view raw text
] j J « , , i , , ! , : » EARLY RACING CHANGES BONE FORMATION. I venture to return to a matter which I discussed in this column a year or so ago, when I timidly suggested that the racing of two-year-olds was a mistake. On that occasion I pointed out that my best witnesses were the skeletons of dead-and-gone champions. For these all show, in varying degrees of intensity, derangements of the spinal column caused by premature racing; that is to say, from having to bear the weight of a jockey before the backbone had attained its full strength. This much is attested bv the skeletons under my charge at the British Museum. Thus, in Persimmon, for example, and to a lesser extent in St. Simon, two most famous horses, the spinous processes, or bony bars 1 I 1 j i i I I I which form the ridge of the backbone, has not only failed to maintain their proper distances apart, but. in the region of the greatest curvature of the spine, become so forcibly pressed against one another at tlieir tips as to l ecoiue splayed out to form false articulations. Now, it is quite possible that this state of things, during a hard gallop, induces friction and thus fatigue, thereby in so far reducing speed. Thus, then, the partial suspension of racing may prove a blessing in disguise, for it will at least reduce the number of two-year-olds which can be entered, and hence will induce owners to delay the training of these immature animals. And now as to the relation between racing and the production of "general utility" horses, which some wise people have lately assured us is a lively invention, devised by the racing fraternity to justify a quite unnecessary, and even harmful, form of sport. Nothing could be further from the truth than this, though opinions differ in matters of detail as to the best of several possible combinations between "thoroughbred" and other breeds to produce anmials of high quality suitable for purposes other than racing. Without going into details which would be hardly suitable for this column, it will suffice to say that the best types of cavalry horses, or animals for light draught purposes, are obtained by crossing thoroughbred sires with quarter-bred Clydesdale mares. The thoroughbred sires need not be the pick of the stables in regard to speed, and this fact reduces the cost of production. But the thoroughbred stock is an absolutely indispensable foundation: and thus, if racing were wholly suppressed, as some would have it, this source of supply would speedily be extinguished. But the cross between thoroughbred sires and light cart-mares produces excellent results where hunters and "general utility" animals are desired. The advent of the motor-bus has not been an unmixed blessing, for it has onsted. in the " bus-horse," an animal of au extremely useful type, many of which. I believe, came from Canada, but which bad much Clydesdale blood in their veins. We are apt to forget that our carriage horses and saddle horses, commonly described as "hackneys," are all descendants of the celebrated "Darley Arabian" imported from Aleppo about 1706. and crossed with our native breeds. The best of our cavalry horses, artillery horses and "vanners" owe most of their good qualities to this foundation, though the introduction of horses from abroad has introduced new elements, and not always of the best. The term "hackney," which distinguishes this origin from the "thoroughbred." was derived from the French hacquenee, which came into use in England through the Normans, who applied it to a saddle horse of a good type, lighter and more active than the "Great Horse" used by the armor-clad knights. The term "thoroughbred" was originally adopted to denote the progeny of the three famous sires, the Byeriy Turk, the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Arabian, with the royal mares called the "Kings Mares," imported into England from the east in the reign of Charles II. The general restriction of the term "thoroughbred" to race horses is responsible for the general ignorance that we owe all the best breeds of our horses, save "shire horses," to our love of racing. — W. P. Pyeraft in Illustrated London News.
