at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 
117 
have spoken of them, as they spoke of the horses seen in 
January. Some would probably have been "crocks," others 
would have had defective forelegs, " not the best of shoulders," 
and so forth. The question, therefore, seems to be, not were 
the Newcastle horses perfection — but did they answer reasonably 
to a certain standard? 
To be hypercritical about sires only tends to give greater 
prominence to the importance of breeding from good mares. If 
the horses seen at Newcastle were not good enough to get good 
hunters, where, it may be asked, are the mares which would 
breed at a disadvantage if mated with any one of the Newcastle 
premium-winners, or reserved horses? In the " Druid's" books 
and in other works we read much about horse-breeding in a 
bygone dav. We learn the names of some of the more noted 
sires, and learn, too, how common good hunters were ; in fact, 
if the records are to be implicitly trusted, such a thing as a 
failure in horse-breeding seems never to have occurred. To 
draw a comparison between the hunter-sire of to-day, and his 
predecessor of sixty or seventy years ago, is, for obvious reasons, 
well-nigh impossible. To attempt to argue the matter would 
be to reopen the question, foreign to the present purpose, 
whether the English thoroughbred has deteriorated, not only in 
point of endurance and stamina, as some assert, but in make 
and shape also. In this report it has been already noticed that 
none of the Newcastle decorated horses have greatly distin- 
guished themselves as winners of long-distance races on the 
Turf; and a note was also made of the fact that there are not 
wanting breeders who maintain that the ability to race over 
any course, long or short, is not necessarily a recommendation 
in a hunter-sire, whose progeny do their work not at racing, but 
at half or three-parts speed. But one or two remarks on the 
stamina of our horses of to-day may not be out of place here. 
Both in print and in conversation it almost seems as though 
writers and speakers jumped to the conclusion that 5 and 6 
furlong races were instituted, because horses showed themselves 
unable to travel longer distances. Even the non-racing reader 
will scarcely need to be told that such was not the case. In 
these days of multiplied race meetings, a horse can be brought 
to the post oftener, when the course does not exceed 5 or G 
lurlongs, than if he had to race from 1 to 3 miles every time 
that he started. Consequently short races are found to pay 
better, and horses are trained for short courses. But when 
their flat-racing career comes to an end, and they are put to 
hurdle-racing and steeple-chasing, they are trained in a different 
manner ; thenceforth they rarely race less than 2 miles, and it 
often happens that some animal, which could not stay for half a 
