THOROUGHBRED HORSES 41 



especially of the younger thoroughbred stock, for many 

 consecutive generations, has an unfavourable influence on 

 the constitution. These unfavourable effects, which are an 

 especial consequence of the many early races of two-year- 

 olds, are distinctly recognisable, also outside the course, by 

 many retrogressive signs. The most conspicuous of these 

 consists in the fairly regular decrease of the percentage of 

 pregnant mares, from about 80 per cent, in the year 1851 to 

 70 per cent, in recent years. 



" It may further be pointed out that the length of life of 

 stallions is slowly decreasing, which is all the more remark- 

 able, as the progress of hygiene, improved stabling, and 

 other conditions, as well as the more reasonable training of 

 horses, would lead one to expect longer lives. . . . The 

 number of stallions which have attained twenty-five years 

 and more has been in no decade greater than in that of 1850 

 to 1859, namely, thirty. Already in the following two 

 decades a distinct decrease is recognisable : 1860 to 1869, 

 twenty-four stalhons ; and 1870 to 1879, twenty stallions." 



Other practical men testify also to the alteration in the 

 physique of the modern race-horse. John Osborne, the 

 celebrated jockey, who rode his first race in 1846, and is 

 still engaged in training horses, states in " Ashgill and 

 Kadcliffe," p. 428 : " Horses are very much lighter now ; 

 they have neither the bone nor the substance that thorough- 

 breds had fifty years ago. Of course in the old times they 

 were sweated a good deal. Heavy cloths were put on them, 

 and they were galloped three and four miles in them. That 

 plan has been discontinued for many years. I don't know 

 that sweating is weakening to a horse. Old John Scott was a 

 great believer in bleeding and sweating. I am certain that 

 the constitution of horses of the present day would not 

 stand such work ; the modern breed is neither so robust nor 

 so strong. Formerly it was quite a common thing for 

 horses to run three- and four-mile heats. If they were sub- 

 jected to that now they wouldn't be able to come out of the 

 stable for a month after. ... I am fully convinced the 

 constitution of horses of the present day is not as strong as 

 it was forty or fifty years ago." 



