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A GOOD WORD FOR THE THOROUGHBRED Under the caption The TliorAughbrcd Is a Su pcriyr Horse for Saddle Purposes the Canadian Sportsman hi its last Issue commented editorially as follows followsThe The enormous amount of matter that has ap ¬ peared recently in turf journals and live stock papers regarding army remounts 1ms been prompted by the great scarcity of horses that are suitable for army purposes and the question as to which is the liest the thoroughbred or the trotter to breed the re ipiirod typo for the government has drawn many able writers into print Many of these scribes have Kcoine prejudiced against the thoroughbred horse and have forgotten all his notable qualities in their endeavor to prove tho superiority of tho trotting breed They Nave acctiHil Ills siip orters of grasp ¬ ing this opportunity to awaken thoroughbred racing interests that have laid dormant since the adverse legislation of 1008 1008Ve Ve represent lioth the trotter and the thorough ¬ bred and are prejudiced against neither We stand on neutral ground and claim the thoroughbred horse the best for siring cavalry horses If crossed with the proper mares He is naturally a saddle horse and of greater endurance and spcd than the trotter He is a horse of fiery nature and great caution must be exercised in selecting mares to mate with him If bred to strictly thoroughbred mares the colts would naturally inherit the thoroughbred characteristics and the majority of them would be too highly strung or finely moulded for cavalry purposes That is not he class of mares experienced horsemen would choose when breeding army remounts from thoroughbreds They would cross the thoroughbred stallion with tile Htaudardbred mare or the halfbred mare and tho mating would in most cases give them a large strong and hardy saddle horse with plenty of speed and great endurance This horse is classed as a hunter and his kind are very scarce and valuable lie Is a hitrsu of good disposition up to carrying a lot of weight and superior for saddle purposes to anything that could be bred by mating standard breds bredsThe The standardbred is a driving horse and Is as much out of ills element when put under saddle as is the thoroughbred between the shafts Of course there are exceptions there are thoroughbreds that make Ideal driving horses and similarly there are standardbroils that make line saddle horses but we are speaking in a collective sense lu our opinion the thoroughbred horsh is the proper horse from which to breed army remounts and in view of the great scarcity of suitable cavalry horses in the states it is urgent that the ban on racing bo lifted and the thoroughbred sustained sustainedWhile While on this subject we cannot help making mention oj a long and rather interesting article written for our esteemed contemporary The Trotter and Pacer by Dr J W Day a veteran horseman who many years ago took part In the American Civil War Dr Day has had a long experience with both the trotters and the thoroughbreds and ch Icily because of that fact we are surprised with some of tho statements he makes He relates tho story of riding a little trotting marc in his Itoyhood days twelve miles in thirtythree minutes and on the journey fording a river in which Ivoth ho and the mare barely escaped being drowned Ho concludes the sfpry by saying Xo thoroughbred living Could have raced that mare that day and she came out all right and I rode her for another year Thus I know by experi ¬ ence that the trottingbrcd horse is the gamest saddle horse in the world and I saw thousands it them besides my little mare lie then continues I believe in my heart that If the Grand Oircn t should open one race per week down the line foi i certain number of trotters and an equal number or thoroughbred runners lo race In the same oldfash ¬ ioned rut as some of the people are demanding that we should race three in live with no limit that with all the scoring that we do and the race cjr ried to the end more trotters would Win the races all down the line than the thoroughbreds Yon would see the sickest lot of quitters among the thor ¬ oughbreds by the time they had scored ten or twelve times each heat and curried the race to the linish than you have ever seen in a racp of trot ¬ ters tersGranting Granting that Dr Days mare was timed cor ¬ rectly we must admit that she was an animal pos ¬ sessing speed and great endurance The doctov states that her daniwas by Black Hawk 5 and wtr presume that her sire was also by a horse of ancient breeding They were back close to their ancestors the thoroughbred from which the trotter originally sprang and this little niaro no doubt carried In her veins a goodly infusion of thoroughbred blood AH our oldtime trotters that were bred close up to the runners were almost without exception horses of great endurance So it is today the horse with a strong infusion of thoroughbred blood Is invariably found erraticWe to be very tough and sometimes erratic We cannot understand on what foundation Dr Day makes his claim that the trotter can endure iftorc than tho thoroughbred when endurance Is th very jwwer for which the thoroughbred horse K noted It would be hard to convince us and thou ¬ sands of race goers how any standard bred ever produced could stay with our fleetest steeplechasers over a course of four miles There is only an odd standard bred that has the required speed to stay with the thoroughbred at any stage of the race and we do not believe there was ever one foaled that would stand the pace The standard bred is a good game horse at his own way of racing and the most useful horse In the world but when it comes to a test of endurance under saddle he is nit in a class with the thoroughbred Think of such horses as Sotcmla IHghbrlilgo Olambala Jimmy Lane Good and Plenty Plato Glass Ilylas Jack Atkin etc If these thoroughbreds were not horses of remarkable courage and endurance we do nor know the meaning of the terms
