REVIEW. 
621 
after being born. On first observing this I thought it natural, 
but soon found it was the pure effect of constitutional weak- 
ness in the parents, as the foals of all other breeds of horses 
throughout the world run about as soon as they are dropped. 
“Notwithstanding the grant of public bounties to our turf 
for the encouragement of a fine breed of saddle-horses, we 
cannot in the absence on the part of Government of any 
attempt to influence the proceedings on the turf, be surprised 
to find that the Jockey Club met the growing weakness of 
their horses only by giving them less to do, in other words, 
by giving them slighter tasks to perform when they found the 
old ones had become too severe. 
“The Jockey Club, as a body, being content to see their 
horses lose every quality but speed, no individual of that 
society can be expected to make an effort to arrest this evil 
by taking a course in his individual capacity calculated to 
diminish the speed of his horses, so long as speed alone is the 
only quality required under the existing system of running.’ 5 
Premiums were granted by government, “ under the name 
of King’s or Queen’s Plates” for the encouragement of racing, 
through the improvement of our national breeds of horses. 
“These bounties pass under the names of King’s or Queen’s 
Plates, because paid out of the privy purse, and the Crown 
obtains the money to meet this special disbursement for the 
benefit of the public ; yet those who receive these bounties 
make to the public no return ; yet surely when the Jockey Club 
began to diminish the tasks formerly so w r ell and so long per- 
formed by their horses, this downward course should have 
been met by Government advising the Crown either to sus- 
pend the payment of these bounties altogether, or to increase 
their amount to an extent which would enable it so to influ- 
ence the proceedings of the turf, as to get there maintained 
the old standard for regulating the tasks the horses were 
called on to perform. Instead of taking one of these obvious 
courses, the Jockey Club was allowed successively to diminish 
the tasks w hich for so many years our race-horses had so w ell 
and so easily performed.” 
King’s plates, at the time, when one hundred guineas w r as 
worth, and thought a great deal more of, than such a sum is 
at the present day, and when the contest consisted of heats of 
four miles each, were held in much higher estimation than 
they are in our time ; and, there can be no doubt at that day, 
operated very influentially in providing breeds of horses pos- 
