SHORT RACES AND HORSE BREEDING.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13835, 22 February 1909, Page 2

SHORT RACES AND HORSE BREEDING.

To the Editor of the "Timaru Herald." Sir, —In your report of the last meeting of the Timaru Trotting Club appeared a proposal to construct a new six furlong track on the racecourse. Apparently from this the Trotting Club are desirous of following in the wake of the jockey clubs of New Zea-. land by running' more races than at present, but over shorter distances — the very thing which is tending to produce a class of horse utterly useless for general utility purposes. By running more races over shorter courses, the clubs are catering for the bettors and the bookmakers, giving them a little more excitement in return for the handy piece of lucre they pay at the gate, and making times a little faster. But can anyone say that horses fit for six furlongs and light weights are of any service to man F Such horses have no stamina, are delicate, and show a decided tendency to be weedy. Would it not be much better to incorporate in official programmes some long distance and heavy weight races? Then there would be a prospect of a better class 6f horse being produced. These remarks are more applicable to jockey clubs than to trotting clubs, which admittedly do some good in conducting trots over mile and two mile tracks, but if it is true that the Timaru' Trotting Club wants a six furlong course, then good-bye to the gold old long distance stayer. For a good all-round stamp of / horse, commend me to the kind bred for hunting, a horse which has to travel for miles with 'a full-grown man on his back, and to take fences into the bargain, and it will he found that the miserable six furlong 6st animal is absolutely nowhere as a utility horse as compared with the hunter. I myself have a horse which is averaging 22 miles every day, and has been on this work for over four months, with three or four months still to go, and she is as fit now as when she commenced her present work; but if she had been bred on the six furlong method instead of from sound stayers, as she was, well, she simply could not do her work at all. I hope some other lover of horses will take this matter up, with the object of inducing racing clubs to foster the breeding of a more generally useful class of horse.—