49 



standings of your own juvenile offspring, to as crooked 

 a form as you deem commensurate with improvement ; 

 but if we are to take any pleasure in seeing races, we 

 must have straight uncovered legs to look at, and not 

 bent ones with stockings on when they come to 

 perform. 



The value of race horses for the present day 

 appears to be, firstly, for betting ; secondly, for 

 getting the fastest horse over the turf, no matter 

 whether the animal suffers by the training process or 

 not — occasionally, therefore, to prevent the fast 

 favourite going too fast and winning, even when 

 able, must necessarily be a virtue, and a proof of 

 regard for the legs ; thirdly, to obtain subscriptions for 

 the different stakes, &c.; and after all, to treat the 

 public to a sale of half-ruined wretched rips, and then 

 pretend to wonder that they grumble at the show, 

 and feel ashamed to take such extraordinary creatures 

 for the pleasure of ordinary riding. The time has 

 now come when all blood stock found to be afflicted 

 with the customary infirmities should be discarded 

 and banished from all respectable stables. The very 

 cabmen have commenced refusing the weedy dregs 

 when the pedestals have also sufi'ered. It would be a 

 great blessing if all that are found so visibly injured, 

 and that have been taken away from their natural 



D 



