BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 
419 
glisliman is either a judge of a horse or thinks he is; but 
one can scarcely credit this when we find such a number of 
weeds and cripples year after year earning incomes for their 
owners. Although nag-breeding may not pay^ it is remark¬ 
able how many men still continue the unprofitable pursuit. 
And now as to the remedy. The notion of encouraging 
farmers to breed a better sort of horse is by no means a novel 
one. The offer comes^ in the first instance, by way of some 
recompense for the privilege of riding over their land, or 
to ensure their goodwill for the hunt. Hence we have 
Farmers^ Plates and Flunters^ Stakes, neither of which can 
be said to have thoroughly answered their object. The so- 
called hunter, just qualified by showing at the cover-side 
a few times, and then went back to lead gallops for a Derby 
favorite, or to vary his performances in the field by winning 
a Eoyal Hundred. The Farmers^ Purse, given by the gen¬ 
tlemen of the hunt, has been often enough still further from 
its original intent. A sporting innkeeper or a hard-riding 
townsman would just qualify,^^ again, by taking the re¬ 
quisite number of acres of ground, and bargaining for a 
plater in due time previous to the race coming off. Then, 
by the aid of a quasi gentleman-rider, who could sit still at 
a finish, the bond fide farmer Boniface would pocket the 
purse, as the donors looked on year after year in glum dis¬ 
appointment, murmuring occasionally to each other that 
this was not exactly what they meant either! Perhaps, how¬ 
ever, next to losing, the most unfortunate thing that could 
ever happen to a real tenant-farmer was to win one of these 
same Farmers’ Plates. It has given more than one man of 
my acquaintance his first taste for the turf, another result as 
little intended by the founders of the prize. Still, let the 
members of the hunt not yet altogether despair of what 
they may do in this way. Of late years the purse has taken 
a far more popular form, and in place of being contested as 
a plate on a race-course, it is now offered as a premium on a 
show-ground. To the growing interest and success of such 
a system I have already spoken; but we have scarcely yet 
got so far as the show-ground. Before we venture into 
public, we must see if we cannot set to work and breed 
something fit to place before the judges. And here, too, the 
hunt may help up. Let it be admitted that, in a free 
country like this, the licensing plan would hardly be prac¬ 
tical, and that any man may still “ travel ” any brute he 
chooses. Surely the fitting way to meet him will be to start a 
better horse in opposition. Let the master and the managing 
committee of the county fox-hounds make it part of their 
