THE AMERICAN THOROUGH-BRED. 105 



length of the race make the course two miles 

 instead of one and which would be first at the 

 winning-post ? or, still better, make the race three 

 miles, and I much doubt if the weed would come 

 home at all, leave alone save his distance. 



Much injury is doubtless done our horses by 

 running them long before they reach maturity. If 

 you take a growing boy and over-tax his strength, 

 what will be the result ? A wreck before he reaches 

 manhood. So it is with our thorough-bred colts and 

 fillies. They are forced forward like hot-house 

 plants, prematurely reach maturity of form, when 

 they are put to work trying even to aged animals, 

 their muscular development being still soft and 

 unset, and consequently unequal to the task, caus- 

 ing a broken-down cripple at the very time when, 

 if permitted to have followed Nature's dictates, the 

 poor creature would have rejoiced in all the per- 

 fections of beauty that charm the eye and tell of 

 speed and endurance. What an e very-day occurrence 

 it is to hear of such and such a colt, immense 

 favorites with the public from their success as 

 two-year olds, being scratched? And why? In 

 some closely-contested struggle, when flesh and 

 blood was doing its utmost, under whip and spur, 



