Where are the descendants of Bay Bolton, that once were the terror of their antagonists!  Did these prevail by the superiority of their blood, or because their power and their fabric was superior to the Horses of their time?  If any one ask why Danby Cade was not as good a racer as any in the kingdom, the jockey could not impute this defect to his blood; but if it should be imputed to his want of proportion, surely it might be held for a true and satisfactory reason.  How many revolutions of fame and credit, have all sportsmen observed in these high-bred families.

Numberless are the examples of this kind which might be quoted, but to account for this, one says, The blood is wore out for want of a proper cross; another tells us, That after having been long in this climate, the blood degenerates; but these reasons cannot be true, because we see the off-spring of all crosses, and of the most antient** families, occasionally triumphant over the sons of the very latest comers, the error then will not be found in the blood, or in the proper crossing; but the defect will be produced by the erroneous judgment of mankind, in putting together the male and female with improper shapes; and while we are lost and blinded by an imaginary good, the laws of nature stand revealed; and we by paying a proper attention thereto, and employing our judgment therein, might wipe this ignis fatuus from the mind, and fix the truth on a sure foundation.  Our observation shews us, that on the one hand, we may breed Horses of foreign extraction too delicate, and too slight for any labour; and on the other hand, so coarse and clumsy, as to be fitter for the cart than the race.  Shall we then wonder these cannot race, or shall we doubt that degrees of imperfection in the mechanism, will produce degrees of imperfection in racing! and when we find such deficient, shall we ridiculously impute it to a degeneracy of that blood, which once was in the highest esteem, or to the want of judgment in him who did not properly adapt the shapes of their progenitors!

Shall we confess this, or is the fault in nature?  For though most philosophers agree, that innate principles do not exist, yet we know for certain, that in the brute creation, whose food is plain and simple, (unlike luxurious man) the laws of nature are, generally speaking, invariable and determined.  If it should be asked why the sons of the Godolphin Arabian were superior to most Horses of their time; I answer, because he had a great power and symmetry of parts, (head excepted) and a propriety of length greatly superior to all other Horses of the same diameter, that have been lately seen in this kingdom; which I do not assert on my own judgment, but on the opinion of those who, I believe, understand Horses much better than I pretend to do:  and ’tis very probable, this Horse, if he had not been confined to particular Mares, might have begot better racers than any he did.  On the contrary, I have heard it urged in behalf of his blood, that he was a very mean Horse in figure, and that he was kept as a teizer** some years before he covered.  What does this prove?  I think nothing more, than that his first owner did not rightly understand this kind of Horse, and that different men differed in their opinions of this Horse’s fabric.