hausting work to prepare him for a race; his muscular development is full; and for these united reasons he should be able to trot faster than ever this summer. What do you say?"

And we could only reply that the argument was sound, that the conclusion was most plausible.-New York Turf, Field, and Farm.

AUSTRALIAN

HORSES.

66
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPORTING MAGAZINE.”

SIR,-You will doubtless have seen, in common with many readers of the Sporting Magazine, a paragraph which has appeared in some of the London papers, reprinted from a South Australian Journal, that so great has been the increase of the wild horses in the far interior of the vast grazing grounds of the colony that they have become a nuisance from their number, intrusive inroads, and depredations on the cultivated lands of the colonists.

Long troubled with a plethora of beef and mutton, it would now appear that the Victorians and South Australians are troubled with a plethora of horses, and to such an excess, that, being amply provided everywhere with horses for all agricultural and domestic purposes of draught and the saddle, as well as breeding purposes, for want of near and ready markets for the disposal of their unwelcome equine visitors when captured, they are so wholly at a loss to turn them to better account that they sell them gladly at the scarcely credible low price of one penny per horse!

This mode of utilising the superabundance of the products of the colony, if it be true, is not very illustrative of the commercial sagacity or enterprise of the settlers in those happy regions, who assuredly might do better with their spontaneously created equine wealth by taking example of the Guacheros of South America, and shoot if not lassoo them to salt their hides for exportation.

There used moreover to be a demand for Australian horses in India, where they were not only preferred to the native horses for cavalry and artillery remounts in the latter days of the East India Company's rule, but also by reason of their lower cost-price, inclusive of their transport charges; and I recollect some years ago the resort to their importation to Bengal as remounts for those arms of the Company's service at the recommendation of Sir Walter Gilbert, a distinguished cavalry officer at that time in the service of the Company.

In a report which he then drew up in reference to the breeding-studs that had been for some years established in Bengal by the East India Company, with a view to ensure the improvement of the breed of horses throughout their provinces, and the establishment of internal resources for the production of remounts of a superior description for the cavalry and artillery, Sir Walter Gilbert considered those breeding-studs of the Company as then organised a failure. He had come to this opinion from the fact that the colts which had for some years been bred there

had been found generally deficient in substance, courage, and ability to endure privation, qualities especially required in all cavalry horses, especially in a country and climate such as that of Hindostan. Hence he objected on several grounds to stud-bred horses; for although some few, and those about the best ever turned out by the Company's studs, were handsome horses, they were yet more or less deficient in some respects on those points which Sir Walter Gilbert, with good reason considered objectionable for cavalry and artillery remounts, viz., in want of bone, breadth of chest, and inability to stand hard work.

A further defect which he attributed to them was, uncertainty of temper, one perhaps somewhat less valid as attributable to any particular breed of horses; for though individual subjects of any breed may and must naturally differ in regard to temperament, yet the vicious development of temper in colts of Eastern and Asiatic race is more frequently the product of the rougher, more irritative, and often malicious treatment of the European groom and soldier as compared to that of the Asiatic; and if the strict injunction to observe a kind and friendly handling of their young horses was constantly imposed as an irrefragible rule of stud and stable discipline, there would be very much less development of vice in all horses European or Eastern.

But as in most breeding studs at home or abroad, it would seem that in those of the East India Company at that time in Bengal, the primary object of their establishment had been quite lost sight of under the frequent laxity and change of superintendence that crept in. The breeding means were insufficient to supply the annual number of remounts which was required by the Company for those arms of the service, and this arose, as I learned subsequently from an Anglo-Indian cavalry officer who had been in the Imperial Austrian service, from employing stallions of inferior blood, many of them country-bred horses, and putting them to mares ill adapted for the purpose because a sufficiency of suitable mares was not to be found in the breeding districts. Whereas, had the company imported a large-size high-bred caste of Arab sires, and put them to the best description of country mares, a very different kind of produce might have been confidently looked for.

Sir Walter Gilbert was, as I have said, a great advocate for the importation of Colonial (Australian) bred horses for the East Indian military service, and his advocacy found at the time considerable favour and justification from the published opinion of veterinary-surgeon Fitzherbert Knight on the qualities of Australians for artillery and cavalry purposes.

In reference to the powers of these, his observations are as deserving of attention from the present Indian Government as they then were to that of the company.

