Comparisons of spekd. 381 



size of some breeds ; and unless there was this capability of 

 being forced, no amount of attention would have brought the 

 horse to the present average, which may be placed at about 15 

 hands 3 inches. 



COMPARISONS OF SPEED, BIG., BETWEEN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

 HORSES. 



From, the Spirit of the, Times. 



It will appear, on a critical examination of the subject, that 

 there is not much difference in the powers of the best race-horses 

 for more than a century ; a period during which they have been 

 brought, upon both sides of the Atlantic, to the present high 

 state of perfection. AVithin the last two years have been exhib- 

 ited faster running in England, by West Australian and Kings- 

 ton, and in this country, by Lexington and Lecomte, than was 

 ever before known. The two last have run four miles, and four- 

 mile heats, faster, in either case, than has been performed in 

 England. " Stonehenge," who has been well endorsed in Eng- 

 land, has shown " the absurd fiction " of " a mile within a 

 minute ; " and that there is " not the slightest reliance to be 

 placed upon the many loose assertions " — such as the reported 

 accounts of Childers ; and that he and Eclipse were " a distance 

 better than any other horses that have appeared," or that they 

 " could beat any other a half-mile in four miles ! " On the same 

 authority, it appears that, in the fastest Derby, St. Leger, and 

 Ascot cup races, as won by Surj^lice, the Flying Dutchman, Sir 

 Tatton Sykes, Don John, and West Australian, the distance 

 varying from one mile and a half to two miles and a half, that 

 the fastest rate, with English weights, has been a little over one 

 minute and forty seconds per mile. We have no authentic 

 report that the mile has been run in England under one minute 

 and forty -two seconds, the time of Henry Perritt at New Orleans. 

 Nominally of the same age, three years old, and with the same 

 weight, 86 lbs.. Inheritor, at Liverpool, ran two miles in 3.25 ; 

 which is at the rate per mile of 1.42^. " Stonehenge," referring 

 to what he considers the best race ever run in England, states 



