THOROUGHBRED. The word Thorough bred does not mean, as many suppose, an animal of pure blood, that is unmixed. If so, any wild .animal would be a thoroughbred. The word thoroughbred is used to designate animals bred from the best blood, but originally derived from a mixture of raees, as the short-horn cattle, and racing horses. In the articles Blood Horse, American and English, and in the article Horse, and in the article Shorthorns, will be found matters of general interest relative to thorough bred horses and cattle. In this article it will only be necessary to notice the essentials in thoroughbreds as applied •to the horse. Mr. J. H. Walsh, (Stonehenge) a well known and com petent English authority, in relation to the object for encouraging this breed of horses writes graph ically and logically upon the thoroughbred. It will he of interest. The great object of encour aging the breed of racehorses, our authority f3tates, is lost sight of, if suitable crosses for hunting, cavalry, and hack-mares can not be obtained from their ranks. In these three kinds, soundness of the feet and legs is all important, together with a capacity to bear a continuation of severe work. These qualities are highly de veloped in the Aral), and until lately were met with in his descendants on the English turf. Even now a horse with a stain in his pedigree will not bear the amount of training which a thoroughbred will sustain, his health and spirits soon giving way if forced to go through the work which the race horse requires to make him fit. But the legs and feet of the latter are the drawbacks to his use, and the trainer of the present day will generally be sadly taxed to make them last through a dry summer. Our modern roads are also much harder since the introduction of macadamization, and thus, in proportion to our greater demands, is the absence of the material to meet them. A hack that is not pretty well bred is now neglected, except for high weights, because his paces are not soft and pleasant, and he does not satisfy the eye. But how many of the fashionable sort will bear constant use on the road without be coming lame? And how many sound horses are there to he met with out of a hundred, taken at random from the ranks of any kind, tolerably well bred? Every horse proprietor will tell you, scarcely five per cent.; and some will even go so lar as to say, that a sound horse is utterly un known. Even though the thoroughbred horse is well fitted to compete with others in all cases where speed is the chief point of trial—as in fiat racing, steeple-chasing, hunting, etc.,—and yet he is not so well qualified for some kinds of harness work, or for road work of any kind, as the horse expressly bred for these purposes. There is no doubt that thoroughbred, horses might be selected and bred expressly for this kind of work, and would excel all others, because originally their limbs and constitutions were at least as sound as, or perhaps even sounder than, any other class of horses; but while they are selected and bred solely for speed, without much reference to these other qualities, it is useless to expect much improvement; but, on the contrary, they may be expected to become yearly more and more soft and yielding. For many purposes the Eastern horse is wholly unfit — as, for instance, for heavy and dead pulls; here his high courage, light weight, and hasty temper are adverse to the performance of the task, and he is far excelled by the old English, or mbdern improved cart-horse. No thoroughbred horse
would try again and again at a dead pull like many of our best breeds of cart-horses; and therefore he is little calculated for work which requires this slow struggling kind of exertion. The pull of the Eastern horse, or his descendant, is a snatch; and though it may to a certain ex tent be modified by use, yet it can never be brought up to the standard of the English cart horse, even if the weight of carcase and size and strength of Huth of the former con.ld be sufficiently increased. Such then are the general qualities of the thoroughbred horse and the purposes to which he can be beneficially applied. It remains now to consider the formation and specific characteristics best adapted to the turf, which is his chief arena; and also to the hunt ing-field, which now absorbs a very large number of his breed. Finally, it will be neees sary to consider him as a means of improving other breeds, such as the cavalry-charger, hack and harness horse, and for the stable. In the first place purity of blood must be considered as a sine qua non, for without it a horse can not be considered thoroughbred-, and therefore we have only to ascertain the exact meaning Of the term blood. It is not to be supposed that there is any real difference between the blood of the thoroughbred horse and that of the half-bred animal; no one could discriminate between the two by any known means; the term blood is here synonymous with breed, and by purity of blood is meant purity in the breeding of the individual animal under consideration ; that is to say, that the horse which is entirely bred from one source is pure from any mixture with any other, and may be a pure Suffolk Punch, or a pure Clydesdale, or a pure thoroughbred horse. But all these terms are comparative, since there is no. such animal as a perfectly purely bred horse of any breed, whether carthorse, hack, or racehorse; all h'ave been produced from an admixture with other kinds, and though now kept as pure as possible, yet they were originally compounded from varying eleinents; and thus the racehorse of 1700, was obtained from a mix ture of Turks, Arabs, and Barbs. Even the best and purest thoroughbreds are stained with some slight cross with the old English or Spanish horse, as has been heretofore shown ; therefore it is only by comparison that the word pure is applicable to them or any others. But since the thoroughbred horse, as he is called, has long been bred tor the race course, and selections have been made with that view alone, it is reasonable to suppose that this breed is the best for that purpose, and that a stain of any other is a deviation from the clearest stream into one more niuddy, and therefore impure; the con sequence is, that the animal bred from the impure source fails in some of the essential characteristics of the pure breed, and is in so far useless for this particular object. NO W, in practice this is found to be the case, for in every instance it has resulted that the horse bred with the s ightest deviation from the sources indicated by the stud-book, is unable to compete in lasting power with those which are entirely of pure blood. Hence it is established as a rule, that for racing purposes every horse must be a thoroughbred; that is, descended from a sire and dam whose names are met with in the stud-book. On page 943 we give a life-like illustration of the -well-known racer, Voltigeur, which will show the admirable make-up of this wonderful sub family of horses.