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The Race Horse or English Thoroughbred, with the solitary 

 exception of the Arab, has been the fountain head at one time or 

 another of all that stands for quality among the light-legged horses 

 in this country. It has been bred without stain of alien blood for 

 considerably more than 100 years, and subjected to the most rigo- 

 rous system of selection for strength and staying power by the test 

 of performance on the turf. 



The Ideal Hunter. The ideal Hunter is a strong-boned Thorough- 

 bred, 1 6 to 17 hands high, sound in wind and limb, full of substance 

 and quality, good at the withers, with long sloping shoulders, short 

 in the back, well coupled and strong at the loins, with powerful, 

 long, level hind quarters, which enable the animal to get the hind 

 legs well under him in jumping; muscular thighs and big clean 

 hocks with a prominent vein below them. 



It is most important that a Hunter should have been got by a 

 stayer, possess plenty of pluck and staying power, and take a keen 

 interest in the sport, in vying with his neighbours as to who shall 

 be first in at the death ; also that he shall be always ready to feed 

 after the hardest run and lie down to take his well-earned rest. 



Cross-bred Hunters. A great many good Hunters are not clean- 

 bred. A good cross-bred Hunter of the weight-carrying type can 

 be produced by two Thoroughbred crosses on a light-legged under- 

 sized Clydesdale or Suffolk Punch mare; such animals are often 

 good with hounds, but rough and angular in the hind quarters and 

 generally wanting in finished quality. A Cleveland Bay or a good 

 clean but strong-boned mare of nondescript ancestry may also breed 

 a good Hunter by a Thoroughbred horse, but the risk of a misfit 

 in the latter case is greater than when hunter-breeding, which is a 

 lottery at the best, is practised with mares of a suitable stamp, 

 whose pedigrees, if not complete, are known to be in a prepon- 

 derating degree Thoroughbred of the right sort with plenty of bone 

 and size. 



Associations and Public Bodies for the Improvement of the Breed. 

 There are several public bodies which exist for the promotion of the 

 interests of light horses in this country, of which the Hunter is the 

 principal type. The Royal Commission on Horse-Breeding, which 

 receives a Parliamentary grant amounting to 5100 per annum, 

 represents State assistance for the encouragement of horse-breeding 

 in Great Britain, while private breeders are associated in The 

 Hunters' Improvement Society, established about 1875, and in the 

 Brood Mare Society, dating from 1903. 



