PREFACE. 



Tout Coniprendre c'cst Tout Pardonner. 



|N tracing the long story of the development of the racehorse, in 

 England I shall delay as little as may be in those remote 

 eras before the Arab was deliberately and continuously put 

 as a sire to home-bred mares. I propose to work within 

 the strict limits of the title of this book, and it will therefore 

 not be my province to go into details as to those other 



varieties of the animal to which Sir Walter Gilbey, for example, has so fruitfully 

 devoted his attention in a series of important handbooks, or to dilate upon 

 any such fortunate chapter of accidents as that which has produced the first- 

 rate Polo Pony. My labours will close with the last Derby of the nineteenth 

 century, and it is with the antecedents, direct or indirect, of this historic 

 animal that I chiefly desire to deal. 



The spread of railways and telegraphs, the rise of the sporting Press, the 

 introduction of Enclosed Meetings, and the countless innovations which differentiate 

 the present day from distant eras, will all be more clearly understood from a 



comparison between my earlier and my later chapters than from any prefatory 

 VOL. i. l) 



