“The Pacing Standard
“When an animal meets these requirements and is duly registered, it shall be accepted as a standard-bred pacer:—
“1. The progeny of a registered standard pacing horse and a registered standard pacing mare.
“2. A stallion sired by a registered standard pacing horse, provided his dam and grandam were sired by registered standard pacing horses, and he himself has a pacing record of 2.25, and is the sire of three pacers with records of 2.25, from different mares.
“3. A mare whose sire is a registered standard pacing horse, and whose dam and grandam were sired by registered standard pacing horses, provided she herself has a pacing record of 2.25, or is the dam of one pacer with a record of 2.25.
“4. A mare sired by a registered standard pacing horse, provided she is the dam of two pacers with records of 2.25.
“5. A mare sired by a registered standard pacing horse, provided her first, second, and third dams are each sired by a registered pacing horse.
“6. The progeny of a registered standard trotting horse out of a registered standard pacing mare, or of a registered standard trotting mare.”
And these are the rules that obtain to-day in keeping a register of which the rat-tailed semi-Conestoga Abdallah is No. 1.
It will be seen by the rules certain features of the great breeding principle: “Like begets like” are followed, and there is no doubt that some intelligent breeders have tried most sincerely to embrace in the mating of stallions and mares all of the principles; but, as a rule, the speed test alone was considered instead of similarity of blood, similarity of conformation (for nature abhors great contrasts), and also performance. The importance given to the time tests and the public records and the disregard of pure and similar blood has detracted, in my opinion, most seriously from the success of the experiments and the effort to create a type of fast trotting horses. Why, the Standard Bred Trotter is not a type at all. They come in all sizes and shapes, they have no fixed gait, and not more than three per cent of them can trot fast enough to be considered even a good roadster. The visitors to the Speedway in New York have opportunities to see the best and fastest trotters in the world. There are certainly some fine animals shown there, a few that are splendid. But they are of all sorts in conformation and method of going. It cannot be a reproducing type under such circumstances. When a hundred colts and fillies are bred we want many more than three of that number to be able to accomplish the purpose of their creation. At least half of the progeny of the Standard Bred Trotters should be trotters themselves and more than half of the remainder should be good general utility horses. That is the case with the Morgans and the Denmarks, the two true American types, for these types have substance and character, besides a systematic method of breeding is pursued where lineage and conformation rather than performance count. And even with the Standard Bred Trotters that go fast—the three per cent of them—quite half of them are pacers rather than trotters. Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy said in a letter to the Turf, Field and Farm, February 15, 1901, that the greater proportion of fast Standard Bred Trotters are not trotters at all, but pacers. There has been no one to dispute this statement, which was not one merely of opinion, but of compilation.
The trotting men, however, avoid this by saying that trotting and pacing are the same gait, because many horses both trot and pace and because a pacer can be converted into a trotter. This theory is beyond my intelligence. I know that the natural gaits of a natural horse are walk, trot, and gallop. Many that do these gaits, as in the case of the Denmarks, can do several others besides—the rack and the running walk, for instance. Yet no one will say that these gaits are all the same. It is too preposterous to discuss. Besides, the pace is not a fit gait for a gentleman’s roadster. It may be well enough for butchers, barkeepers and gamblers, but a gentleman should have a gentleman’s horse.
It has not been a pleasure to say these things of what some call the great light harness horse of America; but when breeders, through false principles, go a wrong road it ought not to be considered an unkindness to call their attention to the fact. A few years ago in a magazine article I told the truth about Hambletonian’s breeding, and received many indignant letters of protest. One kind gentleman up in Massachusetts, asked me to visit him, saying he should like to have the pleasure of kicking me across the state. I requested him to have a survey made so that I might know how far I would have to be propelled by the toe of his boot, as I did not care to put him to an undue amount of trouble. He has not replied, so, I presume the survey is not yet completed. But breeders in Kentucky, in Vermont, and in Illinois wrote in complimentary terms, saying that they had paid dearly for their belief in false pedigrees and false principles of breeding. I am thoroughly persuaded that these false notions have cost the breeders of America millions and millions of dollars, for a Standard Bred Trotter that does not go fast is a pretty poor specimen of a horse and worth very little, while the amounts spent in trying to develop speed which does not exist are colossal.
But the records have unquestionably been lowered until the horse that can trot a mile in two minutes is one of the wonders of the world. Look at the record of progression.
| Boston Blue, black gelding | 1818 | 3.00 |
| Bull Calf, bay gelding | 1830 | 2.47¾ |
| Edwin Forrest, black gelding | 1838 | 2.36½ |
| Dutchman, bay gelding | 1839 | 2.32 |
| Lady Suffolk, gray mare | 1845 | 2.29½ |
| Pelham (converted pacer), bay gelding | 1849 | 2.28 |
| Highland Maid (converted pacer), bay mare | 1853 | 2.27 |
| Flora Temple, bay mare | 1856 | 2.24½ |
| Flora Temple, bay mare | 1859 | 2.19¾ |
| Dexter, brown gelding | 1867 | 2.17¼ |
| Goldsmith Maid, bay mare | 1871 | 2.17 |
| Goldsmith Maid, bay mare | 1874 | 2.14 |
| Rarus, bay gelding | 1878 | 2.13¼ |
| St. Julien, bay gelding | 1879 | 2.12¾ |
| Maud S., chestnut mare | 1880 | 2.10¾ |
| Maud S., chestnut mare | 1881 | 2.10¼ |
| Jay-eye-See, black gelding | 1884 | 2.10 |
| Maud S., chestnut mare | 1884 | 2.09¼ |
| Maud S., chestnut mare | 1885 | 2.08¾ |
| Sunol, bay mare | 1891 | 2.08¼ |
| Nancy Hanks, brown mare | 1892 | 2.04 |
| Alix, bay mare | 1894 | 2.03¾ |
| The Abbot, bay gelding | 1900 | 2.03¼ |
| Cresceus, chestnut horse | 1901 | 2.02¼ |
| Lou Dillon, chestnut mare | 1903 | 1.58½ |
LOU DILLON (STANDARD-BRED TROTTER)
Owned by J. G. K. Billings. First horse to trot a mile in less than two minutes
This table shows that three minutes was reduced in forty-one years to two minutes and twenty seconds—that is in that time forty seconds were lopped off the record. It took forty-four years to take off the next twenty seconds. In the meantime the bicycle, ball-bearing sulky had been invented, and the last half of this twenty seconds were cut off when this weightless and frictionless vehicle was used. The Standard Bred Trotter had also been created. My idea is that the Dutchman, Henry Clay, and Lady Suffolk could either of them gone a mile in from ten to fifteen seconds faster than they did under modern conditions of training, driving, shoeing and harnessing and hitched to the modern vehicle. These experiments have all been very interesting, but I believe the same results might have been achieved at a very much less cost and loss—indeed, with a profit.
Exceeding high prices for trotting-horses have been very injurious to the horse-breeding industry. Whenever a trotting-horse brings twenty, forty or a hundred thousand dollars it sets the breeders, even the small ones wild with a desire to breed a colt that will bring such a price. Mr. Bonner began this with his purchase of Dexter, and followed it up by buying many others at very high figures, including Maud S. and Sunol. He doubtless found this an excellent advertisement for himself and his paper, but it was a bad thing for the horses of the country. The purchase of Axtell at $105,000 and Arion at $125,000 was even more demoralizing. No trotting-horse was ever worth that much and none probably ever will be. However, it is an excellent thing for very rich men to breed horses. They can afford to make experiments, and if their experiments are successful the men of moderate means can imitate them and succeed also. But this trotting horse breeding business is a rich man’s divertisement just as yachting is. The men who breed for profit should confine themselves to types which are reproducing, to types which come true more frequently than they prove false.
