CHAPTER XII. 



ECLIPSE AND THE MODERN THOROUGHBRED. 



" Effodere loco signum, quod regia Juno 

 Monstrdrat, caput acris eqiii, sic namfore bcllo 

 Egregiam ct facilcm virtu per sccciila gentem." 



T T probably holds as true to-day, as it did when Carthage was mistress of the seas, 

 that the prosperity of a country is intimately connected with the welfare and the 

 excellence of its horses. If the dawn of the twentieth century showed one lesson that 

 was driven home more clearly than another to Great Britain, it was the necessity of a 

 well-organised Remount Department for the armies of the Empire. One event after 

 another has been chosen as the opportunity for lamentation over the decay -of horse- 

 breeding. First it was the railway ; then it was the bicycle and the motor-car. But 

 the horse remains as indispensable as ever, and the backbone of English breeding 

 must remain, what it has always been, the thoroughbred of the English racecourse. 

 So there are very wide general reasons, apart from the everlasting personal in- 

 terest, why the details about Eclipse should be carefully considered in any book 

 which treats of the English Turf as a portion of English social and political life. 

 I shall therefore set before my readers, as briefly as may be, the known facts, and 

 the possible deductions from them, which centre round one of the most famous horses 

 that have ever lived. 



In a book called " Essai sur les proportions Geometrales de 1'Eclipse par 

 M. Charles Vial de Saint Bel, Professeur du College Veterinaire de Londres, 1 ' 

 which was translated in 1791, sold by Shepperson and Reynolds, at " No. 137, 

 Oxford Road," and dedicated to the Prince of Wales, a careful study of Eclipse 

 was made with three objects. "(i) As a surer guide to the brush or chisel of 

 the artist, who commonly only employs them in opposition to nature. (2) It 



VOL. II. RR 



