NOTES

                            ON

    BREEDING RACEHORSES.



                     CHAPTER I.
               GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
  THE principal requisite in a good racehorse is soundness,
again soundness, and nothing but soundness; and the object
of the thoroughbred is to imbue the limbs, the constitution,
and the nerves of the half-bred horse with that essential
quality, and thereby enhance its capabilities.
  The thoroughbred can, however, fulfil its mission only pro-
vided the yearly produce be continually subjected to severe
trials in public. The only appropriate test, proved by the
experience of two centuries, is the racecourse, although its
adversaries oppose it as too one-sided, and propose in its
stead others of more or less impracticability. The last strug-
gle for victory, in which culminates the exertion of the race,
results from the co-operation of the intellectual, the physical,
and the mechanical qualities of the horse, the development of
which combined power is higher and more reliable than any
that can be obtained in the same animal by other means. The
combination of those three qualities forms the value of the
horse destined for fast work: the mechanical, in respect to
the outward shape and construction; the physical, as regards
the soundness and normal development of the digestive organs
and motive power; the intellectual, or the will and the energy
to put the other two into motion and persevere to the utmost.
The attained speed is not the aim, but only the gauge, of the
performance.
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