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THINKS MODERN. THOROUGHBRED SUPERIOR. Upon the niuch:debated and always Interesting question of the relative merits of the modern racer, and his. predecessor, Mr. Alfred E. Watson writes In the third volume of the English Encyclopeida of Sport as follows: "Eclipse was the grandson of the Darley Arabian; he became the sire of three of the first five winners of the Derby, and thus is gained something like a direct connection between the earliest day of recognized racing and the present time. It is said of Eclipse that he galloped at the rate of a mile a minute; and that statement is valuable as, showing how utterly untrustworthy and ridiculous the records of sport in the last century must be. No horse ever galloped a mile in that time with half as much again added to it. This would lead, if one were tempted into it, to a discussion as to the relative speed and stamina of the thoroughbred horse now and a century ago a profitless theme, as times vaguely spoken of as having beeu accomplished in bygone days were altogether untrustworthy. They have constantly improved since they have been taken with a near approximation to accuracy. The conviction is that the horse of today is speedier than his predecessor was; there are those who think him less gifted with staying power, though as to thi.-i opinions again differ. Tho crop of thoroughbred horses is uow annually so enormous that there must Inevitably be a large proportion of weeds; the more so as, for inauy years past, at any rate, speed rather than stamuia has been the object aimed at by breeders; but there is no sound reason to doubt that the best horses of today would gallop the four miles and a quarter less 43 yards, if strict detail be demanded of the. .Beacon Course at Newmarket at least as speedily as did the horses of any former period." On the subject ,of "Breeding." Mr. Watson writes with vigor, and from this section we quote the following:: "Advocates of scientific breeding are specially contemptuous about what they describe as "rule-of-thumb" that is to say. disregard of intricate and exhaustive calculations of strains of blood, in favor of the simple attempt to supply from the dam deficiencies in the sire, to obtain from the sire correction of weak points in the dam, and so forth. It is far from certain, however, that, if this Is carefully done, the secret of breeding, so far as there is any, has not been discovered. The suggestion will no doubt provoke the contempt of the theorists, but it is an idea firmly held by many men who have considered the subject and dealt with it practically all their lives and have very likely in their time been themselves ardent supporters of theories, before the futility of their most ingenious calculations had been repeatedly exposed. Certain questions as to make and shape being borne in mind, if a man sends a dam of winners to an approved good sire, the result 1,3 very likely to be a good animal."
