horses ; but such animals as Cognac, whose portrait is here 

 given, were very largely used, to the great benefit of the 

 Hunter. Cognac belonged, in the words of a writer in 

 the Sporting Magazine of the year 1836, " to a race of Hunters 

 nearly extinct, and justly celebrated for their high courage, 

 honesty and stoutness.'' 



The famous writer, Mr. Cornelius Tongue, best known as 

 ■"Cecil," writing in the Sporting Magazine of May, 1851, says 

 that " it was a prevailing opinion with hunting men until 

 within the last twenty years that Thoroughbreds were 

 not calculated for hunting." It would appear, therefore, that 

 during the twenty years 1831-1851 mentioned, hunting men 

 changed their opinions with regard to Thoroughbreds, and 

 came to consider them suitable for riding across country. 



Having discovered that the Hunter mare threw a good foal 

 to the stout Thoroughbred sire, some hunting men, at least, 

 evidently adopted the practice of riding the Thoroughbred 

 horse as a Hunter instead of using him only as a sire to beget 

 Hunters. In this connection we must always bear in mind 

 that the Thoroughbred of the period referred to was still a 

 stout horse, able to gallop a distance and carry a heavy 

 weight. 



Because the Thoroughbred sire of a former generation 

 was successfully used to beget Hunters, we have taken for 

 granted that his greatly altered modern descendant is equally 

 suitable for the purpose ; and herein to a great extent lies the 

 reason of our failure. 



There must always be a large proportion of disappointments 

 in stud work ; the number of failures or misfits will always 

 e.xceed the good ones, and the misfit got by a Thoroughbred 

 from, say, a Hunter mare already full of Thoroughbred blood is 

 only too often a misfit in the fullest sense of the word — 

 disappointment to the breeder, too light for Army work, and 

 scarcely fit for useful purposes — in homely language it is a 

 " weed." 



