132 ON BREEDING HORSES, &C. 
I seen horses come to the post, to contend for a third or fourth 
heat, scarcely able to gallop from exhaustion through their previous 
efforts ! I no more desire to see this than I admire seeing a bump- 
kin shaking and spurring a tired horse in the hunting field, or a 
beaten horse, whose chance is run out, in a steeple-chase. 
I would propose to increase the amount of the Royal Plates, by 
removing them from places where the spirit of racing is not upheld 
by subscriptions from the inhabitants (who participate in the pro- 
fit and amusement derived therefrom) to an extent to secure a pro- 
portionate amount of stakes to those contributed in other places, or, 
in other words, from where racing is not conducted and supported 
in its best and most spirited style ; and by adding to the same prize, 
where such is the case, and so increasing the amounts instead of 
the number of the prizes. Suppose twelve Royal Plates of five 
hundred pounds each, one three mile heat, weights high, but vary- 
ing according to the severity of the course over which it is run, 
with a penalty of 7 lbs. for winning each stake in the same year ; 
thus giving as many horses as possible a chance of winning one of 
them. This would be something like a reward for such animals 
being bred, and would enable the owner of a good horse to secure 
a fair share of the public money, although his means might be too 
limited to have engaged him heavily, as the more opulent proprie- 
tors of race-horses would have done at the age most of our great 
stakes require, and which, in most instances, as in the Derby, 
Oaks, and the great Produce Stakes, is before the merits of the 
animal can be tested. Out of this, I firmly believe, would arise 
a desire to breed an animal suitable for the purpose ; and, since 
there are other prizes of similar amount, where speed only is of 
importance, the retention of this property would always be consi- 
dered, and carefully studied to be retained, and would, if effected, 
be the ultimatum of our object for the amelioration of that race of 
animal, the British race-horse. 
Since it is from our thorough-bred stallions that our hunters, 
chargers, carriage-horses, and hacks are descended, the best formed 
and biggest are those which should be sought as sires for this pur- 
pose, there being a natural proneness to the primitive type, which 
is much less than the present race of blood-horses. When, how- 
ever, I speak of a big horse, I do not mean the high, long-legged, 
narrow animal, but one in which the osseous system is capacious 
enough to afford sufficient space for chest, large levers, and attach- 
ment of a corresponding bulk of muscles ; such a form that not only 
suits for racing, but, with slight modifications, almost any other 
purpose, from the hunter to the hack. 
In breeding for speed only, that is, when powers of endurance 
are not kept in view, I am of opinion one of the most desirable 