That gentleman, while alleging that his short experience in India would not permit of his offering any opinion in regard to Australian horses in India, or their capabilities to endure fatigue in that climate, confined himself strictly to the knowledge he had gained with regard to them in their native climate. Passing first in review their quality for speed, he thought it a subject on which little need be said, since the records of the turf had demonstrated that the Australians had at all events equalled, if not surpassed, their competitors on the Calcutta race-course. As regarded their strength, he could affirm that the

Australian half-bred horses would draw in the Colonies a load of a ton weight, besides the drag, probably from a five-hundred weight more, and that over hilly and bad roads; and that it was a common occurrence to see men weighing fourteen and sixteen stone riding forty and fifty miles a-day upon a horse fourteen-and-a-half to fifteen hands high with perfect ease and safety, and that over uneven and cross-country roads.

As to their endurance, it was one of the great qualities of the Colonial horses. He had himself in South Australia frequently ridden a fourteen-hand horse from the town of Adelaide to the river Murray, a distance of eighty miles in one day, starting at 1 a.m. and arriving at 6 p.m. the same evening, giving the horse only one hour to refresh himself with grass and water, and his diet consisting of nothing more than grass before and after the journey.

In Van Dieman's Land and Sydney the same distance was frequently performed, and not a remark would be made in favour of the horse's performances, in a climate moreover where the thermometer ranged from 80 to 120 degrees.

Good temper, with exception of a few of the more civilized Sydney horses, was the prevailing characteristic, and a really vicious horse was scarcely ever seen. It is averred that the "Walers" are noted in India for a vice called "buck-jumping;" but Mr. Fitzherbert Knight believed it to arise most frequently from the bad and uncouth management they met with there, and that the change must be an extraordinary one to the poor animals to be suddenly surrounded by a crowd of natives, whose habits and wild appearance, voices, and language are at first sight sufficient almost to excite fear in the newly-arrived European biped.

The courage of the Australian horses has been oft-times tolerably well tested, and the Anglo-Indian sportsman would often fail, with all his boasted prowess in the jungle, tiger-shooting, and pig-sticking, were he engaged in riding amidst a herd of wild cattle in the Colonies upon any other mount but an Australian. In this occupation he would scarcely believe the achievements of an inferior bred horse carrying from twelve to fourteen stone upon his back, at a slapping pace for twelve hours a-day, over iron-stone bound ranges of hills, then down declivities of rocks almost perpendicular, across rivers, through scrub which appears impenetrable, through bogs and quagmires above the horse's knees, over immense trees that have fallen, after having stood the test of ages as lords of the forest-and this to be repeated every day for weeks! while the animal's only food is the herbage he can pluck as he roams about at the extreme length of his tether-rope; and frequently has to satisfy his thirst by licking the dew from the shrubs and plants. In the Colonial country districts they never taste corn of any kind, and yet their strength and endurance is found equal to almost any emergency, and it has been acknowledged by unprejudiced persons who have had opportunities of judging, that they surpass in this respect the English horse, and all of Western breed. Such horses the Editor of The Sporting Magazine will, I am sure, consider worth somewhat more than a penny per head, or, at any rate, cheap at that price!

