38G 
A French Haras and Horse Fair. 
rump ! The Limousin race, a sort of Barb, of Oriental origin ; 
this is a pretty horse : M. Lemichel says the unreflecting taste for 
English horses alone accounts for the discredit into which this 
race has fallen ; the Haras with its English stallions is founding 
an inferior mixed race. The Auvergne race, an inferior sort of 
Limousin horse. The race of Navarre, on the Spanish frontier, 
an Andalusian crossed with the Arab, and next to the Limousin 
the lightest and most beautiful horse of France. " We begin to 
experience," says M. Lemichel, " the disastrous influences of 
English blood." There is throughout evidence of the reaction 
from the days and fashions of the last Empire and the influence 
of the French Jockey Club and General Fleury. M. Lemichel is 
undisguisedly of opinion that in effect the leaven of English blood 
is generally working disastrously as regards the horses in France. 
Before reaching Lamballe, and by way of further preface, it 
is well to explain that all hippie France is divided into two 
hostile parties, Anglophobists, or " No bloods,"' and Anglo- 
maniacs, those who advocate a variously graduated infusion of 
that pure and precious fluid. Hence, from pai-ty and adverse 
feeling, a serious difficulty no doubt arises in the way of the 
administration of the Haras. I take M. Lemichel, veterinairc 
en premier, as representing the " No blood " party, reserving the 
thoughtful and most practical opinions of the very experienced 
M. Gayot, formerly Director-General of Haras, for the conclusion 
of this paper. M. Gayot may be considered a moderate repre- 
sentative of the French school which favours the judicious use 
on French mares of the English thoroughbred horse. M. Le- 
michel in his book dwells on the races of horses as racy of the soil, 
or, in other words, the race and name follow the habitat. He 
goes on to say that all French races are deteriorated chiefly by 
the influence of English stallions. We must remember, however, 
M. Lemichel notwithstanding, that all the French races are not 
only intermixed one with the other, but that since the days of 
the Romans there have been endless wars and invasions — the 
French alternately invaded and invading — camps, armies of 
occupation, intermixtures of all sorts of horses without any 
regard to selection — Arabs Barbs, Moorish, Spanish, Flemish, 
English, Germans, Danes, Russians, Cossacks, and others. 
As regards the Haras system M. Lemichel utters an exceed- 
ing bitter cry : " Nous avons remplace le cheval d campagne par le 
clieval cle revue." Pure blood has poisoned our lighter horses, and 
made them fit only for the games of the hippodrome ; the ad- 
ministration of the Haras should at least understand that the 
aristocratic view of equine fabrication ruins the peasant as well 
as the proprietor, and estranges all reasonable people from this 
