THE BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 187 



deteriorated in streng-tli or endurance. If you begin 

 galloping" him at a year and a-half old, to wear liim out 

 in running and " trying " before be is three years old, and 

 his limbs set and his frame furnished, this is no proof of 

 all he might have been, had his powers been husbanded 

 like those of his ancestors, any of which, imder like cir- 

 cumstances, he would have fairly distanced over a four- 

 mile course. Pace is now the pass-word of the chase, 

 and the best hunters in Leicestershu'e, either for fencing, 

 weight- carrying*, or stoutness, are, and long' have been, 

 purely thorough-bred. These are the horses that make 

 money, and next to these the three-parts bred, by a 

 thorough-bred stallion out of a well-bred mare. 



But Jonas Webb, even at the acme of his success, 

 culled his rams, and many a Shorthorn that we never see 

 has, like Brummel's neckcloths, been fastidiously ' put 

 aside as "a failure." With the thorough-bred horse, 

 however, it is not so : here, unfortunately, there are no 

 failures. Those of the highest degree go to our famous 

 turf studs to serve at their fifty or thirty guineas ; others 

 of almost equal excellence are eagerly bought up for the 

 foreign market, while many of a similar stamp are put 

 at prices varying- from ten to twenty guineas. Such 

 horses are all beyond the farmer's reach ; but instead of 

 lookino' for somethino- in the next deo'ree — and that, 

 without the charge for mere fashion or high performance, 

 might well answer the object — our breeder is too often 

 content with the very worst of cast-oifs. People who live 

 by travelling stallions are not often men of much capital, 

 and they go, as a consequence, more for a cheap horse 

 than a good one. With a flaming card of all a great- 

 grandsire has done, or what this very horse may have 

 accomplished over a short course at a light weight, they 



