view raw text
THOROUGHBRED INDISPENSAELE IN WAR. It is ■ sign of the times when England inaugurates a policy of horse breeding under government supervision, after all the years she has Is-en furnishing other countries with material for their studs, and the announcement that racing is to be a part of the program forces the conclusion that there is a remarkal !y close relationship lic-twe n industry anil sport when it comes to the rearing of good horses of the highest type. In discussing the purchase of the breeding studs at Tullv Kildare and Russhy Parks in Wiltshire from Colonel Hall Walker for 38,000 after that gentleman had donated to the government horses valued at S700.000, Mr. rraneis Dyke Ackland. Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that he considered the racing of horses "a rather low form of sjiort." but accompanied the statement with the expression that trials of speed were necessary because it was by such methods that structural weaknesses in horses intended for the stud were exposed. This was illuminating, as it served to accentuate the fact that while not in sympathy with the principle, he regarded it as correct ami necessary if the country should produce sound and dependable horsi s. Witli Englands new policy launched it will become more difficult for other countries to secure superaltive specimens of the thoroughbred in that country, and it is fortunate that the breeders of the Cnited States, taking advantage of war conditions, bought so extensively during the past year. Mr. W. II. Rowe. the registrar of the Jockey Club, places the tidal number of animals, broodmares included, at over three hundred head. While many of these will go into the discard when the test of contest is applied, a goodly number will no doubt be available for breeding purposes, and who shall say that from their number may not come another Leamington to give a quickening touch to future generations of horses which have proved their wortli on the road, the farm, the hunting field and the race course? The experience of our cavalry in Mexico has brought to the attention of the American people in startling fashion the tact that good horses were never so essential to the MOMka of our arms as at present. Motor trucks are all right for the transportation of supplies and keeping open the lines of communication as long as the roads are passable, but for the pursuit of Villa and his band, whose mountain fastnesses must be penetrated, the mounts of ir men must be superior to those of the brigand and his cohorts. Horses that are capable of enduring fatigue, that are sure of foot and stout of heart are what such a country as northern Mexico demands, and the pictures of Pancho on his black charger show that he at least has on" good mount. So compcti at an authority as Major-General Hugh L. Scott is an record as favoring the horse of mixed blood, half or three-quarters thoroughbred, for suci work as our cavalry is doing in Mexico; and for officers he would have the absolutely clean thoroughbred. General Scott is an old campaigner in Arizona and other southern and southwestern regions where conditions are the same as those in Mexico, and he rode a thoroughbred on some of his toughest fotaya against the Indians. Something al-out the breeding and characteristics of the horses employed in the present service in Mexico would be of the greatest interest to breeders and lovers of the horse everywhere. — New York Sun.
