98 RACING, AS A MEANS OF 
contests between bull-dogs, whose jaws they have singularly 
brought to a perfection of strength for this express purpose. 
From this we understand why the English love and encourage 
racing, such as it is; viz., for the pleasure they receive from it 
or for the gains the more adroit derive from it. Among them 
all expenses attending it are borne by private individuals. 
They manage it as they like. The state has nothing to do 
with it. 
But in France it is not so. The subdivision of property, 
fortunes divided, preclude engaging in such concerns. French- 
men cannot, like opulent English landholders, maintain their 
racers, and their studs, and their breeding establishments. 
Neither do the French possess the same thirst for speculation 
as the English, one but too frequently ruinous to its entertainer. 
Under these circumstances, the state has considered it a duty to 
found breeding studs at its own expense, to give all possible 
encouragement to the production of racers in perfection. We 
believe we shall be able to shew that these endeavours cannot 
be attended but by untoward results, and that our opinion is not 
founded upon theory so much as upon facts established, and 
notorious to every body. 
It is a common notion in France, that the various breeds of 
horses in England owe their perfectionment to racing. This, 
however, is an error. Every species of British horse has its 
particular type, which is (rather, ought to he) carefully preserved, 
so as not to be destroyed by injudicious crossing. The English 
employs the thorough-bred stallion for the perfection and con- 
servation of his breed. It is the same with the hunter, the 
hackney, the carriage-horse ; each one to its kind. If there be 
any exceptions to this general rule, they serve not to destroy the 
principle so wisely observed*. 
* There can be no doubt but that the English breeder has a principle 
or object in view when he sends his mares to particular horses. But, save 
in the case of the race-horse, which the stud-books preserve genuine, 
and the cart-horse, whose peculiar character preserves him, a great ad- 
mixture of breeds is known to take place, which has proved, every horse- 
man admits, of great injury as regards some of our most valued and 
serviceable descriptions of horses, to wit, weight-canying hunters, and 
hackneys, and cavalry horses. The “ good old sort” of those breeds 
is hardly to be found; while their places are filled either by over-bred 
horses deficient in power, or by mongrels deficient in blood. Most useful 
crosses have been made, and are, and we believe ought to be, made be- 
tween thorough-breds and strengthy half-breds, &c ; but the object has 
been to get “ as much blood as possible ” in combination with some 
mongrel or spindle-shanked mare who never ought to have been suffered 
to breed a foal ; or else some mongrel of a stallion has travelled the coun- 
try and covered all the best mares ; and the result, in either case, has 
been a cross-bred produce, calculated neither for one thing nor the other. 
— E d. Vet. 
