44 THE RACE-HORSE. 



unnecessary v^eight to oppress the muscles^ so peculiar 

 to the highly bred race-horse, is all that need be 

 insisted upon in a racer. It is nevertheless hard 

 to say what horse will make a racer, and also what 

 will not, until put to the test ; for how many horses 

 have appeared which the eye of the sportsman 

 would not wish to study, and yet have proved 

 themselves very capital runners ? This excellence, 

 however, in those " cross-made horses,"*' as they are 

 termed, not mis-shapen ones, arises, as has been 

 before observed, from their possessing parts con- 

 ducive to speed and action, not, perhaps, very 

 strikingly displayed, but by means of greater 

 length and depth, and a peculiar manner of setting 

 on of the acting parts, enabling them to excel 

 others, much handsomer to the eye, but wanting 

 in either proper declivity, length, or, what is still 

 more probable, in circular extent of those parts. 

 Thus, as the wise man, according. to the Stoics, 

 alone is beautiful, so is a race-horse to be admired 

 solely for those points which make him a good 

 race-horse. 



Although symmetry and proportion form a per- 

 fect figure, and they become deformities when any 

 of the component parts exceed or fall short of their 

 due proportions, yet it is not always necessary to 

 measure by the standard of perfection. Suffice it, 

 then, to state the generally approved points of the 

 English race-horse. 



We commence with the head, not merely because 

 it has always been considered as the most honour- 

 able member in the human frame, but as it is one 