Your obedient servant,

R. P.

In the ninetieth year of its establishment, while still, if possible, growing in interest and attraction, the Derhy actually threatened to fall through. Had the race stood over, as was talked of, for a couple of seasons, it would most probably never have recovered from so impolitic a proceeding. A tradesman in the Strand might as reasonably shut up his shop for a year or two, and then expect to recover his custom so soon as he chose to open again. In the interim they might have added ten thousand pounds to some similar stake, but this would not have been the Derby, and the glories of Epsom would have gone elsewhere. Nothing, to be sure, could have been more absurd or untenable than the plea put forth in support of any such postponement. Some property, including a certain portion of the Derby course, is set up for sale by auction, and purchased by a private gentleman, but wellknown sportsman. In due course it appears to have occurred to the management of Epsom races that it might be as well to obtain the formal consent of the new proprietor for still making use of this land. To their immense surprise and proportionate indignation, Mr. Studd insists upon better terms; he will have a higher rent than has hitherto been paid, and he bates not one iota of his offer, notwithstanding the very cavalier style with which his claim is treated. Considering the fortunes which have of late years been made out of Epsom, Mr. Studd had as strong a right, or a stronger, to put a good price on his bit of land, as anybody has to let out the Downs for booths, or for carriage standings. Good-natured Mr. Heathcote might give up his paddock to the national sport, as he may have imagined, when he was simply giving up an income to the lessees; and Mr. Briscoe, the lord of the manor, may waive his rights and privileges, but as the administration here has certainly not been distinguished by an extraordinary liberality in return, there was no very particular cause for regarding these cases as examples for imitation. The sympathies of all true and disinterested sportsmen were, from the first, with Mr. Studd, as, of course, the other side had to come over; while from the rent thus to be paid, Mr. Studd volunteers to give an amount of money to be run for that contrasts well with all the recipients of stand, ground, and paddock dues put together can afford to offer. But this is not the first time that the Derby has been in danger. Some five-and-thirty years since, a rumour got abroad that from conscientious motives Mr. Briscoe was determined to put a stop to the races. This gentleman has long been one of the members for East Surrey, and an election occurring just about this time, he took the opportunity of explaining at the nomination how the report arose. "So far," he said, "from wishing to curtail the amusements of the people, he had given some waste lands for the purpose of rendering the course more commodious. The mis-statement arose out

of a question of right. Although lord of the manor for fifteen years, he had never pocketed one shilling of the money raised from the racegrounds, nor was it his intention to do so; but he had a right to that money, and being but a tenant for life he thought it his duty to his

successor not to suffer that right to be alienated, though it had been claimed by a self constituted body who had gone so far as to set the fees up to auction. Under these circumstances, and by the advice of counsel, he had undertaken to protect the right of the manor." Precisely so, and in 1834 the fees were flea-bites to what they have now become. It is not so long since, that an old acquaintance told us how he has gone into the Warren to look at the horses, has afterwards watched them taking their canters from the post, and then galloped off to see the finish; hanging his hack upon his arm as he took his place by the side of the ropes, somewhere between the distance and the winning-post. And we ourselves can remember the Warren, for the entry to which you paid a shilling, instead of half-a-sovereign, and where, in company with a few more keen hands, you scrutinized the runners as they walked round and round. There was no parade before the stand in those times, and the great majority of the company saw little or nothing more of the horses than the passing glimpse as they flitted by in the race. The very betting men, mostly riding or driving, assembled on the hill somewhere between the starting and winning-posts; while other sportsmen, after witnessing innumerable false starts, then an especial feature of the occasion, betook themselves to Tattenham Corner, commonly a very crisis in the race for the Derby.

Now everybody goes to the stand, and how everybody contrives to see here is a feat quite beyond our comprehension. There was a day, certainly, when this Grand Stand was first opened, that everbody had some. thing like equal main and chance. If he came early he got a good place, but by this time every good place is bespoken, for the whole front of the building is occupied by private boxes. Anybody, unless he happens to be somebody, has, therefore, the Hobson's choice of a bird's-eye view on the leads above, where he gathers a very imperfect notion of the race, or the crush of the lawn below, where, by adopting the tactics of a Perfect Cure, and continually jumping up into the air, he may, peradventure, recognize the colour of a jacket, and delude himself into the idea that he has seen the Derby run for. When we look up to those long ranges of stalls and pigeon-holes, we cannot but think of the O. P. times, or of how much better-behaved a person John Bull has become. To our thinking, the Epsom Grand Stand was never a good point of sight, and the late Lord George Bentinck was wont to leave it at the last moment for the adjoining one, in front of which the judge's box is placed.

And our own experiences of Epsom go well back to the days of Lord George. Noticeably enough the first Derby we ever saw run for was the first Derby ever run on a Wednesday. Previously, the Derby-day had been the Thursday, and the Oaks the Friday, but a by-day was very judiciously arranged, and the alteration was signalized by the victory of Sir Gilbert Heathcote, the Squire of Epsom, and with the Baron de Teissier, perpetual stewards of the meeting. With just a miss here and there, we have seen most of the Derby set-to's since then, but, as a first impression, perhaps, there is none more vividly marked on our memory. Old John Day coming away with Grey Momus, and Chapple on Amato, feeling he had won his race at the Corner, and steadying his horse forthwith. And then the hurraying for Sir Gilbert, and that old English worthy, with his smart under-waistcoats, and the silver