I firmly believe that if these trotters are ever made a consistently reproducing type, it will be by constant infusions of a mixture of trotting blood—Morgan or Clay—with that of the Thoroughbred. The first cross will probably not produce it, but if the mares of such unions be bred back to stallions of the blood mentioned, the result ought to be more satisfactory in the way of making a type, even though the experiments may not result in phenomenal speed; but there is no reason why there should not be a satisfactory percentage of phenomenal speed as well.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CLAY AND CLAY-ARABIAN
Henry Clay was one of the greatest horses that ever lived in this country. He was very fast, very strong and as game as it was possible for a horse to be. He founded a distinguished family, and from that family Mr. Randolph Huntington, of Fleetwood Farm, Oyster Bay, Long Island, by crossing Clay mares with Arab and Barb stallions, has created a type of as splendid horses as ever touched the earth. And it is a great pity that the United States Government has not long ago taken over all of Mr. Huntington’s horses, so as to perpetuate this new and useful type into a great national horse. On the sire’s side Henry Clay was a closely inbred Messenger. He was by Andrew Jackson, the greatest trotting horse of his day, and absolutely unbeaten during all his long career. Andrew Jackson was by Young Bashaw, and his dam was by Why Not, by imported Messenger, the grandam also being by imported Messenger. Young Bashaw was by the imported Arabian Grand Bashaw, the dam being Pearl by First Consul (Arab bred) out of Fancy by imported Messenger out of a daughter of Rockingham. Henry Clay’s dam was the famous mare, Lady Surrey. She was bred in the neighbourhood of Quebec, Ontario, and was brought with twelve other horses into New York. With her mate, “Croppy,” she was sold to one of the Wisner family in Goshen, New York. The class to which Lady Surrey belonged was then called Kanucks, though some called them “Pile Drivers,” because of their high-knee action. Records of breeding were not kept in Quebec, but all the external evidence points to an Oriental origin of the horses that were taken there from France. But the strong admixture of Arab and Barb blood in Henry Clay is evident from the recorded part of his pedigree and disregarding the blood of his dam.
CLAY-KISMET (CLAY-ARABIAN)
Bred by Randolph Huntington
Henry Clay was foaled in 1837, and lived until 1867. He was bred by Mr. George M. Patchen, of New Jersey, and afterwards passed into the hands of Gen. William Wadsworth, of Geneseo, New York. Probably, if he had remained the property of Patchen, he would have had a better chance as a sire, for there were times during the Wadsworth ownership, when this horse suffered alternately from neglect and abuse. When General Wadsworth wanted to buy the colt, he asked Mr. Patchen to put a price on him. Mr. Patchen, not anxious to sell, finally put on a price which he thought prohibitive. “We will give the horse all the water he can drink,” he said to General Wadsworth, “and then weigh him, and you may give me one dollar a pound for him.” General Wadsworth promptly accepted, and the horse weighing 1050 pounds, that fixed the price, which was paid immediately, and the horse was sent at once to Livingston County, New York.
Once when General Wadsworth had a match at mile heats, best three in five, he drove his horse ninety-eight miles the day before the race, rather than pay forfeit, and then won the race, one heat being trotted in 2.35. This was in 1847. Consider the clumsy shoes, the heavy sulkies, and other impedimenta of that time, in comparison with the wire-like plates, ball-bearing, pneumatic-tired sulkies, and cobweb-like harness of to-day, and decide whether even the most phenomenal of our trotters is better than that.
Another performance shows the stoutness of heart of this great horse. General Wadsworth needed a doctor for his sister. Henry Clay was harnessed to a two-seated wagon, did the journey from Geneseo to Rochester, thirty-eight miles, and then back again, the whole seventy-six miles being covered in less than five hours. A horse that could do that was worthy to found a family. He did this through his son, Black Douglas, his grandson, Cassius M. Clay, and his grandson, George M. Patchen. His female descendants are conspicuous in the trotting-horse pedigrees, the most conspicuous among them being Green Mountain Maid, the dam of Electioneer, and conceded by the Standard Bred Trotter element to be the greatest dam in American horse history. She was got by Harry Clay,[[7]] a great grandson of the founder of the family.
[7]. It has been said that the Star mare, the dam of Dexter, was served both by Rysdyk’s Hambletonian and Harry Clay the spring before Dexter’s birth, and that it is more likely that Harry Clay was the sire of Dexter because of Dexter’s resemblance to the Clays rather than the Hambletonians, and also because of his stoutness of heart. As Dexter was a gelding and incapable of leaving progeny this question is more interesting than important. I have no opinion in the matter, but as I am convinced of the general inaccuracy of the records of the day, I am not at all prepared to believe that Dexter’s pedigree as put in the books is accurate. About the time he became famous the Hambletonian party was numerous and powerful and by no means scrupulous in claiming everything in sight.
The dam of the trotting stallion George Wilkes was also said to be by Henry Clay. The Hambletonian advocates—George Wilkes was sired by Hambletonian—were so bitter in their opposition to the Clay blood, that they refused to accept this and preferred that the breeding of George Wilkes’ dam should be set down as unknown. I have read a good deal that has been written on the subject and can only say that the statements pro and con are equally unconvincing and only illustrate over again the utter untrustworthiness of the early records, together with the partizan discourtesy of the disputants.
Mr. Huntington has long believed that the Clay was the best trotting blood in America, and when this blood was spoken of contemptuously by Mr. Robert Bonner and called “Sawdust” Mr. Huntington’s indignation knew no bounds. However, the blood could never become unpopular after the record of the Green Mountain Maid in producing trotters. All of her colts could trot—she had sixteen—and trot fast. But Mr. Huntington’s opportunity to utilize this Clay blood came when General Grant received a present of two stallions from the Sultan of Turkey. When General Grant took his famous trip around the world, the Sultan entertained him at Constantinople. Among the things that particularly interested the General there were the Sultan’s stables. The Sultan hearing of this, selected two of the best stallions in his collection and gave them to the General. The stallions were Leopard, an Arab, and Linden Tree, a Barb. Mr. Huntington at once set about getting General Grant’s consent to use these horses for breeding. He got the consent and set about securing what he considered proper mares. It seems a pity that General Grant had not turned these horses entirely over to Mr. Huntington. He was not himself a breeder, and after he reached middle life was only interested in driving horses. So these stallions were really white elephants on his hands. But Mr. Huntington might have made a more extensive use of them than he did. His theory was that these horses should be bred to virgin Clay mares. And he secured several of them. As a breeder Mr. Huntington is one of those who hold to the theory that a mare once pregnant to a horse is liable, if not likely, in later foals to “throw back”, as it is somewhat technically expressed, and show in these later foals the characteristics of the sire of the first pregnancy. This is a matter of dispute among breeders. The theory has been proved, so far as dogs are concerned, in my own experience. I had a fox terrier bitch. She was accidentally served by a spaniel. When she was next bred it was to a proper fox terrier and there was no chance of error. The ensuing litter of puppies was a mongrel lot, showing spaniel traces, and all of them had to be destroyed. Then, as to horses. Mr. Bruce said that Dr. Warfield, the breeder of Lexington, had had thoroughbred mares served by Jacks for the producing of mules, and later had got winning colts from the same mares by Thoroughbred stallions. It is an interesting matter with breeders and by no means settled. But Mr. Huntington did not want to take any chances in making this new venture, so he sought and obtained virgin mares, that the progeny might not be tainted with other than the blood of the sires.
Mr. Huntington also holds to the theory that when breeding with homogeneous blood that the degree of consanguinity between sire and dam may be very much closer than is the usual practice. In other words, he is an advocate of inbreeding so long as the experiments be not between horses of heterogeneous and unmixable blood. Under the latter circumstances he thoroughly agrees with the rest of the world that the mongrelization of the product is increased. Indeed, it can be increased in no way more surely, for the prevailing characteristics of an animal type are increased by inbreeding and when the animals are mongrels to begin with, that which is bad in them becomes more and more exaggerated in the offspring. Mr. Huntington has been a breeder and a writer on breeding for more than half a century. In a controversy he is, what may be called, without any offense to him, I am sure, decidedly militant. It has, therefore, been the case that not unfrequently his discussions as to the breeding of horses have been fast and furious. If I disagreed with him in his conclusions I should refrain from saying this—indeed, I should not remark his personal characteristics at all. But I feel that the misrepresentations to which he has been subjected should be spoken of, for they have been cruel and continuous, and have done great injustice to one of the most sincere, most honest and most capable horse breeders who has ever lived and worked in this country. Moreover, he has had more than a due share of misfortune in one way and another.
