"NEWMARKET AND ARABIA" AT THE ANTIPODES.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 218, 19 February 1875, Page 3

"NEWMARKET AND ARABIA" AT THE ANTIPODES.

The following interesting letter is taken from the Field of December 26th:— So much public interest is manifested in the question whether or no the present system of breeding and racing tends to maintain the standard of excellence for which England has become so noted, that a few rough notes upon what our brethren in the Antipodes are doing, from one just returned, may not be unacceptable to your readers. In New Zealand the basis of the present breed was formed, upon the opening out of the country, by importations from New South Wales and Tasmania. One cargo of Chilian mares was brought by the French to Banks Peninsula in Canterbury, their progeny, known in the province as Akaroa ponies, being noted for their hardihood and endurance; but as a breed they are almost extinct. For some time past the production of horses has been about equal to the demand, and, if we except a few draught stock which occasionally come in from Victoria and Tasmania, and now and then a thoroughbred roadster, or carting sire or mare from England, importation in any quantity has practically ceased. The cart stock of the colony, taken as a whole, is undeniably good, and New Zealand is already taking the pride of place in this description which was formerly held by Tasmania. But after leaving this class, till we get to the thoroughbred, the quantity of rubbish is simply fearful. Nine-tenths are entirely wanting in that distinctive character and type which mark a horse for the particular purpose for which he is best adapted. The animal is generally such a mixture of breeds that it puzzles one to say whether a sea-side hack, a costermonger's cart, or an undertaker's hearse is his proper vocation. Of course the mass is leavened here and there by a really good hack or carriage horse bred by some one who understands the matter ; but this is the ha'p'orth of bread to the intolerable amount of sack represented by the mongrels which are the result of the ignorance or carelessness of the majority of the cockatoos (small farmers) in mating their mares with sires totally unsuited to them. Coming to blood stock, the colony compares favorably with the mother country ; for, though most of the thoroughbreds are to the eye ,of one from home very deficient in size and power, this is nearly, if not wholly, compensated for by their general soundness, and wiry, wear-and-tear character.

The present New Zealand crack is Lurline, a great slashing mare by Traducer, a son of the Libel. Without being extended, she won on the two or three occasions I saw her pulled out at Christchurch and Dunedin, and her admirers when I left were very sanguine as to her success in the great colonial event of the southern hemisphere—the Melbourne Cup, for which she was sent over from New Zealand. Kakapo, winner of last Christchurch St Leger, is a colt with lots of bone and substance, and though his detractors call him coarse and coachy, he looks just the sort of sire so much wanted in the colony. At Mr Griffiths's stud farm, near Christchurch, stands the favorite sire of the colony, Traducer, by The Libel, besides two recent importations, in Albany, a son of Thormanby, and Blue Boy, by Beadsman, the latter a neat and bloodlike little horse. Mr Nosworthy, at Ham, has a promising young horse in The Traitor, and I just caught a glimpse upon his landing of Cassivelaunus, by Caractacus—sold, I heard, by his importer for £I2OO, to go down to the neighboring province of Otago; whilst the Arab contingent is well represented by a compact grey, with lots of quality, the property of the Rev W. J. G. Bluett, the leading short horn breeder of Canterbury. Proceeding to Victoria, the stranger is struck by the marked improvement in quality of what he sees in the streets of Melbourne and other lai'ge cities. Great upstanding horses, with plenty of length and strength for harness, neat well-bred hacks, and thorough-breds on the course many of which, from a utilitarian standpoint, would be a great improvement upon what we see nowadays at Newmarket and Doncaster, attest the spirit and energy which many of the wealthy squatters have devoted to superior stock breeding. At last Melbourne New Year's Day meeting, though not the chief of the year, several among the competitors were particularly noticeable for good looks. Don Juan, winner of the. previous Melbourne Cup, Goldsbro', Explosion, and The Hook, with several others, would attract attention anywhere: but to the stranger the most marked feature was the sound, wiry appearance of the animals, particularly in the matter of legs and feet—and the goodness of the latter may be inferred from the fact that, although the course was as hard as a turnpike in many places, half, if not a majority, of the fields ran without shoes or plates. Turning to New South Wales, the general quality of horses, draught stock excepted, is, I fancy, to judge from the little I saw, a trifle better than that of Victoria, the hacks showing as a rule more breeding, whilst there are numbers of well-matched Cleveland-like bays to be seen in the carriages of the wealthy Sydney residents quite up to park form at home. By the kindness of a friend, I had a most enjoyable afternoon at Mr Andrew Town's farm at Richmond. After inspecting a Clydesdale stallion, and a wonderfully good three-year-old Lincolnshire black, for whom carte blanche had been given at home, and who fully justified the confidence reposed in the selection, the thoroughbreds were paraded. These were: Tim Whimer, a showy, handsome bay bred in the colony; Maribyrnong, a son of old Fisherman, with tremendous power in the back and loins; and Tarragon, one of the colonial cracks under heavy weights and at long distancesbeforehe retired to the stud—a beautiful bay, something in the Kingston style, but with a harder look about him, he was to my mind decidedly the pick of the basket. On short legs, with faultless shoulders and rare length of rein before you, he covers an immense quantity of ground; and no wonder that such a truly shaped beauty should have scattered his opponents in the show-yard as easily as he did upon the turf. He is so fine-tempered that two or three of Mr Town's children will scramble together on to the back of their pet whilst at exercise with perfect impunity, and altogether is of a stamp that, alas! with the altered conditions of breeding and racing is fast passing away —which thought, by the way, brings me to the real burden of my song. When praising the general character of the Australian horses, I was met on all sides by assurances that for real hard work the present breed has sadly deteriorated during the Jast twenty-five years, au4 the old stock

