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IN. DEFENCE OF THE TURF Major Henry Leonard of Remount Board Replies to Outlook Editor. rolnts Out Yalue of Racing to Breeders of . All Light Saddle and Riding: Horses, as "Well as to the Military Service. Major Henry Leonard, member of the War Department Remount Board and of the executive committee of the American He-mount Association, has done a powerful thing for racing in an answer he lias made to an editorial that was published in The Outlook. This letter from Major Leonard, who has ever been a staunch supporter of the thoroughbred horse, appears in the most recent issue of Remount and it need3 no further introduction. The Editor The Outlook, SSI Fourth Avenue, New York City. Dear Sir: Professor Bachelor of the University of California has brought to my attention the editorial in The Outlook of October 31 last, entitled "Sport and Cash." While it is conservative there are statements contained in its columns which I am constrained to believe cover too much territory and might readily do harm to a movement toward the production of better horses in America which i3 only now gathering sufficient momentus to promise appreciable results. You say, inter alia : "Horse racing as it is carried on has not been of as great general benefit as, for instance, the racing of yachts, motor boats and automobiles. From all these three sports men who have never owned a racing yacht and who have no great desire for speed on water or land have profited largely. The motor car which stands the terrific strain of a race teaches the builder how to improve the stock model which he sells to the man on the street. The fisherman on the banks owes something to the yachtsman whose frailer craft seldom voyages out of sight of land." A FALLACIOUS ARGUMENT. Tho argument from the foregoing obviously is that the racing of horses "as it is carried on" has been of no benefit to men I am paraphrasing who have never owned a race horse and who have no great desire for speed on water or on the land. Also that the horse which stands the terrific strain of a race does not teach the breeder how to improve the stock model which reaches the man on the range and the farm. Your editorial is patently not intended as an attack on horse racing, but here are two factors with relation to it which render it potent; one is that it is temperate in its criticism and the other, the circumstances that The Outlook comes to the hands of many of the best men in every community and consequently may readily injure a cause by its unfavorable criticism. Let me prefix my remarks by saying that I do not now own and have not at any time heretofore owned a racing stable, though I have bred and owned many thoroughbred horses. I am, on the other hand, a member of the War Department Remount board, of the executive committee of the American Remount Association, and more particularly am engaged in furthering and supervising the governments efforts to improve the horses of my own state of Colorado. THOROUGHBREDS IX COLORADO. In that state we are using eleven thoroughbred stallions, every one of which has been a race horse tried and proven, and any other type or breed would be unwelcome. For the work of our Colorado ranches and ranges over 100,000 saddle horses are required. The day is near at hand when the overwhelming preponderance of these will be horses sired by thoroughbred stallions. What is true in Colorado, I know to be equally opposite to tho many other states among which the more than 300 stallions of the Remount Service are apportioned. Now a word as to the manner in which all this profits "the man in the street" who never owned a race horse ! Last summer I saw two- cow-punchers suffer exceedingly painful and serious accidents due to the fact that they were riding on range work horses wholly unfitted to, and not bred for the purposo for which they were being employed. Sired as they were by grade draft stallions, they lacked the short back, sloping shoulder and oblique pasterns so essential to the capacity to stop short and turn quickly while carrying weight on the bade. On the other hand, a properly made pony sired by a thoroughbred stallion brought its cow-hand owner 00, whereas the market price for the common variety is about ?75. The difference in value lay in the fact that horses which are by good sires from the raco tracks are available for use as hunters, saddle mounts, and polo ponies, whereas the other kind can be used for no purpose, since the horse meat is not esteemed for food in America. PRODUCING SOMETHING SALABLE. The man who breeds horses sired by stallions retired from the race track is producing something that is salable because it has an economic value. Not only is he furthering his own financial interests and benefitting his community, but he is contributing largely to the national defense; for, horses are no less essential today to an army in the field than they were half a century ago. In the Civil War the proportion of horses to men employed was 1 to 3 ; in the last war we used 1 horse to each 4 men, so that the ratio has remained nearly constant. The fact that improvement is needed in the type produced is best testified tc by the report of General Bate of the British Remount Service, who was in charge of the purchase in America of horses for the British army during the war. lie advised his government that the riding or cavalry horse as known in England arid on the European continent did not exist in America in appreciable numbers. A test is much more necessary for hcrses than for automobiles and boats. Mechanical errors can be corrected by the expenditure cf money, but errors in producing horses require at least five years for their discovery arid elimination. It, therefore, behooves the horse breeder to know what ho is producing; he can approximate this knowledge only by providing his product with proven parentage. Generally speaking, stamina, endurance and courage, coupled with a kindly disposition, are no less necessary than speed to make a race horse. These same qualities render a horse valuable for polo, hunting, military service, in a. cow camp, or for commercial purposes. The race course is now, and has for centuries been the accepted method of demonstrating their possession. So true is this that France, during the "World War, conducted racing, behind closed gates to the end that its thoroughbreds should not deteriorate. Tho man who suggests that the chief value of a rase horse is for racing, is either wilfully misrepresenting or is so woefully uninformed as to entitle him to no attention whatsoever. In a letter to the chairman of the judiciary committee of the Kentucky senate, of date 23 January, 1922, no less an authority than the Secretary of War said : "If racing is discontinued or abolished, the results to breeding could hardly be less than disastrous to the utility and light horse industry of the United States, and it would mean that the army could not, in the event of war, mount its cavalry or properly equip its infantry divisions and artillery with the large number of riding horses that are required in modern warfare." AN ENGLISH OFFICERS TIEWS. "Were any further testimonial needed as to the value of racing and the usefulness of even those race horses -which have the blood, the heart, and the courage, but not the speed necessary to succeed, it is supplied by the book of Colonel Preston of the British Army, which is a chronicle of the operations of the desert mounted corps in Palestine and Syria under General Allenby. With reference to this corps of 25,000 sabers, Preston says: "The majority of the horses in the corps were walers and there is no doubt that these hardy animals make the finest cavalry mounts in the world. For many years past the Austrailians have been buying up the thoroughbred failures on the English turf the quotation marks are mine and buying them cheap, to breed saddle horses for up-country stations. As a result of this policy they now have got types of compact, well-built saddle and harness horses that no other part of the world can show." I appreciate full well that no apology is necessary for championing either the race track or the thoroughbred horse. There may, however, be some persons extant who do not know that the pari-mutuel has taken the place of the crooked gambler and that one will see the law broken more frequently away from than at the race track. I wonder if it might be found practicable by you to print something along the lines of the foregoing, in order to present the other aspect of an important question. Very sincerely, .HENRY LEONARD.
