AMALGAMATION. 177 



or not. The next is to get sires of running blood 

 also ; if good runners themselves, so much the better ; 

 but with a particular mare it is sometimes quite 

 judicious to select for her a sire that may as a race- 

 horse have been inferior to many others, for that 

 horse may in a very eminent degree happen to have 

 the very quality in which the mare has been found 

 deficient : wliereas we might get a mare that had won 

 many races, and a sire that had done the same, and 

 yet have very little chance of getting a winner from 

 them : for though both might have won many races 

 at particular lengths or weights, if whatever failing 

 the one had the other possessed also, we should, l)y 

 breeding from them, probably be laying the founda- 

 tion of that failing being perpetuated in the progeny 

 in an increased degree, while we might only get their 

 best quality in a very diminished one. The great de- 

 sideratum is therefore to endeavour to perpetuate the 

 good qualities of both sire and dam, while by a 

 judicious cross we endeavour to at least neutralize 

 the bad ones. To do this, therefore, a man does 

 wisely, when breeding for his own use, to forego a 

 fashionable stallion for one that with a particular 

 mare may give fair hopes of producing a runner. 

 What I have said on this subject, be it correct or 

 erroneous, or partly both, is sufficient to show what I 

 mean by breeding to run. 



Breeding to sell I hold to be quite a different affair. 

 The man breeding for himself has only himself to 

 please : I will bet long odds he does not do that. 

 However, he is not bound to try to please any other 

 person. Now the man breeding to sell must please 

 himself but in one way, and that is, by pleasing the 

 public : if he can do that he will be sure to please 



VOL. II. N 



