THE HACKNEY HORSE. 47 



result of the cross into his own strain, for it is always safer 

 to sell a doubtful horse or mare than to breed from it. 

 The master of a stud is always to be envied, therefore, when 

 he is able to breed from animals where there is type and 

 character on both sides, as even though he may not always be 

 fortunate to discover super-excellence in every foal, he may 

 feel reasonably certain that his younsters will not be bringing 

 in faults that may require years to breed out. No expe- 

 rienced owner will, of course, ever dream of sending a mare 

 of any kind, let alone a valuable one, to a horse that he has 

 not seen, or whose pedigree he has not satisfied himself is 

 right in all respects. All men, however, who raise foals are 

 not to be regarded as breeders in the highest acceptation of 

 the term, and will take a nomination to a stallion simply be- 

 cause he has won a prize, and because they think his stock 

 will sell. Such people are, nevertheless, acting most unwisely 

 even in their own interests, for blood is always thicker than 

 water, and pedigree is sure to tell in the long run. The Hack- 

 ney would not be the horse he is if the old breeders, whose 

 staunchness in the past has been the means of saving the 

 breed from extinction, had not paid attention to details, and 

 a happy-go-lucky system of stud management will never pay 

 in the long run. 



There is no possible explanation forthcoming to account for 

 why one horse or mare should be a success in the stud, and 

 their own brother or sister a perfect failure ; and, therefore, the 

 safest way to proceed is to put, so far as possible, one's best 

 mares to tried horses. Still, as the poet Horace, who was a bit 

 of a farmer himself and a horse breeder, doubtless, very truth- 

 fully observes, "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis," and the maxim 

 is as applicable to Hackneys as it is to any other animals under 

 the sun. Having no desire to delve once more into the dim 

 traditions of the past, the writer does not propose to go 

 further back than the last generation to prove the accuracy of 

 Horace's observation, and will, therefore, content himself with 

 selecting Mr. George Bourdass' Denmark H.H.S.S.B. 177, 



