This was the doctrine which had been practically applied
in England, and which had there produced in less than a century the
most important and valuable results. France had but to follow the
example of her neighbor, and, borrowing from the English stock of
thoroughbreds, to establish a regular system of races as the means of
developing and improving the breed of horses upon her own soil.
This reasoning seemed logical enough, but the administration of the
_Haras_, or breeding-stables--which is in France a branch of the civil
service--opposed this innovation, and contended that the only pure type
of horse was the primitive Arab, and that every departure from this
resulted in the production of an animal more or less degenerate and
debased. The reply of the Jockey Club was, that the English
thoroughbred is, in fact, nothing else than a pure Arab, modified only
by the influences of climate and treatment, and that it would be much
wiser and easier to profit by a result already obtained than to
undertake to retrace, with all its difficulties and delays, the same
road that England had taken a century to travel.
The experience gained since 1833 has shown that the conclusions of the
Jockey Club were right, but the evidence of facts and of the results
obtained has not yet brought the discussion to a close.
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