OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 21 



it be not desirable to grant such bounties on 

 the part of Government as shall enable it to 

 influence the proceedings of the turf, and thus 

 render them subservient to national and useful 

 purposes. These bounties pass under the name 

 of King's or Queen's Plates, because paid out 

 of the privy purse, and the Crown obtains the 

 money to meet this special disbursement for 

 the benefit of the public ; yet those who receive 

 these bounties make to the public no return ; 

 yet surely when the Jockey Club began to 

 diminish the tasks formerly so well and so 

 long performed by their horses, this downward 

 course should have been met by Government 

 advising the Crown either to suspend the pay- 

 ment of these bounties altogether, or to increase 

 their amount to an extent which would enable 

 it so to influence the proceedings of the turf, 

 as to get there maintained the old standard for 

 regulating the tasks the horses were called on 

 to perform. Instead of taking one of these 

 obvious courses, the Jockey Club was allowed 

 successively to diminish the tasks which for so 

 many years our race-horses had so well and so 

 easily performed. 



But we are told that these lighter tasks are 