When he had got well along with his experiments with the Clay mares and the Grant stallions, and proved to his own satisfaction and that, also, of many of the friends who were observing his operations, it was considered desirable to enlarge the plant. There were few sales, for the obviously wise course was to keep the collection together for observation and until the type sought after should be fixed and reproducing. So more capital was taken in, and a man considered one of the chief financial lawyers of New York, organized a company and became its treasurer. In a year or so this lawyer was apprehended in some of the most far reaching financial rascalities ever perpetrated in the metropolis. He ruined estates in his charge, and corporations with which he was connected. Mr. Huntington’s horse-breeding company among the others. Here was a blow. The collection had to be dispersed just as it had arrived at success. Though at that time Mr. Huntington was an old man, he did not give up. He bought what of the collection he could, and started in again. His second attempt proves that he is entirely right, as he produces with an absolute certainty two classes of as admirable horses as I have ever seen. The first, and the one that ought to be most useful, is represented in the illustration in this book of Clay-Kismet, and the other by Nimrod. Clay-Kismet is 16½ hands high, and is as perfectly adapted for a carriage horse as any I have seen—as well adapted even as the Golddust, of which I spoke in the Morgan chapter. His symmetry, finish and high breeding adapt him particularly for this, while the cleanness of his action gives a final perfection that cannot fail to excite admiration in those who know and love horses. He is by an Arab stallion 15 hands in stature, out of a closely inbred Clay mare, the union resulting in a horse larger than either sire or dam. It is a singular thing that even the purely bred Arabs, mated by Mr. Huntington and bred on his place, increase very much in size and action. For instance, Khaled, when I last saw him was 15.3½ hands, which is something like a hand taller than either Naomi, his dam, or Nimr, his sire. Here was an interesting instance of inbreeding, as Naomi was the grandam of Nimr, the sire of Khaled. Whether this increase in size was due to inbreeding or to transplantation to a different climate than the desert, with different and better food, I am not prepared to say. But it is a striking change for the better. The other horse I alluded to is Nimrod, now, I am sorry to say, in the Philippines; he is more of a pony or cob type—something, indeed, like the earlier generations of Morgans, this type is most admirable in light harness, or to use in the stud in the creation of polo ponies. This horse was sired by Abdul Hamid II, son of General Grant’s Leopard out of Mary Sheppard, an inbred Clay mare.
These Clay-Arabians are as remarkable for their intelligence and docility as are the Morgans. Their action is as clean and elegant and their bottom cannot be surpassed. If this double accomplishment of a single private owner be suffered to be wasted it will be a pity indeed, as well as a national reproach.
NIMROD (CLAY-ARABIAN)
Bred by Randolph Huntington
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DENMARK, OR KENTUCKY SADDLE-HORSE
The assessed value of horses tabulated by States would make it appear that Kentucky horse-flesh was not more precious than in other parts of the Union. And yet Kentucky horses have a fame that is not approached by those of any other state. This is due to the fact that in a small section of the state, none but horses of high breeding are reared. A few counties give to the whole state a reputation which, I am afraid, the whole state does not deserve. But in the famous Blue Grass region the noblest horses of several types and kinds have been bred for more than a hundred years. It is distinctively the breeding place in America of the English Thoroughbred, and comparatively few men who have gone into the reproduction of these interesting and fleet animals have refrained sooner or later from buying or renting farms in Central Kentucky to carry on their operations. So, also, with the trotters. Indeed, it has been maintained that in this lime stone region, where blue grass is indigenous and where it was found in abundance in the park-like woods by the early explorers that the very bones of horses that had grazed upon it from infancy were harder, stouter and less sponge-like than those from anywhere else. This much for the virtue of the lime stone nurtured merits of the blue grass.
But the people have had much to do with the excellence of Kentucky horses. They seem to have been by nature interested in the breed of horses from the beginning of their settlement there. One of the first records of the Colonial era is that of a Kentuckian who was killed by an Indian while training a race-horse on a frontier race-course. And among the seven first statutes enacted by the Colony when in preparation to become a state of the Union, was one to regulate the range and improve the breed of horses. They were horse lovers in Kentucky in the beginning as they are to-day. And to-day there is no crime that is looked upon with more contempt than to misrepresent the breeding of a horse. In Kentucky a gentleman may kill another gentleman if his cause be just, and suffer no reproach save that of himself; but if he palter with the pedigree of a horse he trifles with his caste, and is ranked with the sneak thieves and the pickpockets who take their victims unaware, and achieve at once a petty and cowardly advantage. This love of the horse and knowledge of him has gone on from generation to generation until it has become a part, and no inconsiderable part of the heritage of every Kentuckian who considers himself well born.
Some twenty years ago a Kentucky horse-breeder was in Boston, visiting a gentleman with whom he had business. The Bostonian, with the characteristic hospitality of those Dr. Holmes catalogued as of the “Brahmin caste,” showed the Kentuckian about. He pointed out to him the equestrian statue of Washington at the head of Commonwealth Avenue. “There is the Washington statue,” remarked the Bostonian. “And what was the breeding of the horse?” the Kentuckian inquired. The horse to him was almost everything. And, later in the day, when dinner was over at the hospitable Bostonian’s home, and the ladies and children were retiring, the Kentuckian leaned over to his host and said, with enthusiasm: “By Gad, Colonel, you have outbred yourself.” That was a heartfelt tribute expressed in the natural way in which a Kentuckian should speak. No wonder that they have fine horses when they give so much thought to this subject of breeding.
A GROUP OF DENMARK MARES AT PASTURE IN KENTUCKY
But for all this Kentucky has produced only one distinctive reproducing type. Her trotters—if type they be—belong as much elsewhere as to Kentucky; her runners are purely English. Her Denmarks, however, belong to Kentucky. They have been bred there for more than sixty years, and as a distinctive American type, they are second only in this country to the Morgans of Vermont. It is a singular fact and not unworthy of note that only two states have produced distinct American reproducing types, Vermont and Kentucky, and those were the first two states admitted to the Union after the original thirteen got ready to embrace other sisters.
It is most curious how a type happens. The Morgans, as has been shown in a previous chapter, came from a horse whose pedigree was not even considered, and to this day is known only by conjecture and not at all by established fact. He was considered a good horse in his day, but it was not until his sons begat colts of exceptional merit that it was thought worth while to inquire into his origin, and that of his antecedents. With Denmark it was, in a degree, different. Denmark was a Thoroughbred, though some who are over-critical, quarrel with the pedigree of his dam. Let that be as it may. In 1839, when he was foaled, begat by Imported Hedgeford out of Betsey Harrison, he was about as good a Thoroughbred as the generality of those we had in America. Moreover, he was a successful contestant on the turf and a good horse at four-mile heats. These disputes as to the purity of the blood of our early horses are rather academic than practical. In all of the early race-horses, not purely English, there were infusions of the American basic blood; and for that matter this was the case also in England, where the Thoroughbred at that time was only newly evolved with the aid of Oriental blood from the native strains. Here, however, is his pedigree of Denmark traced back for several generations:
| Imp. Hedgeford | Fihlo-da-puta | Haphazard | Sir Peter | Highflyer |
| Papillon | ||||
| Miss Hervey | Eclipse | |||
| Clio | ||||
| Mrs. Barnet | Waxy | Pot-8-os | ||
| Maria | ||||
| Daughter | Woodpecker | |||
| Heikel | ||||
| Miss Craigie | Orville | Benningbrough | King Fergus | |
| Daughter | ||||
| Evelina | Highflyer | |||
| Termagant | ||||
| Marchioness | Lurcher | Dungannon | ||
| Vertumus | ||||
| Miss Cogden | Phenomenon | |||
| Daughter | ||||
| Betsey Harrison | Aratus | Director | Symmes' Wildair | Imp. Fearnaught |
| Jolly Roger Mare | ||||
| Eclipse Mare | Harris' Eclipse | |||
| Daughter | ||||
| Betsey Haxall | Imp. Sir Harry | Sir Peter Teazle | ||
| Matron | ||||
| Saltram Mare (Timoleun's dam) | Imp. Saltram | |||
| Daughter | ||||
| Jenny Cockracy | Potomac | Imp. Diomed | Florizel | |
| Sister to Juno | ||||
| Fairy | Pegasus | |||
| Nancy McCullock | ||||
| Saltram Mare (Timoleun's dam) | Imp. Saltram | Eclipse | ||
| Virago | ||||
| Daughter | Symmes' Wildair | |||
| Daughter |
That is pretty good breeding, even though the ancestors of Potomac might not pass muster with those who look very closely back through the sixteen generations. It may be that this so-called “cold-streak” in Denmark, through his maternal great grandsire, was just what was needed when he was mated with the Kentucky mares whose produce has given him enduring fame.
