THE TRUE UTILITY 



OF THE THOROUGHBRED RACE-HORSE. 



If the advantage to be derived from the thoroughbred horse 

 depended on no more than his applicability to the turf and hia 

 fitness for racing purposes, I should not have assigned to him the 

 prominent place, which he occupies in this work. 



In fact, the race-course was not, in the beginning, so much 

 as thought of as a scene for the display of his high qualities ; 

 much less was racing considered as an end, for which the 

 Eastern horse was imported into Europe, by our ancestors. 



It was for the improvement of the native stock of horses, in 

 the various European kingdoms, by giving to them speed and 

 endurance, in which points no other breed can compare with 

 them, that the Asiatic and North- African horse was so eagerly 

 sought by the monarchs, especially of England, during the 

 seventeenth, and the early part of the eighteenth century. 



At first, the race-course was resorted to, solely, as a method 

 of testing the prevalence or superiority, in certain animals or 

 breeds of animals, of those qualities of speed and endurance, 

 which can, by no other known method, be so completely, so 

 accurately and so fairly brought to the test. 



Soon after the introduction of the thoroughbred-horse, this 

 process of testing his qualities grew into a favorite sport with 

 all classes of persons in England. Race courses multiplied, 

 throughout the kingdom, and racing became an established na- 

 tional institution. 



Thenceforth, in some degree, the objects of the possessors 