rider sighs in vain for the game little wear-ancl-tear weight-carrier of the earlier days of the colony. Standing generally from 15 to 15.2, well let down, with powerful back, loins, and quarters, no day too long for him, his place has been taken by animals which, however imposing to the eye, cannot compare with him in constitution, endurance, and hackney qualifications generally. The fact of this deterioration in saddle horses is established by evidence too overwhelming to be disputed. How it has taken place I will endeavor to show. Upon the first settlement of New South Wales some cargoes of Chilian mares were imported, and these formed the breeding basis of the Australian hacks. The Chilian horse, though generally under-sized and with indifferent shoulders, has good back, loins, and quarters, legs like iron, and everlasting powers of endurance upon very short commons. He is decidedly the pick of Spanish America; his Argentine brother of the Pampas, though bigger, being rather coarse and loosely made, and not retaining so much of the blood-like character of their common progenitor, the Andalusian. This last, brought into Spain by the Moors, and believed to have been of Arab blood with a dash of Barb, brings us back to that peerless race from which everything in the world worth anything traces its descent.

The hardy little Chilian mares upon which the first stock riders of the colony were mounted were crossed with blood stallions imported from England, the progeny being much improved in size and substance. This improvement, thanks to the old-fashioned stamp of sound thoroughbred sire brought into the country by Lord Egremont and others, was continuous up to about thirty years since. But shortly after came the discovery of gold, and the attendant impetus given to professional horse-racing. The ring became an institution, bringing in its train the hydra-headed evils which have wrought so much mischief at home. Light weight handicaps and T. Y.C. scrambles are each year more and more taking the place of the long welter weight contests of former days, and producing the natural and inevitable result in an increasing crop of speedy, leggy weeds, useless for any purpose other than half-mile spins with feather weights on their backs. If these champions had their throats cut at the conclusion of their noble career, the harm would be confined to the institution which produces them; but, unfortunately, they go to the country with a flourish of trumpets as sires, and so perpetuate the evil. If the Australian horse is not descending to the equine Avernus so rapidly as his English brother, it is because the stamina and constitution he inherits from the cross between his hardy maternal ancestor, the Chilian mare, and the staunch old-fashioned English sire, has been renewed from time to time by an infusion of imported Arab blood, and because the free and natural life that young stock necessarily lead in a new country does not, like the unhealthy exotic system prevalent in England, encourage all kinds of disorders and constitutional weakness. It is sincerely to be hoped that the colonists will take warning in time, and not be led away by that infatuated worship of mere size and speed, the result of which would be sooner or lattr to reduce what is still a capital wear-and tear breed to the level of the shelly weeds and magnificent cripples which are fast overrunning the old country. HOLDERNESS. Milan, December 14th.