Back to Scone once more, and striking out across country towards the Widden Mountain in the direction of Mudgee, we find a belt of country which has no superior in Australia as a Thoroughbred nursery. Here is the home of a famous family of horse-breeders, the Thompsons, and it was here such famous stallions of the past as Lochiel, Grafton, Ayr Laddie and Maltster all earned their undying crown of fame. Widden is now owned by Messrs. A. W. and A. E. Thompson, and they, with their cousins, the Thompson Bros., of which firm Herbert is the head, have been wonderfully successful horse-breeders. Widden and Oakleigh are beautiful bits of country, and the excellence of their paddocks has contributed a great deal to the success of the numerous horses reared there. Herbert Thompson and his brother can lay claim to be the largest breeders of the Thoroughbred in the world to-day, and last year they sent down to the Sydney sales no less than seventy yearlings, all of whom sold remarkably well. At Widden the premier stallion of New South Wales, in Linacre, a well-performed son of Wolf’s Crag, shares the honours of the stud with the French-bred Kenilworth, a staying descendant of St. Simon. Both these stallions have been remarkably consistent as winner-getters, and if the grey Chrysolaus, the most recent addition to the stallion strength, meets with the same success, his dual owners, the Thompson Bros., and their cousins A. W. and A. E., will have no reason to regret having spent 3,600 guineas in acquiring him. The Widden and Oakleigh mares are a wonderful lot, and are kept up to a very high standard by the retention of the best fillies bred at the stud. In an article of this description it is impossible to write of individual mares, for reference to the good producers owned by the Thompsons would fill many large sized volumes. At Oakleigh are the English stallions Gadabout, by St. Denis, Sir Dighton, by Bayardo, and Cooltrim, by Flying Fox, and the Australian-bred Greenstead, by The Welkin (imp.). The stud suffered a severe loss recently by the death of imported Tressady, a successful son of Persimmon.