22 HORSES BROaGHT OUT TOO EARJ.Y 



food, and piiied away, and soon died. — Mr. Holcroft gives a 

 oimilar relation of the attacliment between a race-horse and a 

 cat, which the courser would take in his mouth and place in his 

 manger and upon his back without hurting her. Chillaby, called 

 from his great ferocity the Mad Arabian, whom one only of the 

 grooms dared to approach, and who savagely tore to pieces the 

 mage of a man that was purposely placed in his way, had his 

 peculiar attachment to a lamb, who used to employ himself for 

 many an hour, in butting away the flies from him. 



It has been imagined that the breed of racing horses has lately 

 very considerably degenerated. This is not the case. Thorough- 

 bred horses were formerly fewer in number, and their perform- 

 ances created greater wonder. The breed has now increased 

 twenty-fold, and superiority is not so easily obtained among so 

 many competitors. If one circumstance could,, more than any 

 other, produce this degeneracy, it would be our absurd and cruel 

 habit of bringing out horses too soon, and the frequent failure 

 ol their legs before they have come to their full power. Cliilders 

 and Eclipse did not appear until they were five years old ; but 

 many of our best horses, and those, perhaps, who would have 

 shown equal excellence with the most celebrated racers, are 

 foundered and destroyed before that period. 



Whether the introduction of short races, and so young horses, be 

 advantageous, and whether stoutness and usefulness may not thus 

 be somewhat too much sacrificed to speed : whether there may 

 be danger that an animal designed for service may, in process of 

 time, be frittered away almost to a shadow of what he was, in 

 order that at two years old, over the one-mile-course, he may as- 

 tonish the crowd by his fleetness, — are questions that more con- 

 cern the sporting man than the agriculturist ; and yet they con- 

 cern the agriculturist too, for racing is principally valuable as 

 connected with breeding, and as the test of breeding. 



The horse is as susceptible of pleasure and pain as ourselves. 

 He was committed to us for our protection and our use ; he is a 

 willing, devoted servant. Whence did we derive the right to 

 abuse him ? Interest speaks the same language : many a race 

 has been lost by the infliction of wanton cruelty." 



Consternation, whose portrait fronts the title-page, is the prop- 

 erty of John B. Burnett, Esq., Syracuse, N. Y. He was bred by 

 Matthew Hornsey, Esq., Sittenham, near York, Yorkshire, England, 

 in 1841. He was sold by that gentleman to 0. T. Albot, Esq., 

 who imported him into the United States in 1846, and introduced 

 him into Stokes, Oneida Co., N. Y. He is a brown horse, dap- 

 pied with bay — an unusual, but a rich and pleasing color. He 

 is fully fifteen hands and three inches high, without his shoes, 

 and weighs between eleven and twelve hundred pounds He if 



