384 Report on the Exliibition of Live Stock at Cardiff. 
mares for breeding hunters, where the first prize went to a thorough- 
bred one, whose present purpose is clearly breeding not hunters, 
but race-horses. Bv Newminster, out of the famous Fair- 
water, this prize hunting mare had a foal by Saunterer at her 
side, who is not very likely to face a fence, if he be only good 
enough to train as a race-horse. A hunter, however, in these 
times can scarcely be too well bred, and such an incident has 
not been one of frequent occurrence. It might be, in fact, as it 
has been urged, that the prize thorough-bred horses may be too 
good or of too high a class for the Society's object ; but any such 
objection has been very exceptional, as most of these horses have 
come fairly within the farmer's reach. The tendency which I 
would the rather guard against from selecting a mare like 
Fairminster is, that farmers should be induced to try their 
hands at breeding thorough-bred yearlings for sale — just now 
about the most unsaleable stock in the market ; at any rate from 
a farmer's hands. There have been numbers sent back this 
summer without a customer, and even the late Mr. Blenkiron's 
last sale in July of 43 lots of yearlings at an average of 117 
guineas each, must have been a losing business. The Society 
has for some time past been putting people into the right and 
only way of breeding a hunter, that is, by the use of the 
thorough-bred stallion with any likely mare a man may happen 
to have ; but beyond this it would be better not to extend the 
lesson. 
If the Welsh ponies were neither so numerous nor so clever as we 
had expected to see them, it does not altogether follow that they 
are deteriorating, or that the sort is going out of use. One of 
the best horse authorities in Glamorganshire told me that the Welsh 
farmers were scarcely educated up to the show standard, and 
that many better things might be picked up about the lanes and 
little homesteads than were entered for Cardiff. And this would 
possibly apply not merely to the ponies and galloways, but 
equally to the other Welsh breeds of stock. Herewith is the 
Report of the Riding-Horse Judges : — 
Class 7. TliorougJi-hred Stallions. — The general inferiority of this class may 
be best described by tlie fact of all the three Judges simultaneously expressing 
their dislike to Laughing Stock the moment he entered the ring ; and yet 
so more or less faulty were all the rest, that Laughing Stock after all came 
to the front. The fact is, action and soundness will be served in a show3'ard 
as well as elsewhere, and Laughing Stock, with all the faults of his Touch- 
stone shoulders and small hocks, is a fine goer, and has more substance when 
measured than a casual observer would think ; and he is certainly the sire of 
many showyard winners, for instance, one of the best (No. 202) to-day. 
'J'he second-prize horse, Christmas Carol, lias a deal of substance and -general 
good about him, but bis shoulders, like his sire's, are not quite right; h ■ 
loins want muscle, and his hind-legs arc full far behind him, and he appea' 
somewhat irritable. 'Jhe third prize, Reinfrid, has faulty fore-legs a!id ^ 