In England the Thoroughbred is thought to be the ideal saddle-horse. I confess that I have had the Thoroughbred fever pretty badly. But that was a long time ago; and maybe that fever was contemporaneous with Anglo-mania; indeed, the former may have been due to the latter. Personal preferences, however, have properly little weight in a judicial inquiry. My whole effort in this book has been to be entirely fair. Personally, I care for a very few gaits in a saddle-horse. I am quite content with the walk, the trot and the gallop. The Thoroughbred does all of these with, to say the least, a reasonable satisfaction. But it is unquestionably true that a well-formed, well-trained, well-bred Denmark will go all three of these gaits with better style and more finish than any Thoroughbred. Besides, he can readily be taught the amble or pace, the running-walk, or fox-trot, and the rack or single foot. That some do not care for these gaits is not in the least a reproach upon the capacity of the horse that can do them at the bidding of the rider. Moreover, this multiplicity of gaits does not in the least detract from the complete finish of each and all. This fact has become so apparent that there is a kind of hostility between New York and South and Western horse-show standards as to what a saddle-horse shall be like. A thoroughly gaited horse, trained in all the paces, would look absurd in the eyes of those who like such horses if he were shorn of his tail. It is considered by many who care only for the three gaits that a saddle-horse must have a docked tail. A few years ago a man with a thoroughly gaited horse could show him, long tail and all, in the Southern and Western circuit, and then bring him to New York and Philadelphia where he would tie up the horse’s tail and only exhibit the walk, trot and gallop. Now, this still may be permissible; but, if not absolutely denied, it is sternly frowned upon. So really the question has become the highly absurd one of tail or no tail. It is about as absurd as to deny the place to an applicant for a position where knowledge of French was required because he also knew Italian and Spanish. The breeders and trainers of Denmarks are too practical, however, to shed tears over such foolishness. They breed their horses the same as before, but they train this one for the East and that one for the West and South. The quality tells wherever they go, and a horse in any section that takes a blue ribbon away from a Denmark is more than lucky, he is almost unique.
For several years past, however, at the Horse Show in New York, a gentleman from England has come over to judge the saddle classes. In England he is, no doubt, as good a judge of such classes as may be had, for there the Thoroughbred is the one type, except the cob, that is considered as filling the requirements for the saddle. Before the advent of this gentleman, a great master in training, exhibiting and judging saddle-horses, had acted for a good many years. He had, by his awards, established a standard that made it almost impossible for other horses to compete with the Denmarks. He appeared to think—I have never spoken with him on the subject—that symmetry, good manners, good mouth, style of action both in front and behind, sure-footedness, docility, and intelligence were the requisites to be aimed at. Now, these are all characteristics of the Denmark. Not all are characteristics of the Thoroughbred. For instance, in the slow gaits a Thoroughbred, particularly one that has ever been in training, is not sure-footed; he travels too close to the ground. Again, he is not docile, as he becomes very easily excited, and when his blood is up, wants to gallop at full speed. His mouth, owing to this easily aroused excitement, more frequently than not, gets all wrong, and he responds more to force than to that sympathy which makes a good saddle-horse, and his rider seem to be one. His style of action is inferior to that of the Denmark both in front and behind and, as a general thing, he lacks the symmetry of substance which is really the most remarkable thing about a Denmark. It is surely a pity that there should be in our show rings this confusion as to standards. The Thoroughbred type as a saddle-horse standard does not obtain away from New York. In Philadelphia, in Boston, in Chicago and all over the South and West, the Denmark is still the saddle-horse par excellence, as he deserves to be. A friend of mine, in upholding the New York authorities for getting an English judge for American saddle-horses, says that the substitution was wise, because the Kentucky horses hammer themselves all to pieces on the hard roads in the parks of the East. If the park roads in the East are harder than the Kentucky turnpikes, I have yet to see them. His idea seemed to be that every Kentucky horse was sure to rack. But that is not so at all. He racks when he is taught, and he is taught so easily that he acquires the gait by what might be called second nature; but the Denmark can be turned out whenever desired to go only the three gaits—walk, trot, and canter—and he does these with a finish that the Thoroughbred cannot approach.
MONTGOMERY CHIEF, JR. (CLOSELY INBRED DENMARK BY MONTGOMERY CHIEF)
Bred by Allie Jones, owned by Philippine Government
But these other easily acquired Kentucky gaits are not to be despised. The running-walk is not hard upon the horse, and it is the easiest of all on the rider. When men on business, or soldiers on a march both have to go great distances in the saddle, the running-walk is about as great an excellence as a horse can be endowed with. It came into being in this country when most journeys were made on horseback. In those days, when about to take the long road from Lexington to Washington and Philadelphia, a man would have been considered lacking in intelligence who expressed contempt for either the amble or the fox-trot. And when Morgan’s men, during the Civil War, were making those wonderful raids—now here, now there, and the next day out of sight—they were generally mounted on these Kentucky-bred horses—not Thoroughbreds, but Denmarks and others of the saddle-class type, the one type that particularly belongs to Kentucky, and one of the very few types that we can call American.
Long before Denmark came to Kentucky—fifty years and more—there had been good saddle-horses there. There was an urgent need for them, and men of enterprise usually get what they need. They had been brought from Virginia by the early settlers, they had come from Canada and from Vermont. They were excellent horses for the purposes of the time, but they lacked the fine finish that came to them from Denmark and other Thoroughbred crosses that were made about his time. It was not appreciated to the full what an excellent cross Denmark made on those old time mares until after his death, and the appearance of his sons as sires—particularly Gaines’s Denmark. From this latter horse the best saddle-horses that Kentucky has produced have descended and, in many instances, they breed back to him two, three and four times. To my mind, here is the strongest proof that the Denmark is a fixed reproducing type. Inbreeding is fatal among mongrels of any sort; but where the type is fixed it may be done with most excellent results and strictly, too, according to the rule of “like begetting like.”
Here is another peculiarity of the Denmark. His excellence as a driving horse is only exceeded by his virtues under the saddle. I am well aware that men of fortune, who can keep as many horses in their stables as they choose, rather scoff at the “combination horse.” All right for them. All of us, however, are not so fortunately situated. When a man whose means only enable him to keep a few horses—or even one horse—and he wants both to ride and drive, the “combination horse” is the only animal that will enable him to go how and when he chooses. The Denmarks make splendid combination horses. They trot in harness with quite reasonable speed and very good action, and the road is seldom too long for them. My personal experience has not shown me that this change from saddle to harness worked any great harm. I once had a Denmark that won first prizes at the same show in the rings for saddle-horses, for combination horses and for roadsters; all these winnings in two days. It seems only reasonable that horses with the activity, the adaptability, and the intelligence to acquire the various gaits that are within a Denmark’s range would not necessarily be injured by driving in harness. At any rate, a man who has only a small stable can get more kinds of fun out of a Denmark than out of any other type of horse.
