114 TRAINING. 



ciples ; and those consist in condensing the greatest 

 quantity of pure muscle into the smallest possible 

 bulk, and so gradually to raise the muscular powers 

 and wind to that degree of perfection that every atom 

 of speed may be drawn out without any distress be- 

 ing exhibited, and without the slightest damage to the 

 legs. In effecting this consists the whole arcanum of 

 good training ; and, by attending to the following, you 

 may accomplish your end, and be able to cope with 



of country, climate, food, and the manner in which the two, from infancy, are 

 reared, require an alteration of system, and render much of the artificial 

 means pursued in England unnecessary ; but the English race-horse, notwith- 

 standing his wonderful performances, will, perhaps, not stand more training, 

 more actual galloping, before he comes to the post than a high caste Arab ; and 

 yet an English thorough-bred will easily outstrip the best Arab, in either 

 pace or distance, and beat him in daily journeys, or continuance of labour ; 

 though, for these two last, the Arab might prove victorious, if on his own 

 native soil. 



Arab blood is a little in disrepute just now, owing to those that have been 

 exported from this country having been of a very mediocre caste ; but I do 

 not believe that a thorough- bred, genuine, unblemished Arab horse, and certain- 

 ly not a mare, of the proper build and stamp, would be objected to the one 

 for a stallion, aud the other for a brood-mare ; or either to be crossed with 

 suitable- sized English thorough- breds by any of the great racing breeders a,t 

 home ; and if twenty genuine, high caste Arab horses and mares were now to 

 be sent to our cold climate, and as judiciously crossed, and well taken care of, 

 for the next fifty years, as the race now in existence have been from sire to 

 son during the last half -century, they might equal in size, and surpass in speed, 

 all those of the present day. 



When last in England, my opinion was asked of a late importation from 

 the Bomb Proof, price twelve hundred rupees, and if I thought he was a real 

 Arab. I replied, to my confiding querist, I thought he was a real Arab, quite 

 as much a real Arab as a cathammed horse he had purchased of his baker a 

 few days before was a real English horse : and I recommended that he should 

 embark that to his munificent donor in India in return, who would then have 

 a real English horse, and a most equitable exchange, too. An Arab, to be 

 worth acceptance at home, must either be very showy and handsome, answer- 

 ing for a lady's park-horse, or else have proved his blood by the very best 

 performance, displaying besides the cardinal points of a good stallion ; for the 

 very best performance of an Arab, in India, would be very third-rate at New- 

 market. A few of the genuine caste are annually imported to Bombay, but 

 three parts to seven-eighths bred are what chiefly fall to our lot. 



