I am aware that those who only take a superficial view of the economy of our racing system will at once pronounce against this position. They will adduce the sons and daughters of King Herod, Eclipse, and Highflyer; in our day, of Sultan and Emilius, as far surpassing the ordinary run of their contemporaries. But they do not bear in mind that not only did and does the progeny of these justly celebrated sires greatly outnumber that of their less favoured brothers, but that the best mares of their respective eras were and are exclusively put to them. Not to travel beyond our own day for proofs, did excellence ensure its like, what chance would have remained to those who now and then breed a solitary nomination against the gigantic studs of Hampton Court, Riddlesworth, or Underly? To confine the question to the present year (1838), we had evidence that not all the wealth, skilful training, Sybarite care and treatment of the best of England’s blood could produce a match for the son of one of our indifferent racers,--the despised of an Irish tenth-rate stable,--the wonderful and the basely-abused Harkaway.[82] I may be told that he was defeated here, and by second-raters, too,--but under what circumstances? With ordinary care, without having been subjected to actual ill-treatment, at weight for age there was nothing of the year in England that could have stood any chance with him. [82] This extraordinary animal is now (December 1838) advertised for sale, his price six thousand guineas, with this strange addition, “that his owner (Mr. Ferguson) rides him hunting once or twice a week!” From these premises the deduction at which we arrive bearing upon the economy of the turf, its nature and influence is twofold, and admits of a very brief solution,--the first being that the day is long passed since the means of winning upon the race-course were to be obtained by breeding; the second, that the vast advantages still to be derived from a proper application of our thorough-blood is most strangely neglected. Mr. Bowes began his racing career by breeding a winner of the Derby, while the late Duke of Leeds, the most extensive breeder of blood stock in the north, toiled in vain for the Leger till he won it with a colt bought from the tail of the plough. Lord George Bentinck, the best winner on the turf of modern days, if the Calendar be any criterion, regards breeding racers as an expedient no man in his senses should dream of, and, acting upon his theory, has put money in his purse. A first-class racer, a colt of extraordinary promise, are each productions of chance-medley, only to be come at by being secured where and when they can be found.