THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 253 



There is no doubt that these King's Plates, which I have had to mention so 

 many times in connection with early breeding and racing, afforded the strongest 

 argument possible to those who maintain that, if Racing served no other pur- 

 pose whatsoever, it would invariably improve the general breed of horses, and 

 this was usually recognised whenever any legislation on the subject was proposed 

 in the old days. It is certainly true that almost from the very year when these same 

 Royal Plates lapsed into premiums under a Royal Commission, the object proposed 

 by that Commission has not been so well attained as in the times before the oppor- 

 tunities of long-distance Racing were thus diminished. Efforts have been made to 

 supply the deficit as far as the modern Turf is concerned, and the entries for the 

 autumn handicaps in 1901 were certainly sufficiently large to encourage the veriest 

 pessimist ; but it is unfortunately none the less clear that the general horse-supply 

 throughout the country does not attract the attention of Racing men as it used to 

 do. In these days of huge training-stables on the one hand, and of multitudinous 

 small establishments on the other, each of them are as much engaged in running 

 two-year-olcls off their legs as they are in hoping for success in later handicaps ; and 

 the consequence is that while foreign countries are slowly but steadily buying up 

 our best bloodstock, our Colonies and the United Kingdom generally are not 

 getting that benefit out of thoroughbred sires and mares which is essential. The 

 useful horse is being elbowed out by the handsome but helpless racer who is 

 encouraged by a premium. The growing practice of gelding " difficult " horses, 

 and the apparently undiminished running powers of such animals as Democrat, Epsom 

 Lad, or O 'Donovan Rossa, are also serious dangers to the increase of the best stock. 

 We may still have the best racers in the world. But have we got the best hacks, 

 the best cavalry horses, the best coach-horses, and the best hunters, as was also once 

 the case ? If not, it may well be argued that we do not deserve to have them if we 

 neglect the useful horses who produce them. Mr. Hodgman records that his 

 Victor (who won the Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot as a four-year-old) became 

 one of the best hunting sires ever known in Ireland after he had sold him 

 for 28 at Tattersall's. If railways and motor cars have lessened the impera- 

 tive need which the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century felt fcr 

 good general stock, our Colonies and our soldiers, at least, have not yet ceased their 

 continuous demand for serviceable horseflesh ; nor, in spite of countless Jeremiads 

 in the last twenty years, have our Masters of Hounds all sold or stopped their 

 Packs. Yet I doubt very much whether we can call upon such good sires for our 



