their  Breeding  and  Management. 
11 
<lay  a man  has  20  miles  to  ride,  he  thinks  it  a hardship : 
I thought  nothing  of  riding  200  miles,  and  in  my  college  days 
I always  rode  up  and  down  to  Cambridge.  My  father’s  old 
mare  “ Priscilla  ” ran  three  heats  of  4 miles,  and  came  out  to 
win  another,  only  to  please  an  old  tailor,  who  on  the  mare  had 
staked  his  all.  I remember  old  John  Maynard  of  Ery holme, 
then  seventy  years  old,  rode  his  hack,  “Black  Tom,”  from 
Eryholme  to  Newcastle  and  back,  80  miles,  in  a day,  only 
baiting  at  Newcastle  ; and,  finding  the  Tees  at  Neasham  in 
flood,  he  went  in  at  the  high  ford  and  swam  across,  landing 
at  the  low  ford,  500  yards  down-stream. 
Thoroughbred  horses  have  not  so  much  bone  as  formerly ; 
go  and  look  at  the  Doncaster  yearlings.  In  consequence  of 
handicaps,  and  the  practice  of  racing-men  who  breed  from 
fashion,  thoroughbred  stallions  have  not  the  good  legs  they 
had  ; the  stallions  for  general  purposes  are  leggy,  with  “ Blair 
Athol’s  ” ankles  and  feet.  There  are  no  stallions  travelling  in 
these  days  like  those  of  all  classes  fifty  years  ago  ; thorough- 
breds were  15  hands  2 to  3 inches  high,  looking  several  inches 
lower,  gaining  their  underneath  length  by  their  sloping  shoulders  ; 
not  as  the  modern  fox-hunter  describes  his  long,  low  horse, 
getting  length  by  the  shoulder  run  into  the  neck,  and  a long 
weak  back  and  lady-like  waist.  Undoubtedly  a vast  number 
of  travelling  stallions  are  unsound.  In  my  opinion,  a man  who 
says  that  prizes  for  entire  horses  at  Agricultural  Shows  are  of 
no  use,  must  be  a man  of  small  experience. 
The  old  class  of  thoroughbred  horse  that  served  half-bred 
mares,  such  as — “ Screventon,”  “Woldsman,”  the  two  “Pre- 
sidents,” “ MacOrville,”  “ Perion,”  “ Record,”  “ Sancho,”  the 
“ W altons,”  “ Sir  Harry  Dimsdale,”  “ Sheet  Anchor,”  “ Laner- 
cost,  ’ “Tramp,”  &c. — and  I have  had  horses  by  nearly  all 
of  these — were  certainly  superior  to  the  three  crack  hunting 
prize-horses  of  the  present  day — “ Citadel,”  “ Laughing  Stock,” 
“ Angelus.  ’ I should  not  like  to  ride  any  one  of  the  three  ; 
nearly  all  the  old  horses  would  have  carried  me  pleasantly  on 
the  road  or  in  the  field.  As  to  the  superiority  of  the  old 
race-horses  * — any  of  the  old  trainers,  John  Scott  did  in  the  very 
last  conversation  I had  with  him,  would  bear  me  out — contrast, 
“ Lottery,”  “ Lanercost,”  “ Reveller,”  “ Blacklock,”  “ Catton,” 
“Woodman,’  “Bennington,”  “Sweep,”  “Sheet-Anchor,”  “Wal- 
ton, ’ “Whisker,”  “Voltaire,”  “Priam,”  “Sir  Hercules,”  “Filho 
da  Puta,”  “Sir  Peter,”  “Inheritor,”  “Physician,”  “The  Colonel,” 
“ \ elocipede,”  “ Camillus,”  “ Sir  Solomon,”  “ Cockfighter,” 
* A number  of  thoroughbred  pedigrees,  provocative  of  study,  are  clearly  and 
exhaustively  given  in  a comparatively  inexpensive  book, — ‘ Brit.  Rural  Sports,’ 
by  Stonehenge.  London  : Wame  & Co.,  12th  ed. — C. 
