258 
Beport upon the Spring Show of 
runners were invariably purchased, and they wei'e not trans- 
planted about year after year from one Haras to another, but 
kept to do service in one quarter for many years. 
What have we to say about our own best results, the results 
indeed that made the whole character of the English hunter, which 
was precisely all the French have copied ? The oldest hunting sire 
in Lincolnshire was a horse called Lance, by Javelin, belonging 
to Lord Egremont. He was a King's Plate horse of some note ; 
but, breaking a hind fetlock whilst running in a race at Ascot, 
he was given to a Boston blacksmith. That horse was located 
at Boston for more than twenty years, and is said to have set 
the stamp of the Lincolnshire hunter. Contemporary with, or 
just after him, was a horse called the Flyer, travelling between 
Grantham and Boston for ten years ; and the horses got from the 
crosses of the two stallions were veritable fortunes to the Lin- 
colnshire farmers. For three got by the Flyer out of a Lance 
mare a thousand pounds was offered, in those days, before the 
elder of the trio was six years old. Gainsborough had about 
nine seasons in Devonshire, and he fairly made the country into 
a breeding field for hunters. He was adored by the farmers, 
and, although it is now sixty years since he left the quarter, his 
name has never been forgotten. As a type of what a hunting 
sire should be, he must have been pi'etty nearly perfection — a 
long low brown horse, standing 15.3 on short legs, and as a 
performer he was the hardest worked King's Plate winner in 
England. There was Belzoni, again, at Lutterworth, in Leicester- 
shire. He must have stood there seven or eight years, and for 
a long time no hunters were thought as good as those got by 
Belzoni. In later years the Ugly Buck travelled year after year 
from Oakham to Northampton, and it is said to this day that 
no other horse in the Midland counties ever did as much good. 
I could go on enumerating a great number of such hunting 
sires, and I am quite certain that the list tells us one great 
secret, which is that a good horse has always made a country 
into a notable breeding district, for the time at least, both a3 
regards quantity and quality. A horse starts off by getting a 
good batch of produce, and in four years, when his earliest 
offspring can be seen as young horses, their promise is favour- 
ably spoken of. The next year, perhaps, two or three sell for a 
couple of hundred guineas apiece, and what is the consequence ? 
It is the talk of the country round, and there is quite a furore 
to send mares to the successful stallion, whilst as soon as his 
favours are filled another horse is patronised. If the success 
continues, so will the breeding ; but if a farmer happens to try a 
chance stallion coming into his neighbourhood, and the produce 
is a failure, he never ceases to talk about it, and to deplore the 
