Horses Past and Present

The result of this investigation, as far as the horse question is concerned, was briefly summarised in the following passage of the Third Report of the Lords’ Committee. They thought it desirable that this amusement should be upheld, “because, without the stimulus which racing affords, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that purity of blood and standard of excellence which have rendered the breed of English horses superior to that of any other country in the world.”

The last statement was borne out by Mr. Tattersall’s evidence. He said that he had sent horses to every part of the world except China. America and the countries of Europe have been purchasing the best stallions and mares money could buy in England during the last hundred years and more.

In 1845 the number of Queen’s Plates stood at 51; 36 in Great Britain and 15 in Ireland. In 1861 the scale of weights was remodelled and made applicable to all the Plates wherever run; and in the same year it was enacted that “none of Her Majesty’s Plates shall be run in heats.”

Some few abortive attempts to control racing by law have been made since Her Majesty’s accession. In 1860 Lord Redesdale introduced into the House of Lords a bill to stop light-weight racing by fixing the minimum weight at 7 stone. This measure was withdrawn, Lord Derby and Lord Granville, also a member of the Jockey Club and leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords, promising on behalf of the Jockey Club that that body was prepared to deal with the matter; but nothing was done in the direction indicated.

In May, 1870, Mr. Thomas Hughes, the member for Frome, brought in a bill to amend the laws relating to racing. This bill proposed to make it unlawful to race any horse or mare under three years old, and to make the Queen’s Plates open only to horses four years old and upwards. Mr. Hughes, in introducing his measure, said that between 1843 and 1868 the number of two-year-olds running had increased fourfold, while the number of races of a mile and upwards had decreased, and urged that the system which had grown up tended to cause deterioration in the breed of horses. As was well known at the time, Mr. Hughes was indebted for his facts and figures to Sir Joseph Hawley. This bill was read a first time by 132 votes to 44, but was withdrawn in the following July.

Great and radical changes had come over the Turf during the twenty-five years mentioned by Mr. Hughes, but they were only incidental to the general process of Turf development which has been going on since the advent of the railway.

In 1836 the travelling van was first used for conveying a horse from training quarters to the race course. Lord George Bentinck, who managed Lord Lichfield’s racing stable, resolved at the last moment to run Elis in the St. Leger, and astonished the betting fraternity by producing him at Doncaster in time for the race; to do this he had borrowed a van which had been constructed to carry fat cattle to Smithfield Show. The fact that Elis won the St. Leger to which he had been brought in this, then novel, fashion no doubt did something to stimulate the practice of transporting race horses thus; but the van was gradually superseded by the horse-box, which was first employed for the purpose about 1840.

Railways, as they spread over the country, did much to increase the number of meetings held and to increase the numbers of entries. We find that in the period between 1827 and 1837 the number of horses running increased from 1,166 in the former year to 1,213 in the latter; while during the period between 1860, when railroads had become numerous, and 1870, the number of horses running rose from 1,717 in the former year to 2,569 in the latter.

The development of the daily sporting press and the spread of the telegraph system have also contributed to the changes on the Turf. By quickening the interest of the people in racing, these factors have helped to increase the attendance on race courses, and at “gate money meetings,” to enhance the funds at the disposal of promoters, whereby the latter are able to offer in prize money sums beyond the conception of our grandfathers in the early years of the century.

With the increase in the number of meetings, of horses running and the value of prizes, other changes have gradually crept in. The Challenge Whip remains the solitary survival of the old four-mile races. The Whip, it may be well to remind the reader, was originally the property of Thomas Lennard, Lord Dacre, whose arms are engraved upon it. Lord Dacre was created Earl of Sussex in 1674 by Charles II.: he was devoted to the Turf, and it is believed that he left his Whip (a short, heavy, old-fashioned jockey-whip with hair from the tail of Eclipse interwoven into the ring on the handle) as a trophy to be run for at Newmarket. He died in 1715, but the first race for the Whip does not appear to have been run till 1756, when Mr. Fenwick’s Match’em won from Mr. Bowles’ Trajan. Gimcrack, Mambrino, Shark, Pot-8-os, Dungannon, Thormanby, and many other famous horses have run for the Whip. The course is the Beacon, 4 miles 1 furlong 177 yards, and the weight to be carried is 10 stone.

