ESSENTIAL POINTS 



IN THE THOROUGHBRED HORSE FOR RACING PURPOSES. 



In the following description, the points of the thoroughbred 

 horse are so admirably laid down by Stonehenge, and are so 

 exactly those which I hold to constitute the perfection of a 

 blood-horse in a high form, not only for racing purposes but as 

 a stallion for imijroving the breed of animals, and for getting 

 the best horses from any possible class of mare, for all possible 

 uses, unless for the very slowest and most ponderous draught, 

 that I extract it entire, endorsing it with all my strength, from an 

 excellent work on British Rnral Sports, to which I have here 

 before recorded my indebtedness: — 



Purity of blood is a sine qua non for racing purposes, but 

 it is necessary to understand what is meant by the term 

 " blood." It is not to be supposed that there is any real diflPer- 

 ence between the blood of the thoroughbred horse and that of 

 the half-bred animal; no one could discriminate between the 

 two by any known means ; the term " blood " is here synono- 

 mous with hreed^ and by purity of blood we mean purity in 

 the breeding of the individual animal under consideration; that 

 is to say, that the horse which is entirely bred from one source 

 is pure from any mixture with others, and may be a pure Suf- 

 folk Punch, or a pure Clydesdale, or a pure thoroughbred 

 horse. But all these terms are comparative, since there is no 

 such animal as a perfectly purely bred horse of any breed, wlie- 

 ther cart-horse, hack, or race-horse ; all have been produced 

 from an admixture with other breeds, and though novo kept as 



