ON HORSE-BREEDING. 31 



wealthy as a sport, its effects upon horse- 

 breeding for general purposes seem to have 

 been distinctly advantageous, but now that 

 it has become a business, and often a 

 lucrative one, the Turf as an institution 

 appears to have ceased to be of use in this 

 direction. Lord Durham spoke very strongly 

 on this subject at a recent Grimcrack dinner, 

 and that such is the opinion of the Royal 

 Commission we infer from the significant 

 fact that the Queen's Plates, so long estab- 

 lished for the purpose of improving the 

 breed of horses in these Islands, and once 

 competed for by the very cream of our 

 racing studs, but of late years contested 

 only by inferior horses (hence the term, 

 most uncomplimentary to Her Majesty's 

 patronage of the Turf, of "a mere Plater"), 

 have been recently abolished, and the money 

 voted for these plates applied to another 

 purpose, which we shall come to discuss 

 in a later chapter. 



