HORSE-RACING AND HORSE-BREEDING.
[To THE EDITOR Of THE "SPECTATOR."]
5111,—The recent feeling of exasperation seems to have been mainly caused by the conduct, not of owners of racehorses, but of the haunters of racecourses, who—at a time when we are in the throes of tense anxiety and within a measurable distance of possible scarcity—are described as scouring the country, with reckless con- sumption of precious ,petrol, in order to carry on the purely needless, if not -positively pernicidus, pursuit of bettingon races, some of which in the interests of horse-breeding are quite useless. Lord D'Abernon admitted in the House of Lords that the " indulg- ence in the gambling spirit" at races "is a mere excrescence," and "could be . . . eliminated altogether without essential interference with . . the improvement of the thoroughbred stock of this country." Whether the excrescence be eliminated
or not, had Lord Darham and his friends directed their efforts towards dispensing with all handicap and gelding races, and retaining only genuine test races which determine the proficiency of our thoroughbreds, difficulties might have been obviated and
some causes of offence reduced.—I am, Sir, &c., C. liseatora. Catesbaeh, Thitterworth.
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