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History of American Thoroughbred Thlrty-Sccond Installment. tl Each heat was most obstinately contested 11 in and there was heavy wagering between Puri- ti ty and Brownlock. The course was nearly deserted before the contest was over and o of the deciding heat was run by twilight. p From this date the running in Osbaldes- 0 tons 200-mile match and that in the two , minor races described in the forgoing I de- .. duce this fact and challenge denial or dis-approval, that English thoroughbred racers AA of inferior grade on the turf do still retain capacity to run long heats as stoutly and h gamely as they ever did and they accom- s: plish this at unusual weights and in respec- h table time. n THOROUGHBREDS PERFORMANCE. n n I say that second and third-rate horses, horses valued at ?1,000 and under, can do this ; and that first-rate horses, valued at 55,000 and upward, cannot do it at all or of cannot do it gamely and in better time than their own inferiors, is simply to talk non- v sense. t Again, to say that a horse which can run o of twenty miles in four-mile heats in 33:19, with v 150 pounds on his back, could not run the t same number of heats of the same length in t much better time with only 114 pounds on his back is absurd. So it is absurd to say that a much better, d stouter, fleeter and in every way superior s animal could not run the same race, under C the same conditions, in better time than his c inferior. In other words then Tranby, with c 134 pounds on his back, could run twenty miles- at four-mile heats in such time, but that Fleur-de-lis or Gloncoe, or Plcnipoten- 1 tiary could not with that, or forty pounds 1 less on their backs, beat the time in a can- a ter, at 1,000 to 1 and no takers. No one ever doubted, I presume, that every r horse capable of carrying 126 pounds is cap- a able of carrying 112 pounds a good deal faster. I hold it therefore proved, as I have j stated above, and the inference that the ! c English thoroughbred of the middle of the j nineteenth century cannot run distances equally well with his own ancestors or with t the American thoroughbred of the same time, j is not only a mere inference but an infer- r ence contrary to analogy. t There is yet another and a strong argu- j ment. The American time of four-mile heat races immeasurably improved about 1S50. At this time the importation of English racing j stallions had immeasurably increased and j the stock of these imported stallions inn everywhere on equal ienis with th progeny , of the best native sires. IMPORTED HORSES PROMINENT. 1 On a fair investigation of all the races in 3 America it will be found that the imported horses and the colts of imported horses have won a full share of all the purses and at all j distances, including four-mile heats. They j are not better than the eariy American thor- oughbred, but they are equally good and, j more generally, cross well. r And here, having as I consider fully shown t that the idea of degeneracy from the original 1 ancestry, whether on the part of the English or American thoroughbred horse of 1850, is 1 a an idle and absurd fallacy and that on the i contrary not only 4vas the breed of that day the best that has ever existed than in greater purity, power, vigor and efficiency for all purposes of utility. I will pass on to other t parts of my subject. t By an examination of the time of races 1 recorded about the middle of the nineteenth century it will be seen that from thirteen and a half to fourteen seconds per furlong is 1 the highest rate of speed attained in any 1 races in America above a mile, with 112 pounds carried, by three-year-old horses. In 1846 Surplice and Cymba won the Derby 1 and Oaks, each running the distance, in 2 :43, 1 or exactly fourteen seconds per furlong. This : rate was never better up to the time of which we write. Flying Dutchman nearly attained it, but failed by two seconds, making his rate : fourteen and one-sixth seconds per furlong. The most extraordinary three-year-old performance is that of Sir Tatton Sykes over the St. Leger course of one mile, three-quarters and 132 yards, which he covered in 3 :16, , or at a rate of thirteen and a half seconds ! per furlong. With an additional year and the I same weight this speed was slightly exceeded by West Australian even over a longer course at Ascot in 1S51, when he defeated 1 Kingston by a head and ran two miles and I a half in 4 :27. This performance, considering - weight, age and distance, will compare favorably with the often quoted exploit of Flying Childers over the Beacon course in 1 1721 when lie beat Alamanzor and Brown 1 Betty, with 12S pounds up, in 6 :40, at six c years old. This, allowing him his year for " the extra mile of the course and for the i two pounds which he carried in excess of f Kingstons weight, he was outdone by the i latter horse at Ascot by one second per r furlong and likewise by West Australian at the usual allowance for his age. On April 2, 1855, a time-match was run at t New Orleans between Lecompte and Lexington, - both four-year-olds, in which the latter, , which won. did the four miles, carrying 103 J pounds, in 7:19v4, or, as nearly as may be, :, thirteen and three-quarter seconds per furlong. - This was considered the best time on 1 record up to that period and it undoubtedly f was a creditable performance, though when 1 the light weight is taken into account, it was s not eg near the best English time then on 1 record as it would first appear. PAIR RUN FAST 11ACE. On April H, 1855, Brown Dick and Arrow v ran three miles over the same course in 5:28, I or at the rate of thirteen and two-third sec- - onds per furlong. The former was a three-year-old and carried eighty-six pounds, and il the latter, a five-year-old, carried ninety-six s pounds. Thus it will appear that Kingston, 1 at the same age as Arrow and carrying 126 G pounds instead of 110 pounds, ran two and a a half miles at a better rate than Arrow did his s three miles by one-third of a second per furlong. In 1856 two English horses exceeded the e greatest porformance of olden times by a a second per furlong and beat the best American time by one-third of a second per mile. . This assertion, therefore, that the horses s of the middle of the nineteenth century were e degenerate in their power of staying a distance - under weight was wholly without foundation. The size and the shape of the thoroughbred d of that time were superior to those of olden n days if we may judge by the portraits of if them handed down to us by Stubbs, who