Tu the Editor of the "Norra-Cutna Dany News"
Sin—Mr. J. A. Hayes in his recent letters appears to be quite right in many of his statements, and, as we know, he is to be looked upon as an authority on riding matters in conmection with both the. China pony and the cross-bred.pony. When, however, he speaks of this horse-minded community, I wonder where it exists, because during the 40 years in which I have been a resident of Shanghai, in particular, I have not} yet found more than about two or three horse-minded men and women in the whole community who knew the very first thing about a horse; they have not the very faintest idea Of what either a race horse, a hunter, or a hound looks like, in which. qualification, if they were horse-minded, they should be an' fait instead of being helplessly and hope-Jessly ignorant.
Again, I rather think Mr. Hayes emphasizes a little too much on the. question of speed being the desideratum in all racing, though I give him full marks for trying io give an honest opinion, Stamina is really: the elixir of quality in the race horse as well as in the hunting and -hurdle racing horse; without stamina such a horse may just as well at once be discarded for the want of this special racing requirement.
Undoubtedly, I feel the good sound cross-bred pony of quality is a great advance for, speed and racing qualiies over the pure-bred China pony, and such ponies should be encouraged along with the China pony, but I rather feel and consider, for the sake of racing supplies of both breeds, they should be encouraged together, enough of both to be available when wanted in their respective spheres of utility, Your correspondent Tur SQUIRE has to be complimented for his individual horse-mindedness and for trying to keep all and sundry up-to-date, and 1 would like to meet him.some day at the "Horse and Hound" refreshment apartments and have a good all-round "horsey" discussion with him.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.