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WOULD KEEP THE BEST HORSES AT HOME. London Sporting Lifo Says England Is in Danger Through Sales to Foreign Buyers. The program of the great December sales at Newmarket fills no fewer than twenty-seven columns of the Racing Calendar. Commencing on Monday, December 3, the sale will continue until the following Friday, with reasonable intervals for sleep. Every description of thoroughbred stock will come under the hammer stallions, broodmares, horses in training, yearlings and foals. "It is needless to state that the opportunity will be a great one for buyers," says the London Sporting Life. "Experience has taught everyone that this December market affords chances both to the seller and the purchaser that are unobtainable elsewhere. From a very small beginning, these eud-o-the-seasou sales have developed into the biggest things of their kind in the world. As such, they attract breeders and sportsmen from every continent, and it may be taken for granted that we shall, as usual, liud the foreigners bidding freely and fearlessly for the choicest lots especially broodmares. "The growth ot racing and the breedlug of race horses in the Argentine Republic has had a very marked influence on the price of bloodstock. It will be remembered that at the dispersal of Mr. Musk-ers stud last July the foreigners contributed no less than 30,000 odd guineas to the total of 81,000 guineas realized. No doubt we shall find a similar state of affairs obtaining at the forthcoming sales. A most determined effort is being made abroad to establish the thoroughbred on a firrii footing. Argentine breeders are showing wonderful zeal In that direction. Whether they will attain the eud they desire is a moot point. "A similar endeavor has been prosecuted in North America for considerably over a hundred years and though it has been attended with an appreciable measure of success, we still have the felicity of seeing animals imported from England eclipsing the achievements of the native-bred article. From our point of view this is a, state of things that can only be regarded as eminently satisfactory. It would seem that our position in this matter is practically impregnable. There are prominent breeders who tell you that it is unassailable. Let the foreigners come, by all means, and take what they want. The more the merrier. Their depredations do us no harm. We can easily fill up the gaps they make. That is the comfortable attitude assumed in some quarters. I .tin, however, by no means certain that this optimism is justified. We cannot indefinitely stand Uiis drain on bur resources. "Nothing but the best satisfies the foreigners. They leave us the dregs, so to speak. We go on breeding from second and third rate hiares, and then wonder how it comes to pass that we have so many weedy animals confronting us. It is really no wonder at all. Natures laws are simply working in the inevitable way. So long as we have studs like- those at Sandringham, Welbeck, Eaton, and Sledmere, we Shall have a precious nucleus wherewith to retrieve the situation, however deplorable it may become; but it would be more satisfactory in every way if our public breeders were to do their share towards maintaining the supremacy we hold. The policy of conservation will pay well in the long run. It is to be hoped, therefore, that while the December isales arc in progress we shall find the best mares sent into the ring retained for service in this country. We do not want to see any more Roquebrunes sent away from our shores."
