370 THE llUKSE. 



heat racing has been practised to a greater extent, at greater 

 recoi'ded and jjositivehj estohUahed sjpeed^ and with greater 

 proof of endurance of fatigue, than it ever has been elsewhere, 

 either in the olden time or in the present day. 



IS'ow, the American four-mile-heat racer is, in fact, nothing 

 more than an unmixed descendant of these very same worthies 

 of the olden day, and next akin to, where he is not actually the 

 son of, some one or otlier of these despised modern horses of 

 England, which, it is absurdly said, are degenerate. 



It may be said that the same inference is here deducible as 

 before, namely, that because four-mile-heat races are run in 

 America and are not run in England, therefore, the American 

 race-horse is, and the English is not, capable of running four- 

 mile-heat races. 



I reply, that this, also, is an inference resting on nothing, 

 and contrary to analogy, and I proceed to show, wherefore ; 



Twenty years, or over, when lirst I landed in the United 

 States, timing being at that time wholly unknown in Great 

 Britain, it was asserted and universally believed in this country, 

 that, because the English did not time their horses on the turf, 

 the English horses could not bear timing; which would, it was 

 argued, disclose their inferiority, in point of speed, to the race- 

 horse of this country. 



After awhile, a few American gentlemen accustomed to 

 timing, and having stop-watches of the best construction, in a 

 word " to the manner born," kej)t the time of a St. Leger and 

 Derby or two. and then the fact came out, that, on several of 

 these occasions, the English horses ran quicker under heavy 

 weights than the best American horses under light ones. 



Gradually, and reluctantly, it came to be, and has of late 

 been usually admitted, that the time of the best English horses, 

 under heavy weights and at short distances, is quite equal, 

 if not superior, to that of the best horses here. For example, 

 in Yol. XL, American Turf Register, I find the following- 

 passage ; 



" Nothing is so interesting to American turfmen as to ascer- 

 tain the exact time in which the English race-horse performs a 

 given distance. We have a memorandum before us, made by 

 an American gentleman, who attended the recent Liverpool 



