THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE HORSE

Otago Witness, Issue 2665, 12 April 1905, Page 50

THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE HORSE

On reading the report of a recent meeting of the Colonial Trotting Horse Owners, Breeders, and] Trainers' Association it struck the writer as being somewhat remarkable that that body (one of whose objects of formation was avowedly to improve th 0 stamina of the trotting horse) should write to the Greymouth Trotting Club expressing approval of the laiter's introduction of a Futurity Stakes on their programme, and wishing it success. This race is to b« a well-endowed event., for which

everyone who intends having a yourig c l"er engaged will be sure to try — probably long before it would be a>skcd a question if it were not to be raced prior to iU three-year-old season. If the handling and training of yearlings tend to impro\e the stamina of our horses, then nothing can bo said against tho practice; but. consideung the very small proportion of two-year-old pacers or trotters which can be successfully handled and raced at that age, together with the" fact that experience undoubtedly goes to prove that two-year-old raoing of either the thoroughbred or the trotter does not tend to improve the breed, but rather brings about deterioration, the action of the newly-formed aseociaion is not one which calls for the approval of anyone who takes more than a superficial interest in the welfare of the horse and its improvement. In facfe, the installation of two-year-old racing on the trotting track, and its approval by a body of men who are banded together with the object of the improvement of the horse, calls for the stiongest condemnation. A thoroughbred may come to hand early, and probably be as good a horse as a two-year-old or three-year-old as at any part of its career, but the trotter as at present constituted in this colony is not capable of being raced as a two-year-old unless at the extreme ©nd of the season. We have seen some two-year-olds trotting during the past few years, but those who can handle themselves creditably are few and far between, and unless they ar« very judiciously worked their prospects are being diminished every day they are on th« track instead of being allowed to make a reasonable improvement with age. What is the cause of the short racing life of the majority of our racehorses? — nothing but the iact that they have in many cases been injudiciously handled as yearlings or two-year-olds owing to trainers trying to make big, lumbering youngsters keep pace with a smart, nippy juvenile, which is as forward as a two-year-old as 50 per cent, of others are as three-year-olds. Many of our horses terminate their racing life as three or four year-olds, and that in many cases is only the harvest of the seeds of trouble which were sown during- the life of the yearling.