was s by far the most faithful animal painter of f the eighteenth century. In elegance of shape e tl 11 in ti o of p 0 , .. AA h s: h n n n of v t o of v t t d s C c c 1 1 a r a j ! c j t j r t j j j , 1 3 j j j r t 1 1 a i t t 1 1 1 1 1 : : , ! I 1 I - 1 1 c " i f i r t - , J :, - 1 f 1 s 1 v I - il s 1 G a a s e a a . s e - d n of if s of f e the horses of that age were inferior especially the beauty of the head and the forma-tion of the shoulders. c The size of the thoroughbred of the middle the nineteenth century has shown im-provement and the average size over the eighteenth century horse was increased by at least a hand. This enlargement is, I believe, chiefly due to the Godolphin Arabian which was the sire of Babraham; the only 1 horse of his time which reached sixteen .t hands and which was the sire and grand- sire of several which were more than fifteen hands, mucli above the average height of -horses at that time, as for instance, Fearnought, Genius, Gower stallion, Infant, Dan-mark, Bolton, Cade, Lofty and Amphion. J WHEN LARGE HORSES WERE SCARCE. 1 Indeed it will be found by an examination the horses of that time that out of 130 -winners in the middle of the eighteenth century there were only eighteen of the height fifteen hands and upward, of which eleven were by the Godolphin Arabian or his sons, 3 three from the Darley Arabian and two from the Byerly Turk. It may therefore be assumed with some . degree of probability that this increase in size is, in a great measure, due to the Godolphin Arabian, in addition to the extra 1 care and attention which the horse has re- I ceived during the same time. Nevertheless all the care and forcing in the world will not increase the size of some breeds and unless -there was this capability .of being forced .io amount of attention would have brought the horse to the average of the middle of the J nineteenth century which may be placed at 1 about fifteen hands three inches. The following is an extract of an article from the Spirit of the Times, wherein the comparison of speed between English and American horses is discussed. It will appear on a critical examination of the subject that there is not much difference r in the powers of the best race horses for more than a century, a period during which they have been brought, on both sides of the Atlantic, to a high state of perfection. The beginning of really fast running in England was when West Australian and Kingston made their enviable records and in America when Lexington and Lecompte were in full sway. The last two have run four mites and four-mile heats faster in either ?ase than had teen performed in England up to Ibat time. NAILING THE "MILE-A-MINUTE" YARN. "Stonehe-ige," a writer of authority on . turf matters who was well indorsed in England during his time, has shown the absurd fiction of "a mile within a minute" and that there is not the slightest reliance to be ; : placed upon the many loose assertions such as the reported oooount of Flying Childers , and that he and Eclipse were "a distance better than any horses that have appeared" or that they "could beat any other a half mile in four miles On the same authority it appears that, in the fastest Derby, St. Leger and Ascot Cup races, as won by Surplice, . Flying Dutchman, Sir Tatton Sykos. Don John and West Australian, the distance varying from one mile and a h-ilf to two miles and a hah", that the fastest rate, with English weights, has been a littNs oer one minute and forty seconds to the mile. We have no authentic? report that the mile has been run in Engiavi-l at the time of which we write in bett?i than 1:42, the time of 1 Henry Perritt at New Orleans. Of the same age, three years old, and with 1 the same weight, eighty-six pounds, Inheritor, at Liverpool, ran two miles in 3:25, which is at the rate per mile of 1 : 42 1-2. "Stonehenge," referring to what he consid-. ers the best race ever run in England, states 5 that West Australian, four years old, - ing the St. Leger weight, 118 pounds, "de- feated Kingston by a head only," the latter five years old, carrying 126 pounds, running two and a half miles in 4 :27, or, as nearly as 5 possible, thirteen and a half seconds per r furlong. A FLYING CHILDERS RIVAL. This performance, considering the weight, age and distance, will compare favorably with the often-quoted exploit of Flying Child- ers in 1721, at Newmarket, when he did the s distance at the rate of fourteen and one-l - third seconds per furlong, at six years old, , carrying 128 pounds. The often-quoted exploit of Eclipse in 1 England was that he ran four miles, carrying T ICS pounds, in eight minutes, With this data before them it is left for r others to draw their own deductions of the e relative merits of West Australian, Flying - Childers, Eclipse and Lexington at the dis-t . tance they ran, which varied from two and A a half to four miles. The belief was general 1 that Lexington and Lecompte were about as 3 I fast and as good race horses as have ever appeared in England. Undoubtedly they could stay a distance about as well as any horse that has run anywhere in their time. They ran two heats of four miles in 7 :26 and 7 :3S and the third mile of the second heat in 1 :47. It would be a difficult task to institute a fair comparison between the early race horses of England and America, as the systems of racing were so different in the two countries at the time of which we write. With the exception of the light weights adopted by us for convenience the modes and rules of our turf were nearly the same up to the middle of the nineteenth century as they were in England in the eighteenth century, In England, since that period, the mode of racing has been essentially changed. Heavy weights, even for two and three-year-olds ; short distances, rarely beyond two and a half miles; no longer races of heats; the great events for "baby horses" two and three-year-r olds, instead of hcrses as formerly. They rarely nowadays 1853 reach maturity in England. Priam, Touchstone, Harkaway and Rataplan are to be regarded as exceptions to this rule. Flying Childers and Eclipse were not introduced upon the turf until five years old, an age at which the most distinguished horses were rarely seen on the courses in the middle of the nineteenth century. The elastic turf and the straighter shape of the English race courses better adapt them to speed than our circular race tracks that are wholly denuded of turf. Therefore a fair comparison of early English and American race horses cannot be made by time as the test. To Be Continued.
