THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 311 



of leather, not unlike the flaps of a saddle, on the back 

 of each horse ; the under side of this is armed with 

 very sharp prickles, which keep perpetually goading 

 them all the while they run. In order that the horses 

 may not run out of the course, a strong railing runs 

 along each side of the course, and a rope is fixed across 

 at each end, to prevent them leaving the course at the 

 extremities. The speed, however, of these Barbary 

 horses, though considerable, is very inferior to that 

 of our English racers. The course of eight hundred 

 and sixty-five torses at Rome, is run over in one hun- 

 dred and fifty-one seconds. An English mile is about 

 eight hundred and twenty- six torses, so that these 

 hcrses run very little more than a mile in two minutes, 

 wliich an ordinary racer is able to do in England ; not 

 to mention Childers, who is said to have run a mile in 

 one minute, and to have run round the circular course 

 at Newmarket, which is four hundred yards short 

 of four miles, in six minutes and forty seconds. Starling 

 is said also to have performed the first mile in a minute. 

 Childers run the Beacon course in seven minutes and 

 a half. The Round course is asserted to have been 

 more than once run in six minutes and six seconds. 

 The Barbary horse must, according to what was said 

 above, get over thirty-seven feet in a second ; the 

 swiftness of the English horse will be found by this 

 mode of estimating far superior. Starling must have 

 moved in the performance mentioned before eighty- 

 two feet and a half in a second. 



Dr. Moty, in his celebrated publication, " Le Jour- 

 nal Britannique," considering this subject, tells us, 

 that every bound by the fleetest Barbary horse at 

 Rome would cover eighteen royal feet and a half, and 

 twenty- two or twenty-three feet by the English horses; 

 so that the swiftness of the latter would be to that 



