82 
REMARKS ON QUEEN’S PLATES. 
instance is the distance less than two miles, and the race, except 
in one or two cases, is always heats ; nay, the greater part of 
King’s Plates are contended for in a distance of more than three 
miles, and extending to four miles. I take Goodwood as furnish- 
ing about the medium weights, and find that, there, the distance 
being three miles and five furlongs, the weights are — three-year- 
old, 7 st. 4 lb.; four-year-old, 9 st. 2 lb.; five-year-old, 9 st. 13 lb.; 
six, and aged, 10 st. 4 lb. Surely, Mr. Cherry had not taken the 
trouble to look over the Racing Calendar when he stated that 
“ short distances, and carrying very light weight, has reduced the 
race-horse to a feeble breed.” 
If Mr. Cherry, or any other man in the world, could give us an 
estimate of the character of the horse by looking at him, he might 
then with some degree of consistency talk of “ strength, especially 
in the limbs, perfect flexion of joints, firmness of step, good tem- 
per, and activity, roundness in the region of the heart, &c.” as 
being the points to which we should turn our attention in breeding ; 
but, as we know that, with all the most perfect symmetry ima- 
ginable, size, and every other circumstance favourable, as far as 
appearance goes, the animal may prove a brute of no kind of value, 
we should, were we to give up the test — the race — soon degene- 
rate to, perhaps a good-looking class of horses, or, rather, such a 
class as Mr. Cherry might desire, but which would only please the 
eye to impoverish the pocket; and in this I do not allude to racing 
only. According to Mr. Cherry’s notion, a good judge should be 
capable of selecting the winner by taking a glance at the animals 
previous to the race ; but I know that he would find it a losing 
game to back his opinion ; for we often see the most unlikely 
looking animal outstrip a field of good-looking horses. Now, 
fortunately for our breed of horses, we have preferred the good to 
the good-looking animal, and hence all our superiority in the breed 
of horses in this country. I cannot do better than give you an in- 
stance out of many that I have seen of the kind: — In the year 1836, 
at Doncaster, I witnessed the race for the King’s Plate, contended 
by Mundig and Venison : there were others in the race, but the 
two mentioned were horses of repute, and known to most men. 
Mundig was a fine targe powerful looking horse, 16 hands high, 
and had been fortunate enough to win the Derby: his shape, 
strength, breeding, and character, made him a great favorite for the 
race : he being then four years old. Venison, equally well bred, 
looked the little, shabby, light weed. He had run many races dur- 
ing the year, and travelled great distances, and not in a van, as they 
do now. He arrived at Doncaster only the night before the race, 
from Warwick; and, as far as appearances went, the judge, looking 
at the two, would have said it was “ a horse to a hen;” but the 
