OF HORSES. 
175 
horses in our own country, is too manifest to admit of a ques- 
tion. To racing, in fact, for our blood stock we owe every thing. 
Our racers are unrivalled. Arabia herself, although their ac- 
knowledged parent, can no longer send competitors that can run 
with them for the prize of speed and bottom. But, in our fond- 
ness for, and eagerness to excel in, so beautiful a breed of horse 
as the English racer is all over the world acknowledged to be, 
it becomes a question whether we have not outrun our object, 
or, in 01 her words, carried what we have all along viewed as 
“ perfections” rather too far ] — sought it at the cost of utility 
and serviceability] Have we not at the present time more blood- 
horses in the country than we have ever been known to possess 
at any former period ] And are not the really serviceable 
hackney, hunter, troop-horse, and harness-horse, in proportion 
on the decrease ] These are vital questions — questions to which 
we would fain give other answers than such as observation and 
experiment and truth dictate to us. 
As we have already hinted, we believe the main cause of 
this decrease in oui more useful classes of horses to be owing 
to an over-fondness on the part of our breeders for blood, to the 
sacrifice or exclusion of that property which is so necessary to 
be combined with it, viz. bone. There can be no doubt but that 
the modification of the conditions on which the Queen’s plates 
are run for — allowing horses to run races of two miles instead 
of compelling them to run heats of four, and to carrv less 
weight than formerly — have had some influence in bringing 
about this unwholesome change ; but what has had greater and 
more extensive influence is, the total revolution in the practice of 
racing — bringing two-year olds to the starting post, and running 
them half or whole miles with feather weights upon their backs, 
in order to test their powers. This has not only been creative 
of a progeny light and airy, and w'ith little bone, to suit the pur- 
pose of the day ; but it has likewise had a tendency to ruin such 
youthful aspirants as possessed, or rather promised to inherit, 
great powers, by crippling such powers ere they have had time to 
develop themselves. Add to these causes, the universal outcry 
there has of late years been among us for blood ! blood ! blood ! for 
purposes either of riding up to hounds trained after the manner 
of racers, or of steeple-chacing, or of going under saddle or in 
