22 
THE HORSE. 
THE RACE-HORSE. 
th e error is, if possible, yet more palpable. The powers which the Race-Horse is required to exercise are those of excessive 
speed, which infers the greatest tension and displacement of parts of any other kind of labour. Nothing, it is known, gives so 
great a tendency to founder, spavin, curbs, sprains, hernia, and the like, as excessive exertion of the powers of speed by a young 
animal; and even when no perceptible effect of this kind is produced, how often are the seeds of disease sown in the system, to 
appear in an after season in the disordered functions of the respiratory and other organs ? Nor is this all in the case of the Race- 
Horse thus cruelly misused. To fit him for his future task, he must be deprived of liberty, and subjected to artificial feeding and 
training almost from the time he quits the side of his dam. No time is allowed him for that exercise in the fields which his instincts 
point out as the most suitable and natural, nor for partaking of that food in the open air, which is the best fitted of all others to 
preserve health, and answer the demand of the sanguiferous system in a young animal. He must be trained, bled, physicked, 
sweated, and subjected to restraint in his natural motions, at the time when the animal functions should have their natural play. 
Can any one who has any knowledge of the animal system in general, or of the temperament of the horse in particular, doubt that 
such a system must enfeeble the powers of the body, and act injuriously upon the progeny ? Is it possible to believe that, under a 
system of this kind, carried to the degree to which it now is carried, numbers of the turf-horses of England are not broken down 
and undermined in constitution long before their natural powers have been perfected ? Childers and Eclipse did not appear on the 
turf until the age of five. .Had these fine creatures been run at the age of two, a very different estimate might have been formed 
of their powers, and themselves have been racked, foundered, or otherwise injured, before their full forces could have been exhibited, 
and thus the English Turf might have been deprived of all the benefit which it has derived from the numerous progeny which 
these animals left behind them. Further, the Race-Horses of England have become the boast of the country, and are the means 
by which the property termed blood is communicated to all the inferior races. Is it fitting that a breed of horses which has been 
cultivated with so much care, which has attained to so much excellence, and which may be applied to purposes so useful, should 
undergo deterioration, in however slight a degree, in order to promote the purposes of selfishness and gambling; and of gambling, 
too, not depending upon the powers of an animal capable of exerting them, but of a young creature overburdened by a cruel task ? 
What is this game but the stealing of a miserable year or two from the youth of the growing horse, that he may sooner bring to 
his owner an unworthy gain ? The scandal should be proscribed on the English Turf. If the feelings of those engaged in it will 
not lead them to abandon it, legislation will not be out of place to preserve the breed of these noble horses, and protect them from 
the cruelty and improvidence of their masters. 
