was a mod- 

 est performance at a hand gallop ; Sir Roger de Coverley 

 rode to hounds at a canter. But within twoscore years 

 the cross-country pace has been run up to racing speed. 

 More and more thorough blood has been called for in 

 both park and field, and the old-fashioned hunter of our 

 sires could not live through the shortest burst to-day. 

 The same thing applies to polo — the faster and more able 

 the pony the better the performance of his rider. You 

 can get enormous weight -carrying capacity in an un- 

 derbred pony, as well as remarkable endurance, but not at 

 speed. When you call on a fourteen-hands pony to carry 

 a hundred and sixty pounds and upwards at speed, you 

 must have blood. Even the veriest weed of an undersized 

 thorough-bred will do wonders in this way. Tlie sudden 

 bursts of racing pace called out at polo have made the 

 English breed for small thorough-breds. Capital polo 

 mounts have been raised from the handy little Exmoor 

 pony with blooded sires. More barrel comes of tiiis cross 