The tendency for years has been in favour of short races at the expense of long distance events. At the Newmarket Craven meeting of 1820 there was one race of about three miles, five races of two miles or over, twenty of about one mile and two of under one mile. At the Newmarket Craven meeting of 1900 there were three races of about one mile and a half, six of about one mile, and eleven of five or six furlongs. The necessity for breeding race horses that could carry from ten to twelve stone twice or thrice in an afternoon over a four-mile course has disappeared altogether. In his place we have the animal which can carry seven stone over six or seven furlongs at a pace that would probably have left Eclipse hopelessly behind, but which is useless for any purpose off the race-course.

The highly artificial existence to which our race horses are now subjected, jealously protected from change of temperature, and “forced” in preparation to take part in two-year-old races, has done much to impair fitness to beget horses that will stand work in the hunting field or on the road. This is a result of the changes which have come over the English Turf during the century. We must, however, retrace our steps and glance at the endeavours to improve our horses which have been made within the last thirty years.

The year 1873 saw the appointment of the Select Committee generally known as Lord Rosebery’s Committee “to Enquire into the Condition of the Country with regard to Horses, and its Capabilities of Supplying any Present or Future Demands for them.” This committee did not consider the question of Racing; their labours during their sixteen sittings were restricted to eliciting facts from the witnesses concerning the breeding and supply of horses of the generally useful stamp; and much valuable evidence was given before them. To summarise them briefly, the main points of their Report were as follows: —

The Committee considered that so far as the Army was concerned it seemed to be admitted that the mounted branches were never better horsed than they were now: Mr. H. R. Phillips had given evidence that Irish mares were chiefly used in the Army. They were not prepared to recommend the formation of Government breeding studs on the Continental plan, deeming it better that the military authorities should continue to buy as private customers. They did not recommend any check on the use of unsound stallions, though admitting this to be a great evil; to restrain owners of unsound sires from offering their services for hire would, they thought, be construed as interference with individual liberty; but, if practicable, they would have prizes given at agricultural shows to sound stallions which covered mares at a low fee.

They also recommended (and this was the only one of their recommendations adopted by the House of Commons) the abolition of taxes on horses which operated as a deterrent to farmers who would otherwise pay more attention to breeding. The evidence given before them showed that there appeared to be no scarcity of Thoroughbreds: high-class hunters had increased in price and more in proportion than other horses, but those who could afford to pay could generally find what they required. There was a general decrease in the number of horses in England; the evidence pointed to a great scarcity of agricultural horses, and while the Cleveland Bay and old-fashioned Hackney or Roadster had become extremely rare, we had been obliged of late years to look abroad for supplies of harness horses.

The causes of deficiency in these breeds were (1) the export of mares; (2) the increased profits accruing to sheep and cattle rearing, and (3) the increased demand for horses, consequent on increased population and augmented wealth, which produced a relative scarcity. The Committee recorded great improvements during the few years preceding in Cornwall and Devon, where formerly few horses had been bred.

The value of the work performed by this Committee was much qualified by the disinclination of its members to hear any evidence which did not bear directly upon Thoroughbreds and the production of saddle horses. Perusal of the mass of evidence given by numerous witnesses shows that the Committee would hear little or nothing in relation to the condition of Harness Horse breeding, apparently holding that very important department of the industry as without the scope of their inquiry. It is difficult to understand why this attitude was adopted, but the published minutes stand to prove that any witness who ventured to comment upon harness horses and the advisability of stimulating their production, was not encouraged to give information.

What little evidence was accepted in regard to harness horses showed the existence of a growing demand for the best Roadster stock in continental countries. French, Italian, German and Austrian breeders were fully alive to the value of Hackney blood, and their agents coming every year to England for the purpose since about 1840 had purchased all the good stallions they could find to foster and promote the breeding of horses eminently suitable for carriage artillery and transport work.

