It is, of course, now universally known that Ireland has an international reputation as a country eminently fitted for horse-breeding.  If proof were needed, it would be found in the extensive purchases effected by English, French, Italian, German, Russian, and American buyers at the great Dublin Horse Show held in August every year.  Horses bought in Ireland have seldom failed to realize their promise.  The English classic races and many of the principal handicaps on the flat have been often won by Irish-bred horses, such as Galtee More, Ard Patrick, Orby, Kilwarlin, Barcaldine, Umpire, Master Kildare, Kilsallaghan, Bendigo, Philomel, The Rejected, Comedy, Winkfield’s Pride, Bellevin, Royal Flush, Victor Wild, Bachelor’s Button, Irish Ivy, and Hackler’s Pride.  If only a few of the star performers are here set down, it is not from lack of means to continue, but merely from a desire to avoid the compilation of a mere string of names.  In France, too, the Irish racer has made his mark.  It is, however, in the four-and-a-half miles’ Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase, the greatest cross-country race in the world, the supreme test of the leaper, galloper, and stayer, that Irish-bred horses have made perhaps the most wonderful record.  The list of winners of that great event demonstrates in an unmistakable manner that we are second to none in the art of breeding steeplechase horses.  Among many other noted Irish-bred winners of this race there stand boldly forth the names of The Lamb, Empress, Woodbrook, Frigate, Come Away, Cloister, Wild Man from Borneo, and Manifesto.  In fact, it is the exception when another than an Irish-bred horse annexes the blue riband of steeplechasing.

Closely allied to horse-racing is fox-hunting, and fox-hunting, as well as the hunting of the stag and of the hare, has flourished exceedingly in Ireland for a long time past.  A great deal of needed employment is one of the results.  Dogs are specially bred and trained for each of these branches of sport.  Irish foxhounds, staghounds, harriers, and beagles have a high reputation.  More native to the soil, and so interwoven with the history of the country that it is often used as one of its symbols, is the Irish wolfhound.  This is probably the animal to which Aurelius Symmachus, a Roman consul in Britain, referred when, writing to his brother in Ireland in A.D. 391, he acknowledged the receipt of seven Irish hounds.  The wolfhound played a sinister part in the Irish history of the eighteenth century, for, as Davis says in his poem, “The Penal Days”: 

      Their dogs were taught alike to run
      Upon the scent of wolf and friar.

The Irish wolfhound is now very scarce, and a genuine specimen is a valued and highly coveted possession.  The greyhound, too, figures prominently in present-day sport, and in many parts of the country are held coursing meetings, which frequently result in several spirited contests.  A famous Irish greyhound was Lord Lurgan’s black and white dog, Master McGrath.  Master McGrath achieved the rare distinction of winning the Waterloo Cup three times, in 1868, 1869, and 1871.  When it is remembered that the Waterloo Cup is to coursing what the Liverpool Grand National is to steeplechasing, or the Epsom Derby to flat racing, the merit of this triple performance will at once be apparent.