465 



Champions of the American Turf. 



Training is as important a factor iu the improvement and devel- 

 opment of the horse as is breeding. In this book Professor Gleason 

 treats of that l)ranch of horse education which he has thoroughly 

 mastered ; and it is fitting that, as a complement to the subject-matter 

 of the volume, a condensed treatise be presented, treating not of the 

 method, but of the result of training in its other branch, viz., training 

 for speed. 



The great importance of training as a factor in breeding and 

 improving those breeds of horses in which speed and endurance are 

 prime essentials is appreciated by even novices in the study of the 

 science of breeding. The great influence exerted by training on the 

 improvement of a breed, generation after generation, is self-evident 

 from the two basic principles adhered to by all learned writers in the 

 laws of inheritance, viz. : First, That acquired habits and acquired 

 capabilities are in greater or less degree transmitted from parents to 

 offspring. Second, That the structural character, as well as mental 

 organization of animals, are modified by and gradually adapted to 

 their environments and uses. It is thus by development and by the 

 selection for purposes of reproduction of animals that excel in special 

 required capacities that through the courses of nature special types, 

 or breeds, are foimed. 



No doubt, in the proc:ss of the ages, all our types of horses came 

 from a common ancestry. Generations of breeding for size and 

 strength, without regard to speed or grace, have given us, on the one 

 hand, the massive, slow, and ponderous draft-horse, weighing a ton or 

 more, the Norman, the Shire, and the Clydesdale ; and on the other 

 hand, breeding and training for speed for generations has given us 

 the fleet, the lithe and gazelle-like race-horse, rarely mucli exceeding a 

 thousand pounds in weight, glorying in his gift of speed, and with the 

 finely-toned muscle and ligament, the light but dense quality of bone, 

 the absence of all useless and clogging bulk, and the perfection of 

 circulatory and respiratory systems that all contribute to extreme and 

 sustained speed. 



My function now, however, is no more to dilate upon the philosophy 

 of breeding race horses than the method of training them, but the 

 rather to sum up, historically and statistically, what has been accom- 



