120 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
thoroughbred or Arab blood 1n his veins is, that from 
no other source can he derive the necessary nervous 
energy. This is even more important than the supe- 
rior bony structure of the thoroughbred or. Arabian. 
Exactly what nervous energy is, nobody, I presume, 
can tell; but it is something that, in horses at least, 
develops the physical system early, makes it capable 
of great exertion, and enables it to recover quickly 
from fatigue. The same, or, more correctly, a similar 
capacity, is remarked in mankind. Readers of Arctic 
travels, for example, must often have been struck by 
the fact that it is almost invariably the men, and not 
the officers, who succumb to the labor and exposure 
of asledge journey. Loosely speaking, it may be that 
in the educated man, especially in the man whose 
ancestors also have been educated, the mind has ac- 
quired a degree of control over the body which can- 
not otherwise be attained. So also with horses. <A 
thoroughbred is one whose progenitors for many gen- 
erations have been called upon to exert themselves to 
the utmost; they have run hard and long, and strug- 
gled to beat their competitors. Moreover, they have 
had an abundance of the food best adapted to develop 
bone and muscle. Then, again, the care, the groom- 
ing, the warm housing and blanketing, which they 
have received, tend to make the skin delicate, the 
hair fine, the mane silky, the whole organization more 
sensitive to impressions, and consequently the nervous 
system more active and controlling. 
This same nervous energy usually prevents the road- 
ster from being what is known as a family horse, for 
he lacks the repose, the placidity and phlegm, of that 
useful but commonplace animal; he is apt to jump 
