Report on the JTori^es Fxhihited at Wtnrhor. 
585 
held its earlier Shows, about one half of the horses inspected were 
cast, Mr. Sexton has stated, in the Live Stock Joimial Almanac 
for 1889, that at the 1888 Show scarcely more than 20 out of 
1(30 were unable to obtain certificates. It follows that, when 
sound horses only are used for breeding, the risk of hereditary 
disease is minimised as far as possible. At the present time, 
when tbe veterinary examination is so strict, and even the most 
elastic-conscienced exhibitor knows the futility of " faking " his 
horses, it seems strange to read that in 1861, at Leeds, the 
Judges discovered the feet of one of the heavy horses to be 
stopped with gutta-percha and pitch. 
In tracing the growth of the Royal Show, we can see how 
the value set upon the different breeds came to be gradually 
recognised. At the Oxford Show, in 1839, all the breeds were 
mixed up together, and to the Judges was left the extremely 
difficult task of saying which was the best animal. What should 
we have said at Windsor had any set of Judges been asked to 
assess the respective merits of the best Shire, the best Cleveland, 
and the best Sufiblk, all three being shown in the same class ? 
As will be seen, however, when we come to the Suffolks, the 
early honours did not rest with the Shire breed — for the reason 
pi-obably that even fifty years ago they were not so much of one 
type as were the SufFolks. Nor at the first two Royal Shows 
were the cart stallions divided into classes according to their 
ages ; this progressive step was not reached till the Liverpool 
year, in 1841, when prizes for pairs of plough-horses were 
first offered. By the time York was visited, in 1848, there 
were five classes for agricultural horses, and here for the first 
time a class for dray-horses found its way into the schedule. 
This new departure appears to have been taken because of some- 
thing which had occurred at Northampton in 1847. When the 
agricultural horses were judged there, one of the competitors 
was a gigantic animal which, in the opinion of the Judges, was 
too big every way for farmwork, but just the thing to draw a 
brewer's dray, and to be a worthy sire for horses adapted for 
that work. They thought it a pity that so fine a horse, as well as 
others built on similar lines, should be debarred from winning 
prizes, so a class for stallions calculated to get dray-horses was 
introduced in 1848, but was given up in 1865. 
Up to and including the Reading Meeting, in 1882, the 
Shires had to compete at the Royal Shows in the classes for 
" Agricultural Horses not qualified to compete as Clydesdales or 
SufFolks." At York, in 1883, separate classes were first given 
in the Prize Sheet for " Shire Horses." The Shire men had for 
some time been becoming a power, and although a good many 
