120 FLAT-RACING EXPLAINED. 



alone looking for a name as suggested by the exist- 

 ing names of the sire and the dam. I believe this 

 method, providing as it does a sort of hard-and-fast 

 rule by vrhieh people are guided in the concoction of 

 names, has led to the numberless feeble results that 

 come under one's eye day by day. In naming a colt, 

 or it may be a Ally, on these lines, people do not like 

 to be outdone, or to have to take a sort of back-seat 

 to their neighbors, in the matter of smartness and 

 piquancy, though it may create any number of 

 breaches in both appropriateness and finish. 



It might give offence and periiaps wound the sus- 

 ceptibilities of some of my most intimate friends 

 were I to particularize even some from the many 

 vain attempts at erudition, or where erudition had 

 floundered so visibly as to baffle even one's ordinary 

 understanding, so I give it up. But for all that, I 

 trust I may be permitted to say I do not relinquish 

 the desire to create a new era in turf nomenclature, 

 if it be possible, in the cause that uppermost should 

 guide one's actions in such a matter — viz., of the 

 turf itself. 



By this I do not mean to infer we in this country 

 have no well-named horses. If such were suggested 

 it would obviously be extremely incorrect. Wo have 

 not only large numbers, the names of w hich are ap- 

 propriate and pleasing in every way, but certain 