Mr. J. East, of the firm of Phillips and East, said that the French agents “buy the very best mares they can get; you cannot get them to buy a bad mare.” The late Mr. H. R. Phillips stated in course of his evidence that his firm sent “from thirty to forty of these roadster stallions every year to France and Italy and different countries; they sent as many as they could procure.” When asked how the number of Hackney stallions exported at that date compared with the number exported ten or fifteen years previously (say about the year 1858), Mr. Phillips replied that the foreigners had always taken as many as they could get.

Horses of roadster stamp are not less necessary to the efficiency of the British army than to Continental armies; but while the Committee displayed the greatest care and assiduity in their investigations concerning the causes of dearth in saddle horses, they passed over the not less important question of harness horse supply, as though holding that a matter of no account.

It is to be regretted that the Committee did not ask questions as to the enormous number of mares purchased for France, Germany, Russia and Austria, and also enquire concerning the use to which the mares are put in those countries. The answers would have been instructive, for it is now well known that fifteen out of every twenty of them were medium and heavy weight hunter mares – many of them stale for riding to hounds, but in every other respect suitable for breeding. These foreign buyers had no prejudices: they bought the mares with the view of breeding stock of the type most suitable for the requirements of their respective countries: the mares had plenty of thoroughbred blood in their veins, and it remained for breeders to select stallions of the right stamp. Hence the demand from all continental countries for Hackney sires which began sixty years ago and which has continued ever since.

How urgent was the necessity for attention to this department of horse-breeding was very fully demonstrated by Earl Cathcart in a paper17 which was published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England about ten years afterwards. Lord Cathcart adopted the practical method of obtaining from friends who had long experience, their opinions on the condition of the breeding of horses other than thoroughbreds; and the communications sent by these gentlemen make up the bulk of the paper referred to.

There was but one opinion among Lord Cathcart’s correspondents who, it must be noted, wrote quite independently of one another. To briefly summarise their statements, they deplored the disappearance of the old-fashioned thoroughbred with bone and stamina, and the disappearance of the Cleveland breed and the Hackney of the ’thirties. Many influences had been at work to bring about the regrettable change in the stock of the country.

The spread of railways had put an end to the demand for coach horses and roadsters, and the men who used to ride everywhere in the old days had given up their hardy and enduring saddle horses for the more luxurious seat in the train. At the same time buyers from France, Germany, and other Continental countries, having discovered the willingness of English breeders to part with their breeding stock if sufficiently tempted, purchased every good mare money could command.

Again, the craze for height had done something to impair the merits of what roadsters the foreigners left us. The Clevelands were ruined by crossing with leggy inferior thoroughbreds, whose sole recommendation consisted in their height at the shoulder and which were wanting in every useful quality.

The value of the half-bred hunter was also insisted on by Lord Cathcart’s correspondents – all of them men who had right to form an opinion. Mr. Sax Maynard, who for fifteen years was Master of the North Durham Hounds, laid stress on the “wear and tear” qualities of the hunter got by the old stamp of thoroughbred out of the Cleveland mare, and conversely of hunters got by Cleveland sires out of thoroughbred mares. The superior speed of the thoroughbred was admitted; but the greater endurance of the half-bred hunter in hilly country was a quality which gave him a value which did not attach to the pure thoroughbred.

Nothing more convincing could have been compiled than this essay from several horse-breeding correspondents. It shows clearly how very great is the change which has come over the principal breeding grounds of England during the present reign.

In regard to the disappearance of horses of the useful stamp for harness and saddle it is not necessary to require evidence for the reasons. When we remember how enormous was the network of coach route that spread all over the kingdom in pre-railway days; and consider how vast were the studs necessary to horse the mail and passenger coaches, to say nothing of the post-chaises preferred by people of means; and when we think that the road-coach survives now only in a few out-of-the-way corners of the country, and is regarded as an interesting relic of by-gone days where it does exist, we can form perhaps a vague idea of the extent of the change. About the year 1830 upwards of 1,040 coaches were running daily out of London alone.

