586 THE HORSE. 



which the Race-Horse is required to exercise are those of 

 excessive speed, which infers the greatest tension and dis- 

 placement of parts of any other kind of labour. Nothing, it 

 is known, gives so great a tendency to founder, spavin, curbs, 

 sprains, hernia, and the like, as excessive exertion of the 

 Dowers of speed by a young animal ; and, even when no per- 

 ceptible effect of this kind is produced, how often are the 

 seeds of disease sown in the system, to appear in an after 

 season in the disordered functions of the respiratory and 

 other organs ? Nor is this all in the case of the Race-Horse 

 thus cruelly misused. To fit him for his future task, he 

 must be deprived of liberty, and subjected to artificial feed- 

 ing and training almost from the time he quits the side of 

 his dam. No time is allowed him for that exercise in the 

 fields which his instincts point out as the most suitable and 

 natural, nor for partaking of that food in the open air, which 

 is the best fitted of all others to preserve health, and answer 

 the demand of the sanguiferous system in a young animal. 

 He must be trained, bled, physicked, sweated, and subjected 

 to restraint in his natural motions, at the time when the 

 animal functions should have their natural play. Can any 

 one who has any knowledge of the animal system in general, 

 or of the temperament of the horse in particular, doubt that 

 such a system must enfeeble the powers of the body, and act 

 injuriously upon the progeny ? Is it possible to believe that, 

 under a system of this kind, carried to the degree to which it 

 now is carried, numbers of the turf-horses of England are 

 not broken down and undermined in constitution long before 

 their natural powers have been perfected ? Childers and 

 Eclipse did not appear on the turf until the age of five. 

 Had these fine creatures been run at the age of two, a very 

 different estimate might have been formed of their' powers, 

 and themselves have been racked, foundered, or otherwise 

 injured, before their full forces could have been exhibited, 

 and thus the English Turf might have been deprived of all 

 the benefit which it has derived from the numerous progeny 