This type of horse is bred in five or six counties grouped about Lexington. There are several large breeders, but pretty nearly every farmer has a saddle mare or two that are regularly bred. But the supply is not up to the demand. The dealers and trainers have their eyes open all the time for promising individuals to train for the show rings, and supply to wealthy customers in various parts of the country. They get first choice because they are willing, when they come across a particularly fine specimen, to take it even as a yearling. As these animals are usually not salable until four years old, it will be seen that the disposal of the yearling is an attractive thing for the breeder and risky for the dealer. But there are still a good many of them needed for use at home, as the young Blue Grass Kentuckian must have his saddler so that he can range the country-side at will. Most men, unacquainted with the easy gaits of a Kentucky saddle-horse, as used in his native counties, would think it rather strange to go courting on horseback, and arrive at one’s destination hot and mussed up. But these easily gaited horses do not muss one up any more than a hansom cab does. This easiness of gait reminds me of another use for which they are invaluable. The planters in the South, as a general thing, go about their places on horseback, also visiting the village and their neighbors in the same way. In that generally warm climate a Thoroughbred or trotting horse would get the rider so warm that a change of clothes would be necessary; but these Southern gentlemen do not find such a need. Indeed, I have been told that one accustomed to the saddle and the climate can attend to business and social duties, plus two or three mint juleps, without any great inconvenience.
When I was asked last year by the Civil Government of the Philippines to select some mares and stallions for transportation there for breeding and the improvement of the ponies in the Islands, I bought as many Denmark mares as the conditions of my commission permitted. As my time was limited I had to scour several counties very thoroughly. The gentlemen I first consulted were rather discouraging, but I got in a few weeks as fine a lot as ever left Kentucky, and the picture that is in this book shows a group of them at pasture just before they were started on their long journey to the other side of the world, where they arrived, I am glad to say, with a loss of only two per cent. It was more difficult to find Denmark stallions. The scarcity of these is due to the efforts of the dealers and trainers to get males for their customers. So many of the most promising are sold as yearlings and gelded. The greatest stallions of the day are, I should judge, Montgomery Chief, belonging to the Ball Brothers, Highland Denmark, belonging to the Gay Brothers, and Forest Denmark, belonging to Colonel Woodford. These are all closely-inbred Denmarks, and are most successful as sires, their progeny winning blue ribbons wherever shown.
These horses have found their way into Tennessee, Illinois, and Missouri, where the stock is most highly esteemed; but they flourish most in Kentucky. I have heard army officers say that in the hard riding days, when the Indian was still a frontier menace, that a troop of cavalry mounted on horses from Kentucky would find their horses in first-class condition when other troops on horses say from Iowa, Missouri, or Illinois would be completely worn out and unable to continue. These horses are singularly free from blemishes. I noticed this particularly when making the Philippine purchases just alluded to. Here every horse had to be absolutely sound, or, as they say in Kentucky, “without a pimple.” The small percentage of rejection for unsoundness really surprised me. This was testimony to the careful selection in breeding that is practised there. One other word as to this experience. When a breeder was asked whether his offering were broken or trained, he either looked bewildered or treated the question as a joke. This was because all of them are perfectly broken and, as a mere matter of course, both to saddle and harness.
The prevailing size of the Denmarks, I should say, is 15.2, the weight 1050 pounds. In color they are usually bays or chestnuts, though there are browns, blacks and grays. I never saw a dun; but I have seen a few roans. The usual practice is to handle them at two years old, train them gently at three, and give them a complete education at four.
The American Saddle Horse Breeders’ Association keeps and publishes a register affirming that the following sires are the founders of the type:
Denmark (Thoroughbred), by Imp. Hedgeford.
John Dillard, by Indian Chief (Canadian).
Tom Hal (Imported from Canada).
Cabell’s Lexington, by Gist’s Black Hawk (Morgan).
Coleman’s Eureka (Thoroughbred and Morgan).
Van Meter’s Waxy (Thoroughbred).
Stump the Dealer (Thoroughbred).
Peter’s Halcorn.
Davy Crockett.
Pat Cleburne, by Benton’s Gray Diomed.
This wide inclusion is hospitable and probably just, for the blood of all these horses commingling with the old stock has made the Kentucky saddle-horses what they are, but among them all the Denmarks are pre-eminent. That they should be a reproducing type is, no doubt, due to the Oriental blood in the Thoroughbreds and the fresh infusions that came with the Jefferson Barbs, Keene Richards’s Arabs and from other more recent sources.
HIGHLAND EAGLE (A CLOSELY INBRED DENMARK BY HIGHLAND DENMARK)
Owned by Thomas K. Ryan
CHAPTER NINE
THE GOVERNMENT AS A BREEDER
The United States as a government has never until now conducted any horse-breeding experiments. Army officers have frequently tried to induce the War Department to start a breeding establishment so that remounts of a proper kind could be supplied to the cavalry. But the idea has never appealed to Congress, and in this particular direction nothing has been done. Dr. D. E. Salmon, the accomplished chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Agricultural Department, has inserted what may be the “entering-wedge” for at the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station a few mares and stallions have been assembled, and an effort will be made to breed a type of carriage horses, a type badly needed. Of this experiment Dr. Salmon says:
“In the countries of the world where horse breeding has been encouraged by government assistance the foundation has been native stock, and the key to successful work has been selection according to a certain type. Furthermore, with all due respect to Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian and their contemporaries, the great factor in developing the Thoroughbred horse was the method of the English breeder, and more credit is due to native English stock and to environment than has generally been acknowledged. The Thoroughbred has been the great leavening power in developing English breeds of light horses; the trotter may bear the same relation to the horse stock of America.
“The trotter is found throughout the country wherever horses are raised, and any improvement in this breed affects in time the entire horse industry. The light harness classes can be supplied from this source, and there is no more effective way to provide a supply of suitable cavalry horses for the United States army than by showing how the native horse may be improved.
“That the trotter has faults no one will deny, and that the speed idea has been responsible for many of these faults and has caused many a man to become bankrupt are equally certain. If a horse can trot 2.10 or better it is reasonably certain that he will make money for his owner, and it matters not how homely or unsound he may be; but if the horse has bad looks and unsoundness, and also lacks speed, he will be unprofitable on the track, and can not be sold at a profitable price on the market, while, if used in the stud, his undesirable qualities are perpetuated. On the other hand, if the horse has a moderate speed, but is sound, handsome and stylish, with a shapely head and neck, a straight, strong back, straight croup, muscular quarters and stifles, well-set legs, possesses good all-round true action and has abundant endurance, he is almost certainly a profitable investment. This is the kind of light horse which the market wants and will pay for. If of the roadster type, he sells well as a driver; if more on the heavy harness order, as a carriage horse.
“The occurrence of trotting bred horses of the finest conformation is by no means uncommon; it is so frequent, indeed, that these animals supply not only the demand for roadsters, but the principal part of the fine city trade in carriage horses, and are conspicuous winners at the horse shows. The demand for such horses has been so keen that dealers have resorted to the pernicious practice of buying mature stallions, many of them valuable breeders, and castrating them to be sold later as carriage horses. The famous Lord Brilliant, three times winner of the Waldorf-Astoria gig cup at Madison Square Garden, is a notable instance of this practice; Lonzie, a noted Chicago show horse, is another, and the horse purchased for the department experiments (Carmon) narrowly escaped the same fate. This practice can not be too strongly condemned. There is reason to believe that if these stallions were used as the nucleus of a breed the type would in time become fixed and their blood be saved to the country. On the other hand, if steps are not taken to mould the blood of these horses into one breed, and preserve the blood lines which produce them, an irreparable loss to the industry will result. The first step should be to select foundation stock strictly according to type; the next to study the lines of breeding which produce these horses. To a certain extent they are accidents of breeding, but there is little doubt that certain families show a greater tendency in this direction than others. For example, the descendants of Alexander’s Abdallah, Harrison Chief, the Morgans and the Clay family have been more or less notable in this respect. Further, certain sires are known to produce handsome and marketable horses with regularity.