We need not, thanks to “Nimrod” and other chroniclers of the coaching age, remain content with a vague idea of the number of horses then in use on the roads. It is easy to take a single route and reckon up the stud required to work a coach running thereon. The usual “stage” for a team was from eight to ten miles, and making due provision for rests, accidents, &c., the proprietors estimated the needs of a coach at one horse per mile “one way.” Therefore a coach running from London to York, 200 miles, and back, required about 200 horses; from London to Edinburgh, 400 miles, and back, about 400 horses; from London to Exeter, 175 miles, and back, about 175 horses.

On roads where the passenger traffic was heavy, coaches were numerous: as many as twenty-five ran daily in the summer during the ’thirties from London to Brighton. The distance by road is about sixty miles, whence it would seem that no fewer than 1,500 horses were used by the coach proprietors on that route alone; probably more, as competition was keen and the speed maintained was hard upon horseflesh.

The average working life of a horse in a fast road coach was about four years, according to Nimrod. Hence the coach proprietor found it necessary to renew one fourth of his stud at a cost of from £25 to £45 per head every year. Mr. Chaplin, who owned five “yards” in London in the ’thirties, had upwards of 1,300 horses at work in various coaches on various roads, and would therefore have been obliged to purchase about £11,375 worth of horses every year.

When the railway banished the coach from the highroad, which it did with considerable rapidity, these great coaching studs were necessarily given up, and a market for horses of the most useful stamp disappeared. An eminent proprietor gave the qualities required in a road coach-horse for fast work as follows: “First requisite, action; second, sound legs and feet, with power and breeding equal to the nature and length of the ground he will work upon; third, good wind, without which the first and second qualifications will not avail in very fast work for any length of time. The hunter and racer are good or bad, chiefly in proportion to their powers of respiration; and such is the case with the road-coach horse.”

The practical disappearance from our country of such horses as those used in the mail and ordinary coaches and in post carriages was nothing short of a national calamity. They were horses of the essentially useful stamp, sound, hardy and enduring, just such animals as are indispensable for cavalry, artillery, and transport work on a campaign. And though the full importance of the loss which had befallen us was evident, the difficulties in the way of retrieving our position as breeders was not less evident. The breeding of horses had ceased to be remunerative, and as a natural consequence men had ceased to breed them, preferring to devote their energies and capital to stock of a stamp for which they could depend upon finding a market. Any horses of the useful class that were produced found their way, if worth having, into the hands of foreigners, as we have seen.

In March, 1887, Lord Ribblesdale took the matter up and in a very able speech drew the attention of the House of Lords to the question of the “Horse Supply for Military and Industrial Purposes.” He rendered a tribute to the work that was being done by private persons and by societies and associations, thanks to whose endeavours the breeders of Shire horses and Clydesdales were prospering. The brisk foreign demand for British stock proved its merit, but so long as halfbred horses suitable for remounts and all useful purposes were as scarce as they were, while we were importing horses to the value of over a quarter of a million sterling annually, including harness-horses and match pairs of carriage-horses, we had evidence that we were not breeding high class horses up to the demand for our own daily increasing needs.

He urged that the money given in Queen’s Plates be diverted from its then use and devoted to subsidising approved stallions, which should serve at low fees; and that large prizes should be offered from the public purse for foals, yearlings, and two-year-olds. As regarded military horses he advised the purchase of two-year-olds to be kept at maturing depôts till old enough to take in hand; and in recommending the system of direct purchase from the breeder referred to the fact that direct purchase was approved by Baron Nathansius, the French Inspector General of Remounts, in a letter which that officer had addressed to the present writer.

Lord Ribblesdale paid me the compliment of seeking my assistance in his task: and in order to obtain the actual views of the horse-breeding interest in England, Colonel Sir Nigel Kingscote, Sir Jacob Wilson and the writer met in February, 1887, and drew up a series of questions.

