98 



stallions to go abroad, the law should prohibit, from all parts of the 

 kingdom, such positive insanity ! 



To allow the practice is to permit an outrage against the common 

 weal surpassed in enormity only by that of allowing our great agri- 

 cultural community to be ruined by admitting to this country, free of 

 duty, foreign meat and bread stuflF. The farmer is the backbone of 

 our nation, and the wily foreigner covets greedily our good horses. 

 It behoves, therefore, both Lords and Commons to adopt protective 

 measures before the one gets broken or the cupidity of the other be 

 gratified. 



As the system exists at present, England is for the foreigners not 

 alone the nursery, but the school from which they can choose their 

 horses. John Bull expends, yearly, a prodigious amount of money, 

 subsidised as it is by large grants from Government, upon breeding 

 horses. He takes all the trouble and incurs all the risks. Then when 

 we have produced horses or mares of phenomenal excellence, which, 

 having passed through the dangerous part of their career, are sound 

 and ready-made for stud purposes, over comes some continental 

 gentleman and takes out of the country the very animals we should be 

 the most desirous ourselves to retain ! No doubt very large sums are 

 paid for them, but prices equally good can be obtained from our own 

 countrymen, and by selling to them we get the eggs and keep the 

 goose. 



To our colonies some of our good horses and mares should be sold, 

 but to the foreigner, most assuredly, I would give nothing except of 

 third or fourth rate class. Elsewhere I allude to the fact that the 

 great Stockwell escaped from transportation only by a fluke. 



I look to these stud farms for other good results besides improve- 

 ment in our horse-breeding. Steeplechases over a natural country, by 

 reason of red-coat point-to-point races, are becoming popular again, and 

 as the proprietors of these farms are all sportsmen, with good position 

 and ample means, they, by their influence and with plenty of horses 

 at command, may, in time, bring back to the old style our grand sport. 



When dealing with Steeplechase Reform, in reply to a letter of Lord 

 Howth's in April, 1891, I gave as one of the reasons for the decadence 

 in the sport that we had no men now in Ireland who bred, reared, 

 trained, and raced their horses from their own stables, such as we had in 

 my younger days, and I then gave the names of those I remember doing 

 so— all of whom were contemporaries in racing. In tribute to the memory 

 of those fine sportsmen I reproduce the list, and I trust that before many 

 years we shall have a number quite as great, following the good old 

 example. Here it is : — " Lords Howth, St. Lawrence, Clanricarde, 

 Waterf ord, Rossmore, and Drogheda ; the Courtenays, Quins, McCraiths, 

 De Burghos, Russells, Gubbins, Aylmers, Sadliers, Bryans, Forsters, 

 Ainslies, Bernards, Moores, Manserghs, Masseys, Magranes, Crokers, 

 Prestons, Westenras, Hoeys, Gartlanes, Goughs, Longs, Harpers, Dunnes, 

 Powers, Studdarts, Persses, Naughtons, Stackpools, and O'Ryans ; while 



