8 FLAT-RAVING EXPLAINED. 



Why do breeders iu commou follow each other in 

 the use of some particular sire like so many sheep? | 



If it is because the progeny of this sire fetches" high 'i 



prices when the progeny of less celebrated sires do 

 not, breeders are not so much to blame, for the evil 

 rests more with the buyers than with them. But, 

 then, does it not come to this: Breeders do not 

 trouble to breed race-horses per ae: they only trouble 

 to breed such that people having "more money than 

 brains" will be induced, when the sales are on, to 

 compete against each other to invest in. 



Although there may not be pretence for this, yet 

 the fact remains that breeders who breed for sale 

 too often send up their thoroughbred stock to the 

 sale-ring beefy, so overladen with fat, presumably 

 that their defects shall not be seen, and their good 

 or essential qualities only a dream of the imagina- 

 tion. However, we know this, that, by the aid and 

 glitter of sire qualification and attraction, a vast 

 amount of blood stock rubbish Is foisted upon buy- 

 ers, who, in return for the fabulous sums they pay, 

 reap, as it so frequently happens, only a barren re- 

 ward for their seemingly injudicious enterprise. 