These questions were printed and sent out to between three and four hundred of the best known horse-breeders in the Kingdom; to all, in point of fact, whose experience would lend weight to their views and whose addresses could be secured. The principal questions put were as follows: —

“Q. 1. Assuming that an annual Grant from the Government of £5,000 be made for the encouragement of the breeding of halfbred horses, to whom in your opinion ought such grant to be entrusted for distribution? Whether to a specially constituted Board of Trustees or to any other body?

“Q. 2. Is it your opinion that the distribution of the above Grant should take the form of a subsidy in the shape of Premiums for Thoroughbred Stallions covering at a moderate fee similar to those offered by the Hunters’ Improvement Society at their Annual Spring Show, and this year by the Royal Agricultural Society at Newcastle?”

In answer to Question 1, 194 replies were received in time for tabulation; of these 79 were in favour of the grant being distributed by a specially constituted Board of Trustees; 60 were in favour of its distribution by the Royal Agricultural, Hibernian and Caledonian Societies; 33 preferred that the duty should be vested in local and county societies, and 22 offered no opinion.

Of answers to Question 2, 113 were in the affirmative, 44 replied “No,” and partial concurrence was expressed by 19; a few gentlemen advised subsidising roomy halfbred mares. The body of opinion so collected and tabulated was placed in Lord Ribblesdale’s hands about the end of April; but not until August did opportunity occur for him to ask in the House of Lords whether the Government proposed to take any action in the matter. He referred briefly to the fact that the breeders of the Kingdom had been circularised on the subject, but omitted to support his enquiry by any analysis of the very important and valuable mass of expert opinion thus placed at his disposal.

It is quite probable that during the months which elapsed between receipt of the information we had collected for him and the date of his August speech, Lord Ribblesdale had made use of them to influence the Government in the desired direction; for the speech appeared to be framed solely for the purpose of affording Lord Salisbury opportunity to declare the intentions of his Government.

In brief, the Premier announced that it was proposed to devote the money theretofore given as Queen’s Plates to breeding; that this sum, £3,000 a year, would be made up to £5,000 by a small addition to the Estimates; and that it was proposed to assign the duty of administering the fund to an independent Trust. The Royal Commission on Horse Breeding was appointed, consisting of the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Coventry, Lord Ribblesdale, Mr. Chaplin, M.P., Mr. F. G. Ravenhill, Mr. John Gilmour, Sir Jacob Wilson and Mr. Bowen Jones; and, acting in concert with the Royal Agricultural Society, the Commissioners, in December, 1887, issued their first Report.

This document stated that only in recent years had any further necessity arisen to encourage breeding apart from private enterprise; the scarcity of horses was due, in their opinion, to the creation of large breeding studs by foreign Governments, who came to us for their stock and caused a drain upon our resources.

The Commission reported “there was little doubt that the Queen’s Plates had failed to fulfil their purpose;” but perhaps it had been nearer the mark to say that the Royal Plates had ceased to fulfil their original purpose, owing to the multiplication of valuable stakes which reduced the Royal hundred-guinea prizes to third-class rank and rendered them useless as factors in the encouragement of breeding. The Commission recommended the abolition of the Royal Plates and the application of the money thereto devoted to a scheme of Queen’s Premiums, under which sound and approved thoroughbred sires should stand in specified districts and under control of a local committee, serve mares at a low fee. The scheme was at once adopted, and has worked well in practice.

The year 1896 saw the appointment of the Royal Commission to Inquire into the Horse Breeding Industry in Ireland. Though the enquiry resolved itself into a comparatively narrow issue, a very large amount of evidence, much of it exceedingly interesting and instructive, was recorded. In pursuance of their policy of encouraging the breeding of all live stock in Ireland, it was proposed to send over selected stallions, thoroughbred and roadster, for the use of owners of mares in the horse-breeding districts. There was much diversity of opinion on the propriety of establishing hackney sires in a country so famed for its hunters, and the principal object of the Commission was to take the opinions of experts on the proposed step.