ON AMERICAN HORSES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1249, 26 March 1914, Page 11

ON AMERICAN HORSES.

A correspondent, writing from the United States to “Horse and Hound” (London), says:—“l have often thought of writing you, especially when you spoke favourably of using Colin as a stallion. I know every stallion in America, and don’t know one with an American cross that I would recommend an Englishman to use. There is not one horse in America to day with a native, cross which can carry any weight and go a mile and a-quarter in good company, nor, for that matter, a horse of any kind. I am familiar with every horse that has run in America since 1872 (when I came to the country). There were some good racers then. When they imported Leamington, Bonnie Scotland, and Mortemer they got some smashers. The fast real native-bred horse that ran was The Bard. From three-yeiar-old onwards he beat all those who were champions before his time, and those who were champions after he was retired. He could run four quarters, with 1281 b up, one after the other, in 2 5 sec, and the last quarter of a mile in 24, if he had to; but he never was asked to. They all laid down before they got to the end of the mile. He was owned by the late A. J. Cassatt. In conformation he was the image of St, Simon (from the pictures I have seen of the latter), and to the day he died he was as clear and sound as a new pin. The

tracks were different in those days, well harrowed to save the horses’ legs and feet; now they are like pasteboard, and the horses run the first quarter in 23sec and the last, in a mile race, in 28sec. The endurance race was a farce; an ordinary selling plater in England who could go a mile and a-quarter in fair company could have walked in. Everyone here who knows a thing about a racer knows this, but they won’t say so, and now all the talk is to bring back the old American horse, but they never can; and the clever people are trying to unload their stuff and want to get pure-bred stock, which, in the condition of the English market, they cannot, at the prices they wish to give.”