Breaking Yearlings. 139 



compete for, necessitating the baby horse being broken in 

 and carrying lads up to nine stone on their immature backs 

 at 16 to 18 months old, and also being required at 24 

 months (in some cases even earlier) to carry nine stone, five 

 furlongs at top speed in actual races. In a state of nature 

 the horse does not reach full maturity till between his 

 fourth and fifth year; it follows, therefore, that in racing 

 two-year-olds Nature is deliberately ignored. 



Although it is doubtless very pleasant to denounce 

 things that 1 ought not to be, it is generally more profitable 

 and less troublesome to accept things as they are. The very 

 prominent place held by two-year-old racing at the present 

 day being an established fact, the practical breeder and his 

 stud groom will adopt methods of horse rearing best calcu- 

 lated to ensure success under existing conditions. These 

 conditions as applied to two-year-old racing may be best 

 described as " artificial," entailing that the rearing of 

 young bloodstock must also be by artificial, as opposed to 

 natural methods. 



As illustrating " Natural " methods of horse rearing, 

 I cannot do better than give a brief description of the condi- 

 tions under which I reared horses on a Canadian prairie 

 ranche. Mares and foals roamed at will, Summer and 

 Winter, over an area of roughly thirty square miles. The 

 mares " kicked off," or weaned, the foals when the latter 

 were about nine months old. No sheds, corn, hay or fodder 

 of any kind were provided ; the stock foraged for themselves. 

 From November till the end of March snow fell at frequent 

 intervals, the depth varying from six inches to two feet. 

 Rivers were frozen solid for months on end, so that teams and 

 waggons crossed the ice at will. The thermometer registered 

 from 10 to 40 degrees below zero all winter. These foals 



