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the whole world. The finest specimens of every class, except the cart 

 horse, are there exhibited. 



I don't think we pay as much attention as we oaght to the breeding 

 and conformation of our mares. As long as some of us can breed a foal 

 got by a thoroughbred horse, we don't much care what the mare is like. 

 This is a subject which should occupy the consideration of the Royal 

 Dublin Society, and doubtless it will do so. 



For my part, I think it would be a better plan to produce foals from 

 fine, big, roomy thoroughbred mares, well-shaped and tempered, and got 

 by half-bred stallions, than is the present and more popular idea of 

 proceeding by quite the reverse method. 



I think it is decidedly a bad plan to breed from a mare that has been 

 worked unduly hard when she was young. So also is it to breed from 

 either horse or mare that is not well-shaped, no matter what might be 

 their pedigree or even performance. 



I am not well versed in the pedigrees of horses, and I have not time 

 to search them up, but it strikes me from memory that mares which 

 have been first-class on the Turf do not, as a rule, throw progeny of 

 equal merit, and that it is mares either unknown to fame or of little 

 value that have dropped most of our great horses. 



Who knows but the hard work which good mares must endure in 

 early training produces bad effects on their offspring ? Anyway I think 

 the great thing is to get strains that will " nick," and when a man 

 finds a sire to which his mare has foaled a good horse, it seems very 

 foolish to change her to another, except by way of experiment. Yet 

 such is constantly done. 



We all wish good luck at the stud to the beautiful and clinking La 

 Fleche ; but it will be interesting to watch if she will throw anything^ 

 nearly as good as herself even if mated to Orme. 



If a man goes in for breeding steeplechasers or hunters, undoubtedly 

 his best plan is to select sires and mares which possess jumping blood,, 

 just as a " milking bull " is looked for by the proprietor of a dairy. 



The breeding we want in hunters is one parent thoroughbred, the 

 other half-bred, but both to be stout-hearted. 



Except for racing purposes, to maintain horses in perfectly pure 

 blood is not necessary. In steeplechases a horse with a stain in his 

 pedigree will win as often as the thoroughbred, while we all know 

 a half-bred hunter is a customer more cut-and-come-again than the 

 pure bred, and he makes a much better hack. 



I had only three thoroughbred hunters in my life, and they were the 

 most unsatisfactory horses I ever owned. One, by Giraldus, was a 

 lovely conveyance to hounds for three or four miles, but that was the 

 length of his tether. Another, by Charles XII., I could never get to 

 the end of, and by himself he was a grand performer, but in company 

 he was a lunatic, and gave me some terrible falls. The third was a 

 very good horse, and a picture to look at, but he was a delicate brute, 

 and could come out only once a fortnight, yet he was got by Bird- 



