PRESENT STATE OF THE THOEOUGHBRED. 377 



These show, if I err not the more widely, that the stock of 

 English horses do their work at long distances in America, with 

 no signs of degeneracy. How then should the sires be degene- 

 rate? 



Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis 

 Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum 

 Virtus, nee imbellem feroces 

 Progenerant aquilje columbam. Horace. 



And here, having, as I consider, fully shown that the idea 

 of degeneracy from the original ancestry, whether on the part 

 of the English or American thoroughbred horse of to-day, is an 

 idle and absurd fallacy ; and that, on the contrary, not only is 

 the breed the very best breed that ever has existed in the world, 

 but that it exists to-day in greater purity, power, vigor, and 

 efficiency for all purposes of utility, with the sole exception of 

 heavy draught, than it ever has before — not to say in a sphere 

 immeasurably increased, and in numbers infinitely extended — 

 I will pass on to other parts of my subject, and endeavor to 

 show how we may continue to produce him of the highest stand- 

 ard, and how use him with the greatest profit and j)leasure to 

 ourselves, and, as in duty bound, with the greatest ease, well- 

 being and happiness to himself. 



