^12 ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 



game age as Aitow, and carrying 9 st. instead of 7 st. 12 lbs., ran 2 1-2 

 miles at a better rate than Arrow did his 3 miles, by one-third of a sec- 

 ond per furlong. And it has been shown that in the year last past, two 

 horses exceeded the greatest performance of the olden times by a second 

 per furlong, and beat the best American time of modern days by one- 

 third of a second per mile. The assertion, therefore, that our present 

 horses are degenerated in their power of staying a distance under weight, 

 is wholly without foundation ; since I have shown that, even taking the 

 time of the Childers' performance as the true rate, of which there is 

 some doubt, yet it has recently been beaten very considerably by West 

 Australian and Kingston. Many loose assertions have been made as to 

 the rate of the horse, for one mile in the last century, but there is not 

 the slightest reliance to be placed upon them. That any race-horse ever 

 ran a mile within the minute, is an absurd fiction : and it is out of the 

 question to suppose that if Childers could not beat our modern horses 

 over the Beacon Course, he could beat them a shorter distance. Stout- 

 ness was undoubtedly the forte of the early race-horses ; they were of 

 small size, very wiry and low, and could unquestionably stay a distance, 

 and could race month after month, and year after year, in a way seldom 

 imitated in these days ; but that they could in their small compact forms 

 run as fast in a short spin as our modern three-year-olds, is quite a fal- 

 lacy ; and no racing man of any experience would admit it for a moment. 

 The size and shape of the modern thoroughbred horse are superior to 

 those of olden days, if we may judge by the portraits of them handed 

 down to us by Stubbs, who was by far the most faithful animal painter 

 of the eighteenth century. In elegance of shape we beat the horses of 

 that day very considerably, more especially in the beauty of the head 

 and the formation of the shoulders, which have been much attended to by 

 breeders. In size, also, there has been an immense stride made, the 

 average height of the race-horse having been increased by at least a hand 

 in the last century. This enlargement is, I believe, chiefly due to the 

 Godolphin Arabian, who was the sire of Babrahara, the only horse of 

 his time M^hich reached 16 hands, and sire and grandsire of several which 

 were more than 15 hands, much above the average height of horses at 

 that time — as for instance. Fearnought, Genius, Gower, Stallion, Infant, 

 Denmark, Bolton, Cade, Club, Lofty, and Amphion. Indeed it will be 

 found, by an examination of the horses of that time, that out of 1.30 

 winners in the middle of the eighteenth century, there were only 18 of 

 the height of 15 hands and upwards, of which 11 were by Godolphin or 

 his sons, three descended from the Darly Arabian, two from the Byerly 

 Turk, and two from other sources. It may therefore be assumed, with 

 some degree of probability, that the increase in size is in great measure 



