88 FOREIGNERS AS BREEDERS. 



weight over stiff fences ; and if the taste for steeple- 

 chasing maintains its rapid growth in these countries, 

 we must put our shoulders to the wheel in earnest and 

 produce more powerful thoroughbred horses. There 

 are, on an average, some fifteen hundred thoroughbred 

 colts and fillies bred every year, out of which there are 

 about three really first-class racehorses, or one in five 

 hundred, and some twenty or thirty moderate race- 

 horses, or about one in fifty worth keeping in training 

 for the Turf. 



The others are scattered about all over the world as 

 hunters, hacks, cab horses, steeplechasers, and for 

 breeding purposes. 



Then, as only about one-fiftieth of the number of 

 thoroughbred horses are ever kept in training more than 

 two years, it is of the deepest importance that sound- 

 ness, power, and action should be the careful study of 

 every breeder in the land, or assuredly foreigners will 

 soon establish better markets in their own countries. 



It is now a matter of fact beyond all doubt that by 

 a fair competition in exhibitions and on the race course, 

 by the encouragement of a public, and the direct sup- 

 port of a government, the British thoroughbred horse 

 is capable of being produced in any country in Europe 

 in almost the same perfection as in the warm paddocks 

 at Hampton Court. 



The Emperor of the French was the first to fully 

 comprehend this, and by purchasing thoroughbred 

 stallions of fine size and power the French govern- 

 ment has rendered great service to the country in aid- 



