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ENGLISH YEARLINGS MAY SELL LOW- Breeders. However, Are Cheerful and Antici-patinq a Successful Season. "While at Lincoln and Liverpool last week I had the pleasure of meeting several of our leading breeders. They were all in a very cheerlul frame of mind, and hoping for. if not anticipating, a successful season." writes the Special Commissioner for London Sporting Life. "It is just as well, however, thai none of the big yearling sales fake place at this period of the year, because I am afraid that, with | he stock and share market in its present depressed stale, sellers would come off rather badly. everybody one meets appeals to have American rails on the brain. I do not profess to lie able to understand the in., stories of eontangoos and such like things, but I have heard enough these last few • lays io convince me that all is not as it should be, ami that many people have 1-oeti badly hit by the recent slump. Presumably thhl means that for sonic little time to come there will lie less money available lor luxuries, and I lake it that, in a general way, thoroughbred* arc to be reckoned among the luxuries of life. A Curiosity of the situation is the paradox that in Hi Ii of the mischief is due lo the wave of prosperity that is passing over these islands and ether parti of the world. "From information received I understand that business enterprises are swallowing all surplus capl lal. and that the stock Exchange is gelag drained in order to provide the wherewithal for manufacturers. Si ill. when all is said. I believe the recent lall in the prices ot railway stock is of less consequence to the Turfs estate than the continued, one might BBJ chronic, depression in the Rand gold industry. If only the millions lacked up in the Johannesburg mines could be recovered, or he made to yield a reasonable return, we should speedily witness a renewal id the healthy and inspiriting compel it ioll for good-class horses, and racing in all its phases would oine more be established on really nourishing lines. Not that I wish to imply that the present state of things is by any means desperate. On the contrary, last weeks proceedings went with so decided a airing that we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on the vitality of the great est of our sports. Still, the public breeder will not. I am sure, be averse from seeing a little more money flowing into his coffers. "At the liest it is no easy matter to make the breeding of thoroughbred stock a paying business. One of these days 1 hope to tackle this subject thor ooghly. I will only say now that quite recently a well known and thoroughly practical breeder allowed me to see two of his annual balance sheets. The figures were eye-openers, for they disclosed a loss run Blag well into the thousands each year. A little bad back will, of course, make a world of difference, but so will the lack of competition at the ring side. Let B8 hope, therefore, that before the July sales eoaae along, to say nothing of the great dispersal at DOB caster iu September, the Stm-k Exchange will have completely recovered from the experience through which it is now passing."