“In view of these facts, the department decided to undertake the development of a breed of carriage horses on an American foundation as an interesting and important problem for solution. If successful it will show that we can develop our own breeding stock of horses in this country; it will make light horse breeding less a lottery than it is at present, and will at the same time provide breeding animals which can be used profitably on the lighter horses of the country.
“After a thorough search the department has purchased as foundation stock eighteen mares and one stallion. In addition, it can command the services of additional stallions if desired. The instructions of the purchasing board allowed considerable latitude, but it was required to select strictly according to type. Hereditary unsoundness was regarded as a disqualification. Pedigree was not considered, so far as registration was concerned, but the board required evidence to be submitted showing that the animals purchased were from parents and ancestors of like type, thus insuring blood lines that would breed reasonably true. Speed, while not ignored, was not made an essential. Life, spirit, and energy, with moderate speed, were considered, and, while conformation was not sacrificed to speed, speed with conformation and good action was regarded as an advantage.
“The type for mares was one standing about 15.3 hands, weighing 1100 to 1150 pounds, bay, brown or chestnut in color, with stylish head and neck, full made body, deep ribs, straight back, strong loin, straight, full croup, muscular forearms, quarters and lower thighs; good all-round was insisted upon. Any tendency to pace or mix gaits was regarded as grounds for disqualification. In some cases mares of more than 15.3 hands were purchased and in others they were less than this. All, however, conformed closely to type. Some of the mares are in foal; the rest will be bred this spring.
“The ancestors of six mares purchased in Wyoming have been bred for five or six generations in that state, the band having been started by means of an importation of horses from the Central West which was largely Morgan stock. On this stock Thoroughbred and Standard sires have been used, and the herd has been developed more to produce a horse suitable for carriage purposes than one which had speed characteristics. Some of the six have been exhibited at the New York Horse Show, and the owner of the ranch maintains a stable near New York City, where he sends his surplus from year to year to be finished for the fine city trade.
“The search for a stallion to head the stud was the most difficult of all. An almost unlimited number of trotting horses suitable to get good carriage horses were recommended to the department, but on investigation it would be found that they were deficient in some respect and could not be considered. A horse was finally selected which was among the first suggested—Carmon 32907, American Trotting Horse Register, 16 hands, weighing 1200 pounds in fair condition, bay with black points and no white markings, bred by Norman J. Coleman, of St. Louis.
“The points of Carmon’s conformation which deserve special mention are his head and neck and hind quarters. His forehead is broad and full, with a straight nose and face; full, expressive eyes and well-carried ears. The neck is clean, muscular, and well arched. In the hind quarters special attention should be directed to the straight, broad croup and the muscular quarters and lower thighs. The horse has an abundance of bone and substance, but ample quality at the same time. His action is excellent.
“A study of Carmon’s pedigree shows that it is not a particularly fashionable one from the standpoint of the man who is breeding solely for speed. This is a pedigree from which one might expect a horse of excellent conformation. Robert McGregor, for example, was a horse with especially well-developed hind quarters and this characteristic is seen in his sons and grandsons, as shown by Cresceus and Carmon. Abdallah XV was a horse with a particularly attractive head and neck. The frequency with which the Abdallah cross appears in Carmon’s pedigree and the presence of Morgan, Mambrino Chief and Clay blood readily explains where this horse gets his handsome head and neck and his full quarters and stifles. These families have produced some of our handsomest horses. Their blood makes up nineteen-sixty-fourths of Carmon’s pedigree.
“The small percentage of pacing blood is worthy of particular notice. Further, the prominent trotting sires in it have produced more trotters than pacers, and Robert McGregor, Abdallah XV, and Ethan Allen are noteworthy for the small number of pacers sired by them or produced by their sons and daughters. This is so small that they may be regarded strictly as sires of trotters. Abdallah XV and Ethan Allen sired no pacers, and of the immediate get of Robert McGregor less than ten per cent are pacers.”[[8]]
[8].
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Bureau of Animal Industry
LOCAL OFFICE
John Gilmer Speed, Fort Collins, Colo., June 12, 1905.
New York, N. Y.
Dear Sir:—Your favor of May 24 has been referred to me for reply. Will say that we now have 19 brood mares and a stallion in our breeding stud here and as you probably have learned, our object is to establish a type of American carriage horses eventually. We will found a stud book for this type of horses in America and we hope to so foster and develop this type of horses in America as to make them par excellence as a heavy harness horse. The mares that we have secured range in weight from 1050 to upwards of 1280 pounds. They are from 15.2 to 16.1 hands in height and are without exception high headed with superb action, of fine quality and while not noted for speed, can trot a mile in approximately three minutes and do it in a wonderfully easy and graceful manner, showing great style and finish. They are all bred from the American trotter foundation, and as far as possible of Morgan blood. We were careful to secure nothing but straight trotting bred stock, as we wish to eradicate the pacing characteristic from our horses. As you are aware, the Government and the Colorado Agricultural College are co-operating in this work. The Government is furnishing part of the funds and the College has taken charge of and is directing the work.
Trusting that this information is satisfactory, I am,
Yours very truly,
W. L. Carlyle,
Expert in charge.
I need not explain to readers of this book that I do not entirely agree with Dr. Salmon in his views of the American trotting horse. But in the main I do agree with him in the selection of his mares. The stallion used to be known in the horse-show rings as Lawson’s Glorious Thunder Cloud. He never struck me as anything at all out of the common and I am astonished at his selection. He was a good wheeler in a four-in-hand, but that was all. In single harness he never won in any ordinary class at any important show. He seemed to me to lack quality and to be lacking in many of the things for which Dr. Salmon gives him praise. I trust, however, he will prove a better sire than he was a show horse, for the need for carriage horses is great; then it would be a great pity for this first official experiment to turn out badly. It will be watched with peculiar interest. But I wish Dr. Salmon had selected as his stallion a horse that was in blood and conformation similar to Clay-Kismet.
CHAPTER TEN
FOREIGN HORSES OF VARIOUS KINDS
For draught purposes there have been a great many foreign horses brought here, and they have served an excellent purpose. I suspect indeed that if we had a record of the Percherons, Clydesdales, and Shire horse that have been brought into America for the purpose of breeding heavy horses for trucking, that the number would exceed the Thoroughbreds that have been imported for the improvement of that special type. We had no heavy horses of our own, and as there was a constant demand for draught horses it was inevitable that breeders should go for stock where that stock had been brought to the highest perfection. To us it seemed that the French horses, the Percherons,[[9]] were best adapted for our use. And though many have been brought here, it is not likely that the generality of Americans know the pure bred Percherons. But all of us are familiar with Rosa Bonheur’s “Horse Fair.” The models of the horses in this stirring and beautiful picture were Percherons, and nearly all of them stallions. The French, and other Latins besides, have a fondness for using stallions in ordinary work, and any day in Paris a visitor may see a long string of Percheron stallions drawing a heavy load as placidly as geldings would do it. There is no reason why stallions should not be used more generally in this country. The prejudice against their use as saddle- and harness-horses no doubt arose when the business of a greater part of the country was transacted by travelers who needed to hitch their horses where other horses were also tethered. But in work where a groom or driver is always in charge of a horse the stallion may be used with much advantage to himself and satisfaction to his owner.
[9]. Mr. Walters of Baltimore, began importing Percherons to America in 1866 and kept it up for twenty years. He translated the work of M. du Hays on the Percheron and illustrated it with photographs of horses and mares of his own importation. It is one of the handsomest horse books ever published.
