The Racei\ loi 



our horse will explain it. From the time of Flying 

 Childers the horse was retrograding— by Eastern blood 

 having been set aside in favour of crossed-bred horses. 

 The result became apparent ; a deficiency in every 

 respect was discernible. It is clearly to be seen that 

 our horse then did not possess the high qualities of 

 Flying Childers and the horses of his time or imme- 

 diately before him, many of whom were entirely of 

 Eastern blood. But in Eclipse there was another fresh 

 infusion of Eastern blood — Spiletta, his dam, being the 

 grand-daughter of an Eastern horse. It was a happy 

 circumstance ; it answered. Her sire, Regulus, son of the 

 Godolphin Arab, distinguished himself among the de- 

 generated horses of that period ; but he himself was not 

 of Eastern blood alone ; and on both sides of Eclipse's 

 pedigree, although there was a re-union of Eastern and 

 Arab blood, there ivcre many stains. But because 

 Eclipse was superior to the two generations before him, 

 and to the horses of his time, it is no proof that he was 

 at all equal to the racers which were entirely of Eastern 

 blood at the period of the Darley Arabian. And at the 

 present time there is nothing to guide us to the belief 

 that the racer of our day has improved upon the form of 

 Flying Childers, but many things, and especially the fact 

 that he is not now of such pure breeding, to lead us to 

 the conviction that he is inferior. What have we to 

 guide us to the assumption that our present horse is 

 superior, even to Eclipse .'' Certainly not the distances 

 that are now run, nor the weights now carried, against 

 those under which former distances were accomplished. 



