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to keep them in training to an older age. All the 

 greater prizes are given for two- and three-year-olds, 

 and it is very difficult to make four-year-olds pay, 

 so that they are not kept, and we hardly know 

 whether our horses have good substance and stamina. 



Anybody who knows anything about breeding 

 will understand that it is absolutely necessary to 

 breed from young sound mares. Perhaps Mr. Walter 

 Gilbey would not mind adding the word "young" 

 in the last paragraph but one (C) of his paper. I 

 know it would carry out his intentions, and I think 

 it would be better if that word was inserted in that 

 paragraph. 



A lady friend of mine who had an old mare that 

 she had ridden for many years asked me, when it was 

 23 years old, if it was not right to begin breeding 

 from her. She quoted the opinion of some friends of 

 hers — I think Sir Edward Sullivan was one— who 

 told her that such and such a mare had produced a 

 very good colt when it was 23 years old ; but it is 

 quite another thing to begin breeding at 23. I am 

 afraid it is too often the case that when a mare 

 has done good service and is worn out in her legs and 

 constitution, it is supposed that it is the right thing 

 to put her to any horse that may happen to be in the 

 country. 



My own experience of half-bred stallions is 

 this : I have a horse called Golden Cross ; he is 

 by Brown Bread, and the dam, New Oswestry, 

 which has a stain in her pedigree ; but he is in 



