NOTrS ON BREEDING RAC'EHORSES.



-that is to say, the dams of the winners of the four classic
races, Two Thousand Guineas, Derby, Oaks, and Leger, of
that period-we find, upon examination of their earlier career,
that of those eighty, or rather eighty-two, mares-two races
resulted in dead heats, which were not run off' only thirty did
not run as two-year-olds. That early ripeness in a racehorse
may be regarded as a proof of health, even with regard to later
usefulness at the stud, is further corroborated by Little Lady,
the dam of the Two Thousand Guineas winner, Camballo, hav-
ing carried off the Anglesey stakes for yearlings at Shrewsbury
in 1859-the only race of the sort ever run. I mention this
circumstance, however, by no means in support of yearlings'
races; on the contrary, I look upon them as senseless institu-
tions, which, fortunately, twenty years ago were abolished in
England, the only country where they ever existed.
  The severe training and repeated trials of yearlings, more-
over, I take to be dangerous in Germany, where the wtinter
generally sets in and puts a stop to all training operations
about the middle of November. In England, and especially in
France, where, as a rule, yearlings can be tried about Christ-
mas-time, it may be done without detriment to their health;
the more so, as in those favored climates their development is
less retarded by the cold, and young horses acquire earlier than
in Germany the power which is necessary to bear the strain of
training.
  I consider the test by hurdle-racing, and especially by steeple-
chasing, rather one of acquired cleverness than of consequence
fbr breeding. The principal race across country in England,
the Liverpool Grand National, has repeatedly been won (for
instance, in 1863 by Emblem, and in the following year by her
own sister, Emblematic, by Teddington out of Miss Batty) by
animals not possessed of sufficient staying power to run a mile
creditably in even moderate company. This applies more par-
ticularly to the younger sister, Emblematic. It is not so much
length of distance that constitutes a criterion of endurance as
the pace at which it is run. In a steeplechase this is generally
eo slow that a horse able to race half a mile is never for a mo-



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