XXVI 



PREFACE, 



the proprietors of Country Life I owe the possibility of reproducing some of the best 

 of these photographs I have ever seen. There are very few artists who, like 

 Mr. Charles Furse, unite a mastery of technique and a thorough science in painting 

 with a knowledge of the horse and a love of his performances. From his skilful 

 brush comes the fine picture of Lord Roberts' Arab charger which will appear in 

 later pages. It has always been a mystery to me that, with very few exceptions, 

 the walls of our great exhibitions are year by year conspicuously lacking in any 

 representation of the many famous and beautiful animals in training at the time, 

 or at the stud. As far as I can remember, M. Degas is the only artist of late 

 who has attempted, and evidently enjoyed, the fascinating task of rendering the 

 bloom and texture of a light chestnut in full sunlight at the start of a race. To 

 the work of M. Emil Adam (who inherits from his grandfather his felicity o( touch 



and love for horses), or 

 of many others who lay 

 themselves out especially 

 to perpetuate the favour- 

 ite of the stable for his 

 fortunate owner, I natur- 

 ally am not now refer- 

 ring. To them every 

 Turfite owes a debt 

 which needs no em- 

 phasis. I have in mind 

 those artists who are 

 great in other ways, and 

 who seem to have neg- 

 lected a subject which 



Colt by "Persimmon " out of "Fine Lady." 

 In Mr. Brodrick Cloett's Paddocks, 1901. 



appealed to their predecessors from the sculptors of the Parthenon to Leonardo, 

 to Velasquez, to Van Dyck. But in the days when photography was not, and 

 when the only artists who have handed down to us their impressions of the 

 racehorses they knew were utterly untrammelled by the anatomical limitations which 

 Stubbs first laid down, I can only be grateful for what material there is without too 

 harshly criticising it. 



To one racing man at least the Art of the nation is under a heavy obligation, 

 and for that reason, if for no other, our artists might well begin to pay the debt. 



