Chapter IX: Part I: Breeding (4)

It ought to be borne in mind that the light weights allowed by the present racing laws for Queen’s plates are, as examples for weighting in other races, most pernicious. These grants from the Crown were originally bestowed with the view to encourage the raising of strong thorough-breds, capable of carrying twelve stone sometimes for four or even five mile heats; therefore the present arrangement of weights is positively, however unintentionally, a misapplication of those public funds.

It is probably to the turfmen that the change in the character of steeplechasing is greatly due; they found it their interest gradually to alter the weights and distances, so as to bring profitably into play their second and third rate beaten race-horses. Steeplechases were not intended for these latter, whose perfection is in proportion to their speed. Pace is not the chief desideratum in hunters, to prove the qualities of which steeple or castle chases were instituted; power and endurance are at least as essential: and it is contrary to the law of nature, as well as of mechanics, to combine a maximum of speed with that of power, and _vice versa_. Either will preponderate to the detriment of the other.

The difficulties, natural and artificial, presented by the general face of the country in Ireland, have no doubt contributed to the development of those qualities which render the Irish hunter so valuable. The style of fence is continually varied; and in the course of a run there will be encountered double ditches, with a narrow or wide bank, single ones, stone walls, brooks, bullfinches, gates, wide drains, and occasionally posts and rails, or iron palings—hurdles being, however, of rare occurrence; but the horse that can master the above impediments to his course will soon find out how to jump a hurdle.

The Irish colt has sometimes also a kind of training not expressly designed for him by his owner; for being not unfrequently left with other animals in a field affording an insufficient supply of grass for them all, he undertakes to prove the truth of the proverb that hunger will break through stone walls, by jumping over if not through one to obtain more or better food.

Transplanted to England, the accomplished Irish hunter often finds himself tested in a manner strange to him; the rate of speed is greater than he has been accustomed to, for the Green Isle has not yet adopted generally the extremely swift pace of hounds now so much in vogue in England, and is thence, as regards the hounds and the horses, in unquestionably the most sportsmanlike condition. It was never intended that hunting should become steeplechasing; and the unnatural pace to which hounds are now forced causes them often to overrun the scent after they have got away; then, when at fault, the entire ruck of the field have an opportunity of coming up, to be, of course, once more distanced, at the repeated sacrifice of the sound principles of hunting, and to the disadvantage of the true breed of hunters.

If breeders of horses would give their full attention to the pursuit, there is no reason why they should not be as successful in producing the best description of every class of this animal, as breeders of sheep and cattle are in their line. By judicious crossing, animals can be secured with any peculiar characteristics that may be desired; and for the encouragement of energy and exertion in this direction, we may remind our readers that there is now so much competition for the possession of first-class horses, that our Continental neighbours constantly outbid us, having learned to value them even more than we do who have been suffering our best sires to be bought up and removed from their native soil to improve the foreign stock. It is not impossible that, circumstances having directed so much attention to this subject, good will in this as in many other cases spring out of evil, and the fostering of valuable breeds of horses will become a more widely-recognised source of emolument than it has been for many years past, regaining, likewise, its proper standing among Britons as a matter of deep national interest and importance.