THE THOROUGHBRED. 187 



good ha did in the encouragement of horse 

 breeding. This foundation consisted in cross- 

 ing stallions of Barb and Arabian blood with 

 the native English mares used for the chase and 

 other sports where speed was required. East- 

 ern mares, known as the Eoyal mares in the 

 Stud Book, were presented to the King and 

 from this quite scanty foundation the magnifi- 

 cent Thoroughbred superstructure has been 

 raised. 



As it was for racing purposes that improve- 

 ment was first attempted under the royal aus- 

 pices, so it has been for the increase of racing 

 speed that the breeders have worked continu- 

 ously during all these years. Training for the 

 course has a refining effect on the fibre of any 

 horse. Continued high feeding on food that is 

 not^ bulky or soothing but stimulating to the 

 limit makes a horse nervous and cranky. The 

 Thoroughbred type is well enough established, 

 but not in the way the type of the Suffolk is, for 

 instance. There is a quality about the race 

 horse that cannot be mistaken, but the breed 

 character is more in its refinement than its sim- 

 ilarity of conformation. Here you will see a 

 great three-cornered, camel-backed, raw-boned 

 racer contending with a s'hort-1 egged, almost 

 cobby foe, the two utterly dissimilar in outline, 

 but both unmistakably Thoroughbred. Few 

 breeders have ever paid any attention to the 

 conformation of the race horses they have bred. 



