92 The Book of the Horse. 



It is as a stallion that the blood-horse of mature age, and not over-fat, attains tlie highest 

 poetic beauty. The blood-mare with a foal at her feet, stands next ; in a park, sheltered 

 by ancestral oaks, deer are not more graceful and interesting. 



The racer found too slow for the flat will often be tried " across country," and if dis- 

 playing superior leaping powers and the Indispensable amount of courage, be converted into 

 a steeplechaser. It is amongst steeplechasers that the strongest full-developed specimens 

 of the blood-horse are to be found. Others, again, not quite up to racing speed, are castrated, 

 and turned into hunters, with which, at least, every man must be provided who aspires to 

 ride in the first flight over the country round Melton, Market Harborougli, Rugby, and 

 other ox-grazing pastures. Then, again, there are a limited number of thoroughbreds of 

 extraordinary and even extravagant action, which become harness-horses, which fetch fabulous 

 prices (such was Edmond), and riding-horses for Rotten Row. 



It is amongst the full-aged steeplechasers, hunters, and other useful horses, that the thorough- 

 bred is to be found in perfection of strength and quality, scarcely to be recognised as of the 

 same breed as the long-legged lean animals, two or three year olds, when they are trained 

 down to the last ounce for some great race. 



It cannot be too strongly stated that for all the purposes of utility except where heavy 

 draught requires weight, the blood-horse is the best (the most beautiful, the strongest, the 

 most enduring, the most intelligent), when soundness and suitable action are combined with 

 power. Unfortunately, like the British infantry, the numbers that come up to this description 

 are few ; strength not being a recommendation for modern racing, and symmetrical conformation 

 not a necessity for flying handicaps. A considerable number of horses which would be most 

 valuable as sires are disqualified without being put into training, because a weight-carrying 

 thoroughbred horse is always in demand at a good price, whilst there is no organised system 

 for making the services of the best class of sound, strong, slow (in a racing point of view), 

 thoroughbred stallions available for useful as distinguished from gambling uses. 



Emblem (of whom a coloured illustration is given) was a mare that made a brilliant success 

 "across country," after an unsuccessful career on the flat. She was by Teddington out of 

 Miss Batty, by the Hydra. She was purchased by Lord Coventry at five years old. She 

 stood fully 15 hands 2 inches high, had magnificent shoulders, was remarkably deep through 

 the heart, had good quarters but a light middle piece, and was not well ribbed up, and con- 

 sequently looked weedy. She took to jumping naturally; in the winter of 1862 was hunted 

 regularly with the Heythrop and Cotswold Hounds; and in the spring of 1S63 won three 

 steeplechases ofi" the reel. She finally broke down at exercise, was put to the stud, but 

 produced nothing of any value, and died in 1870. Emblem is an example of extraordinary 

 jumping merit in a very weedy three-cornered looking animal. The following particulars 

 were kindly furnished by the Earl of Coventry : — 



" New Year's Day, 1S74. 



"Emblem died in December, 1870. She won the Birmingham, Derby, Liverpool, Don- 

 caster, and Cheltenham Grand Annual Steeplechases in 1863, and the Leamington and 

 Cheltenham Grand Annuals in 1865. She ought also to have won the Liverpool in that 

 year, but she got the best of her jockey, and, indeed, ran away with him in the race. Howe\'er, 

 .she turned the tables on Alcibiades (the winner in that year) at Warwick, where, with poor 

 George Ede up, she completely ran away from him. I see it frequently stated tliat she was 

 a jade, and would only accomplish short distances on the flat. That was not so. Although 

 her fc^m as a racehorse was only moderate, she could stay, as her performances show. She 