The basic blood of these Percherons is Arab and Barb mixed with the blood of those heavy Norman horses that were used by the heavily-armed knights in the time when the lance, sword, and crossbow took the place in war now monopolized entirely by rifles, balls and powder or other explosives. After securing the type the French have been so zealously aware of its value that they keep agents in Arabia always looking out for animals suitable to start a new and parallel supply of this basic blood. These same agents are also on the lookout for horses to be used in the breeding of army horses. Few of the Percherons that are brought over here are used in actual work, but are kept on the breeding farms in Ohio, Illinois, and other places for the production of “graded draught horses,” horses not quite so heavy as the Percheron, but heavier than any draught horses we previously had of our own breeding. The Percheron stallions are mated with heavy American mares and with “graded” mares, and the produce sent to the great cities where the animals fetch highly satisfactory prices. Great care has to be exercised in making the cross between a Percheron and an American that the contrast shall not be too great between the members of the union. When it is too great the consequences are disastrous, and result in a misshapen beast with unrelated characteristics of each parent. This shows that the blood of the union has not blended harmoniously. But the men who are in the business of producing “graded draught horses” appear to know that business well as the horses sold are handsome, strong, and active, and well adapted for the work for which they were created. This is a business pretty sure to decrease rather rapidly. These graded horses are not the ideal farm horse, although on a large farm where there is a deal of hauling, they serve a very useful purpose. But in plowing or in other work over soft ground they are too heavy. The city is the place for these horses. And year by year the heavy hauling will more and more be done by auto-cars. The auto-car for trucking is at present probably the most satisfactory achievement of the designers of horseless vehicles. When it is satisfactorily demonstrated that this mode of transferring freight, building material, and so on, is the cheapest way, then draught horses will be less and less in demand, and the French will lose one of their most profitable markets for her large, heavy, and symmetrical horses. Still that may be a many years off, and if I were Dr. Hartman or Messrs. Dunham I should not just yet sacrifice my Percherons to any save the highest bidder.
Before the era of the draught horse from France, those from England had a certain amount of popularity. That has long since passed away, and the Shires and Clydesdales in the United States are not proportionally so numerous as formerly. But they keep their popularity in Canada, where probably the farmers, being chiefly Britons, understand them better. That they should have been supplanted by the Percheron in the United States is no doubt due to the fact that the Oriental blood in the French horse makes that blood more assimilative with other strains. The French coach horse is brought over here to an extent for experimental use, and the Cleveland Bays formerly were brought quite frequently. Both, no doubt, have had temporary influences on the American stock in the localities where these horses were in the stud, but I know of no type that has been influenced by them to any great extent.
The Orlof trotting horse of Russia is one of the most interesting horses in Europe, and was created by Count Alexis Orlof-Tchestmensky, who began his work during the reign of Peter III, in the last half of the eighteenth century. As there has been an effort to make this type popular in America, it may be interesting to record how Count Orlof went about his work to secure a reproducing type of animals that resemble each other as much as the puppies in a litter of fox terriers. In 1775 he imported from Arabia a stallion named Smetanka, and bred this horse to a Danish mare. The produce was Polkan who sired in 1784 Barrs out of a Dutch mare. Barrs is looked upon as the founder of the Orlof type. Barrs sired Lubeznoy out of a mare that was sired by an Arab out of a Mecklenberg mare; Barrs also sired Dobroy out of a Thoroughbred English mare; also Lebed out of a mare by Felkerzamchek out of a Mecklenberg mare, Felkerzamchek being by Smetanka out of a Thoroughbred English mare. Now all the Orlofs must descend from Smetanka and Barrs through the three stallions named. This mixture was crossed and recrossed until it became homogeneous, and so the Russian noble had created a type.
In 1772 he had in his stud the following horses:
| Arab | 12 stallions and | 10 mares |
| Persian | 3 stallions and | 2 mares |
| English | 20 stallions and | 32 mares |
| Dutch | 1 stallions and | 8 mares |
| Mecklenberg | 1 stallions and | 5 mares |
| Danish | 1 stallions and | 3 mares |
| Miscellaneous | 9 stallions and | 17 mares |
He developed his type before his death in 1810, and his widow kept up the same method of breeding until 1845, when she sold the horses to the Russian government. These horses have been of vast service in Russia, where even in the eighteenth century the steppes were filled with wild, scrubby but hardy little horses to such an extent that even the poorest peasant could own one or two. The Orlofs have done much to improve these steppe ponies and it is upon them that the Russian cavalry largely depends for remounts.
The fastest of these trotters can go a 2.20 clip, but I have heard that a rate like this can be maintained only a short while. They are not so symmetrical as our Morgans or Clay-Arabians, but they have immensely more substance than the Standard Bred Trotters. I do not see how they can find any very useful place in this country. We could from our own stock quickly develop a better looking coach horse, and I believe we will do it, but never until we keep in mind that type is nine-tenths of any horse breeding battle that is ever won.
The English Hackneys at one period promised to be popular in this country. This popularity was stimulated by fashion, and the English breeders did not fail to take advantage of the fad that possessed some Americans of wealth. The Hackney comes from the Dutch horses by way of the Norfolk trotter. He is a horse of substance and easily acquires a high step with much knee action. In the show ring he is exhibited after the English fashion and makes a very lively picture. But his step is not light. He pounds the ground as though he wished the earth to tremble, and the Chinese feel his tread on the other side of the world. He has no very fitting place here, no more than the Orlof, either in his purity or as a cross with our own horses. We can easily do without him, and accomplish the creation of heavy harness and coach horse without the assistance of this English type. Originally in England the Hackney was a knock-a-bout horse, good under the saddle and in harness; but he has been bred up to large size and very heavy weight. Some of the American breeders of hackney ten or fifteen years ago when they went to England for stock to breed from paid such prices that the English laughed with delight, for they never dreamed of such a market at home. The fad is fastly dying out, and it is likely that in a few years there will not be opportunity even in the show rings for their exhibition. As they are deficient in courage and staying qualities, this will not be a bad result of lack of popularity.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BREEDING OF MULES
On the first day of January, 1905, we had in the United States 2,888,710 mules with a taxable value of $251,840,378. This shows how extensive an industry mule-breeding is, and also what an important place the mule occupies in the economy of the country. The mule is an ideal farm animal. They would find it hard to get along without him on the plantations in the South. The negro is the poorest horseman in the world. As a groom he is careless and neglectful. A horse must be attended to or he will get ill and die. The mule seems, if not to thrive on neglect, at least not seriously to deteriorate. On many of the Southern plantations mules never know either currycomb or brush during all their long lives. And they live to a great age. I have never seen any statement based on carefully ascertained statistics at to the comparative length life of the horse and mule, but I am persuaded, from my own observation that on an average a mule lives twenty-five per cent longer. And there is pretty nearly as much work in an old mule as in a young one. They can also be put to hard work sooner than a horse. So the working life of a mule is lengthened at both ends. Moreover, they can subsist on what would be starvation for a horse.
If mules were bred at all in America in the Colonial era it was to a very limited extent. But after the Revolution they were bred a little, and George Washington was the man who encouraged this new industry. In 1786, before his election to the Presidency, Washington accepted from the King of Spain the present of a large Spanish Jack. He called the jack Royal Gift, and thus advertised his services in a Philadelphia paper:
“Royal Gift—A Jack Ass of the first race in the Kingdom of Spain will cover mares and jennies (she asses) at Mount Vernon the ensuing spring. The first for ten, the latter for fifteen pounds the season. Royal Gift is four years old, is between 14½ and 15 hands high, and will grow, it is said, until he is twenty or twenty-five years of age. He is very bony and stout made, of a dark colour with light belly and legs. The advantages, which are many, to be derived from the propagation of asses from this animal (the first of the kind that was ever in North America), and the usefulness of mules bred from a Jack of his size, either for the road or team, are well known to those who are acquainted with this mongrel race. For the information of those who are not, it may be enough to add, that their great strength, longevity, hardiness, and cheap support, give them a preference of horses that is scarcely to be imagined. As the Jack is young, and the General has many mares of his own to put to him, a limited number only will be received from others, and these entered in the order they are offered. Letters directed to the subscriber, by Post or otherwise, under cover to the General, will be entered on the day they are received, till the number is completed, of which the writers shall be informed to prevent trouble or expense to them.
“John Fairfax, Overseer.
“February 23, 1786.”
