EXPENSES OF A BREEDING STUD. 63 



ther to profit or loss depends on various circum- 

 stances. Amongst them may be reckoned the 

 following: — Judgment in selecting the parent stock 

 or blood ; conveniences for keeping the produce 

 well and warm, and on land suitable to breeding ; 

 and plenty of money at command, to enable a 

 breeder to purchase mares of the very best racing 

 families, and to put them to the best of stallions. 

 When this is the case, we think breeding (we 

 mean quite distinct from risk in racing) would sel- 

 dom fail to pay, if the foals were sold off at wean- 

 ing time, or even at a year old. A few years back, 

 eight of the Earl of Durham's foals realised £1^^ 

 a-piece ; and, still later, several of ]\Ir. NowelFs 

 (of Underley Hall, Westmoreland) yearlings fetched 

 the enormous sum of i^oOO. No doubt, in all studs 

 great loss is sustained by a certain proportion of 

 the young stock which promise to be small and not 

 worth training ; but here breeders are often de- 

 ceived. For example, the late Lord Grosvenor 

 sent Meteora, the best mare in England of her day, 

 to Chester Fair, when two years old, to be sold for 

 =£16, because she was considered as too small ; and 

 he also suffered Violante, the best four-mile racer 

 of her day, to be sold, untried^ for .£^50, but fortu- 

 nately purchased her again. The great prices, 

 however, occasionally paid to breeders for some 

 horses, (4000 guineas, for example, to the Earl of 

 Jersey for Mameluke, the like sum for Priam, and 

 3000 guineas a-piece have lately been given for 

 other three-year-old colts,) make up for the loss 

 inseparable from such as, by mis-shape, diminutive 



