István Széchenyi

On Horses

Excerpts from Lovakrul (On Horses).
Pest: J.M. Trattner & István Károlyi, 1828.

 

What, then, is needed in order that the horse business in our homeland should spring to life and before long flower and bear fruit?
Several large, sure prize-moneys that are put up from year to year and may be won by racing triumphs.
A well-prepared racecourse that is maintained at all times of the year.
Permanent training establishments.
An enduring horse-breeding association.
A true and authentic National Register of Horse Stock, with publication at fixed intervals.
Stud fees.
Regular annual horse sales.
Let us consider each of these in turn and strive to expound the implications, one by one, so that furthermore the profit that will accrue from a close interrelationship of all these items should be clearly demonstrated.
Several large, assured prize-moneys that are backed from year to year and may be won by triumphing in races; the winning of which the general public may keenly wish for and await with confidence. If the awards are not numerous and not substantial, they will not be able to generate much activity or much diligence among breeders. Not everyone readily stirs his stumps pro hic et nunc for a couple of ducats; however, if it is possible to earn hundreds and thousands by honest means, there are many who will make the effort, and general endeavour will thereby be aroused. [...]
If foreigners carry off our prize-moneys, we should breed better horses than they. But if they do not? Then fame will carry the merits of our horses to even the remotest lands. In any event, though, they would only be able to take three away, so there would still remain the other seven. Many, I know, would wish, with Hungarian generosity, immediately to clear all ten to be taken by whoever can take them; yet it would be inadvisable at first not to make an exception of that kind, for the general public would become despondent were all the prize-moneys allowed to go abroad. That should only be done after many years. In England a
horse bred in any corner of the world at all may take to the turf; no one there opposes that any more, no one there now fears the foreign. [...]
I consider it likely that some day we shall raise better horses than the English just as I hold it to be impossible, in general, that we could be an effective match today in any test in which we might be put up against them.
A well-prepared racecourse that is maintained at all times of the year. This is just as necessary as the hundredweight and the yardstick; nor is it permissible to make use of them for a fortnight only then to toss them aside or turn them over.
Horses that are to be finished are exercised the whole year round in various ways in accordance with the seasons. What is needed for that are straight, flat, measuredoff well prepared stretches of turf that are well maintained at all times of the year
and properly marked out with permanent distance posts. [...]
Without trials and races who would be able to tell which horse was faster and which had the greater stamina? And thus one could dispute fruitlessly for years on end about e.g. which horses, English or Transylvanian, had the greater stamina.
No one in point of fact would even be able forthrightly to declare the truth.
But if hundreds and hundreds of trials and races, held in orderly fashion, were to be arranged, then the issue would finally transpire in a way that would put paid to further disputes [...]
Permanent training establishments at which horses could be made ready for races. One reason, among others, why we would be unable now, for the time being, to match English horses, especially on the turf, is because our horses are not raised for any specific purpose. A racehorse, if it is not adequately exercised from a young age onward, will never attain the highest peak of its individual speed or stamina. That is why it is necessary for thoroughbred foals to be put to gentle work already at the age of a year and a half. Where, though, can that be achieved properly, and in a scientific manner, if there is no establishment for that purpose? At such establishments, while the stable boys train the foals, they themselves are being trained and learning. [...]
I said earlier on that the horse business diversifies in so many directions that, for all its branches to be tolerably represented to any degree, separate persons are required. Thus, among the English, where the matter has beyond any doubt been the most thoroughly worked out, one person will breed horses, another grooms them, another breaks them in, another trains them, yet another gallops and sweats them, another races them, another takes care of them if they are put out to stud for money, etc. The farrier is a separate person, the horse-doctor separate again, the person who strengthens feeble nerves with fire yet again separate, etc. And there are enough knotty points, enough difficulties, in every area of any discipline as to need the experience and talents of one man. A perfect jockey, for example, is not going to initiate himself into some other branch of the horse business; a trainer is not going to enter into the business of one managing a stud, and the latter does not interfere in the training, etc. One subject on its own is enough for one person to pursue with the greatest skill and perfection. [...]
An enduring horse-breeding association. This is to achieve the widest possible dissemination and publicity, without which the horse business will never be able to advance itself to a position of genuine popularity and fashion. A committee of this lays down the regulations that are appropriate to the time and place; it should carefully take everything into consideration, thrash everything out to unadulterated purity, bring animation, momentum, order and balance to everything.
From the viewpoint of horse breeding, an association with such a committee is like the well organised administration of a great estate. [...]
A true and authentic National Register of Horse Stock, with publication at fixed intervals. After a great many trials, it no longer admits the slightest doubt that a horse bred from pure Eastern blood will certainly defeat anything else on the racecourse. Thus, if I were to put my thoroughbred horse on the turf in some wager against a half-bred horse and I were to affirm that my horse was not a thoroughbred, then I would be deceiving the person with whom I had made the wager. [...]
In England only two types of prize-money are put up. For one, any horse can enter the race, while for the other, any other horse except thoroughbreds. As a result, the exceptions do not come from the bottom rank but from the top. The first and second class, for example, are free to compete with premier horses, though not premier horses with those of the first and second class. What is most desirable of a Register of Horse Stock, therefore- besides being a guarantor of pure origin- is that anyone who wishes to bring his horse to the turf for nonthoroughbred prizes, should be able to prove that his horse is not a thoroughbred,
a rebuttal of which can only be done with through a well established Register of Horse Stock. [...]
It is now impossible in horses to find out the various breeds and branches in any other way than through proofs that, once registered, the death of the horse is of no consequence. In England, publicity in this matter is so great that cheating is almost impossible. There virtually every horseman knows the lines of the entire thoroughbred horse stock.
As far as publication is concerned, it is natural that without the appearance of these at fixed intervals, the matter could only move one-sidedly and within narrow circles. [...]
In England, [...] for certain prizes it is stipulated that older horses have to run with sizeable weight handicap; for others, that they have to be run over a long distance, and maybe even a second time, whereas other prizes can be won over short distances with a light and single running. The appropriate determination of weights and distances to the land and conditions gives a certain guidance to horse breeders as to the raising of what type of horses they should best concern themselves with. [...]

Translated by

István Széchenyi