BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 
481< 
many stud-horses are still kept, ^vllat with high feeding, hot 
stabling, and little exercise, might account alike for diseases 
of the eye and the respiratory organs. Still, beyond what 
you may deduce from actual appearances, it is always as well 
to look back a little into the genealogy of the thorough-bred 
horse. Some lines, for instance, are notorious for the noise 
they make in the world. Humphrey Clinker, the sire of the 
famous Melbourne, was a bad roarer, as was Melbourne him¬ 
self, and as are many of his sons and grandsons. Another 
celebrated Newmarket horse was known to get all his stock 
with a tendency to ringbone, and weak hocks give way so 
soon as you try them. There are clearly-admitted excep¬ 
tions: a stone-blind stallion will get animals remarkable for 
good eyes, and a thick-winded horse may not reproduce this 
in his progeny ; but, as a maxim, wind, eyes, and hocks 
should be the three essentials of anything sound enough to 
breed from, be it either sire or dam. I would not so much 
declare for a big horse as against a fair-sized one; and the 
saying of a good big horse being better than a good little one 
is not quite such a truism as it sounds to be. Fifteen two 
or fifteen three, with bone and substance, is big enough for 
anything; and when we come to bear in mind the sort of 
mares such a horse is to be put on, it is perhaps preferable 
to anything higher. For my own part, 1 go very much with 
the Cline theory, which says, It has generally been sup¬ 
posed that the breed of animals is improved by the largest 
males. This opinion has done considerable mischief, and 
w’ould have done more injury if it had not been counter¬ 
acted by the desire of selecting animals of the best form and 
proportions, which are rarely to be met with in those of the 
largest size. Experience has proved that crossing has only 
succeeded in an eminent degree in those instances in wliich 
the females were larger in the usual proportion of females to 
males, and that it has generally failed where the males were 
disproportionately large. When the male is much larger 
than the female the offspring is generally of an imperfeet 
form.” It must be some such opinion as this which causes 
that rare sportsman, the venerable Sir Tatton Sykes,* to 
breed from none but small or moderate-sized sires; and I 
believe that the cross of the Exmoor pony v ith the thorough¬ 
bred horse would be yet more successful were the latter only 
more proportionate to the size of the mares. It would be 
pleasant to hear that Lord Exeter had lent handsome little 
Midas to liis old neighbour of former days for a season or 
Sir Tatton Sykes lias died since this article was written.— Ed. 
