The reproductions of Stainforth’s pictures included in this volume will serve in a great measure to prove to the public generally his calibre as a painter of the horse. Those of us, however, who have had the pleasure of studying his work in the originals, have every confidence in allowing posterity to judge of his merits. Certain it is, that at no distant date his pictures will be acclaimed and much sought after as classic examples of equine portraiture. THE SECRET OF STAYING POWER By Dr. W. J. STEWART McKAY The ambition of every man that breeds racehorses is to produce a good stayer. That this is a difficult matter is made evident by the large number of horses entered for the Derby and St. Leger and the few that run. Therefore the question is naturally asked: Why cannot all horses run a distance? The answer is that all horses can run a distance; it’s the _time they take_ that is the important point. In dealing with the questions relating to “staying,” we must take into consideration _distance_, _time_, and _weight_. We must try and find out the difference between the horses that can sprint six furlongs in 1.12 and the horses that can go two miles in 3.24, and ask how they differ from the horses that can go 80 miles from sunrise to sunset. If a number of racing men and breeders of racehorses were to gather round a ring, and five horses—say, Soultline, Prince Foote, Woorak, Desert Gold and Poitrel—were brought into the ring, would it be possible, if the onlookers did not know the horses or their pedigree—would it be possible, I ask—to pick out the real stayers? Could a good judge tell that Woorak could just get a mile, and that Prince Foote, who was about the same size and build, could stay all day? Could a good judge say that Soultline could not stay a mile? and tell that Desert Gold, the champion of her day, was no champion once she was asked to go much more than a mile and a half? I doubt very much whether any judge could place these horses in the true order of their staying powers by merely inspecting them. The late Andrew Town, who may be regarded as one who knew everything that was to be known about the points of a horse, once said to me that had he seen Carbine with a rough coat in a country sale-yard that he would not have rushed to buy him. If judges were able to tell the future of racehorses by their conformation, then yearlings that are sold at 1,500 guineas would not be such consistent failures. Let us never forget that the father of English racehorses, the immortal Eclipse, was sold as a yearling for less than a hundred guineas; yet he was the ancestor of Sceptre, who was sold for 10,000 guineas as a yearling, and the ancestor of Flying Fox, who fetched 39,375 guineas at public auction. What, let us ask, is the secret of Staying Power?