Washington believed in mules and in the inventory of live stock in his will made in 1799, mention is made of two covering jacks, three young ones, ten she asses, forty-two working mules, and fifteen younger ones. It was a much later period, however, before mules were extensively bred in the United States. With the exception of Royal Gift, it is likely that the jacks brought from Europe were rather inferior. But in 1832, Henry Clay imported two pure-blood Catalan asses, a jack and a jenny. They were landed in Maryland, and there the jenny had a foal. This foal was called Warrior. This jack was fifteen hands high, and he became a great ass progenitor in Kentucky. The jennies there at that time were not well bred, but mongrels, mostly a light shade of blue, with gray, buff and grizzly hair, nearly as stiff as hog bristles, generally with a colored stripe across the shoulders and down the back, ewe-necked, flat in the rib, low carriage, and heavy headed, entirely destitute of any good quality except hardihood and ability to get a living where any other animal, save a goat, would have starved to death. With such jennies began the first effort to improve the race in Kentucky, and they flocked to Warrior in droves. He seemed to cross advantageously with them, just as the Cashmere goat crosses on the common hairy goat. His progeny seemed rapidly to lose the leading traits of their dams, and to inherit in a remarkable degree the color and outward characteristics of their sire. Four years later Dr. Davis imported in South Carolina another Catalan jack. He was 16 hands high and of great weight. This jack, Mammoth, was mated to the young Warrior jennies then just maturing, thus making the second cross of pure blood, and upon these two crosses rest to-day the breeding of the race of jacks known throughout the United States as the Kentucky Jack. These Kentucky jacks are still popular, and last year the British Government bought a number of them to take to India.
Mr. J. L. Jones, of Columbia, Tennessee, is a recognized authority on mule breeding, and I prefer to give my readers his counsel in a matter with which he is better acquainted than I am.
He says:
“There are two kinds or classes of the mule, viz., one the produce of the male ass or jack and the mare; and the other, the offspring of the stallion and female ass. The cross between the jack and the mare is properly called the mule, while the other, the produce of the stallion and female ass, is designated a hinny. The mule is the more valuable animal of the two, having more size, finish, bone, and, in fact, all the requisites which make that animal so much prized as a useful burden-bearing animal. The hinny is small in size, and is wanting in the qualities requisite to a great draught animal. This hybrid is supposed not to breed, as no instance is known to us in which a stallion mule has been prolific, although he seems to be physically perfect, and shows great fondness for the female, and serves readily. There are instances on record where the female has produced a foal, but these are rare.
“The mule partakes of the several characteristics of both its parents, having the head, ear, foot, and bone of the jack, while in height and body it follows the mare. It has the voice of neither, but is between the two, and more nearly resembles the jack. It possesses the patience, endurance, and sure-footedness of the jack, and the vigor, strength, and courage of the horse. It is easily kept, very hardy, and no path is too precipitous or mountain trail too difficult for one of them with its burden. The mule enjoys comparative immunity from disease, and lives to a comparatively great age. The writer knows of a mule in Middle Tennessee that, when young, was a beautiful dapple gray, but is now thirty years old, and is as white as snow. This mule is so faithful and true, and has broken so many young things to work by his side, that he bears the name of ‘Counsellor.’ The last time he was seen by the writer he was in a team attached to a reaper, drawing at a rate sufficient to cut fifteen acres of grain per day.
“Kentucky mules are showy, up-headed, fine-haired animals, their extra qualities being attributable to the strong, Thoroughbred blood in the greater part of their dams. The same may be said of Tennessee, where it is thought the climactic influences produce a little better, smoother, and finer hair, coupled with early maturity, which qualities are much prized by an expert buyer.
“The mules in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and some of the so-called Northwestern states, have large bone, foot, body, and substance, and possess great strength, but they are wanting in that high style, finish, and fine hair that characterize the produce of some of the states further south, and are longer in maturing. Mule-breeding in these states is one of the most important branches of industry, and is supposed to date back prior to 1787.
“There is no kind of labor to which a horse can be put for which a mule may not be made to answer, while there are many for which mules are more peculiarly adapted than horses; and among the rest, that of mining, where the mule is used, and many of them need no drivers. They can endure more hardships than the horse, can live on less, and do more work on the same feed than any other beast of burden we use in America.
“A cotton-planter in the South would feel unwilling to raise his crop with horses for motive power. The horse and the labor of the cotton belt could not harmonize, while the negro is at home with the mule.
“A mule may be worked until completely fagged, when a good feed and a night’s rest will enable it to go; but it is not so with a horse.
“The mule being better adapted for carrying burdens, for the plough, the wagon, building of railroads, and, in fact, all classes of heavy labor, let us see how it compares with the noble animal, the horse, in cost of maintenance.
“From repeated experiments that have come under my observation in the past twenty-five years, I have found that three mules, 15 hands high, that were constantly worked, consumed about as much forage as two ordinary-sized horses worked in the same way, and while the mules were fat the horses were only in good working order. Although a mule will live and work on very low fare, he also responds as quickly as any animal to good feed and kind treatment. True, it is charged that the mule is vicious, stubborn, and slow, but an experience in handling many mules on the farm has failed to sustain the charge, save in few instances, and in these the propensities were brought about by bad handling. They are truer pullers than the horse, and move more quickly under the load. Their hearing and vision are better than the horse. The writer has used them in all the different branches of farming, from the plough to the carriage and buggy, and thinks they are less liable to become frightened and start suddenly; and if they do start, they usually stop before damage is done, while the horse seldom stops until completely freed. The mule is more steady while at work than the horse, and is not so liable to become exhausted, and often becomes so well instructed as to need neither driver nor lines.
“In the town in which the writer lives, a cotton merchant, who is also in the grocery trade, owned a large sorrel mule, 16 hands high, that he worked to a dray to haul goods and cotton to the depot, half a mile from his business house. This mule often went the route alone, and was never known to strike anything, and what was more remarkable, would back up at the proper place with the load, there being one place to unload groceries and another for cotton.
“They are also good for light harness, many of them being very useful buggy animals, traveling a day’s journey equal to some horses. The writer obtained one from a firm of jack breeders in his vicinity, that was bred by them, as an experiment, being out of a Thoroughbred mare by a royally bred jack. She is 16 hands high, as courageous as most any horse. In traveling a distance of thirty-two miles, this mule, with two men and the baggage, made it, as the saying goes, ‘under a pull,’ in four hours, and when arrived at the journey’s end seemed willing to go on.
“We do not wish to be understood as underrating the horse, for it is a noble animal, well suited for man’s wants, but for burden-bearing and drudgery is more than equaled by the patient, faithful, hardy mule.
“There are two kinds of jacks—the mule-breeding and the ass-breeding jack, the latter being used chiefly in breeding jacks for stock purposes. It is only with the mule-breeding jack that we will deal.
“A good mule-jack ought to be not less than 15 hands high, and have all of the weight, head, ear, foot, bone, and length that can be obtained, coupled with a broad chest, wide hips, and with all the style attainable with these qualities. Smaller jacks are often fine breeders, and produce some of our best mules, and when bred to the heavier, larger class of mares show good results, but as ‘like produces like,’ the larger jacks are preferable.
“Black, with light points, is the favorite color for a jack, but many of our gray, blue, and even white jacks have produced good mules. In fact, some of the nicest, smoothest, red-sorrel mules have been the product of these off-colored jacks; but the black jacks get the largest proportion of good-colored colts from all colored mares.
“The breed of the jack is also to be looked into. There are now so many varieties of jacks in the United States, all of which have merits, that it will be well to examine and see what jack has shown the best results. We have the Catalonian, the Andalusian, the Maltese, the Majorca, the Italian, and the Poitou—all of which are imported—and the native jack. Of all the imported, the Catalonian is the finest type of animal, being a good black, with white points, of fine style and action, and from 14½ to 15 hands high, rarely 16 hands, with a clean bone. The Andalusian is about the same type of jack as the Catalonian having, perhaps, a little more weight and bone, but are all off-colors. The Maltese is smaller than the Catalonian, rarely being over 14½ hands high, but is nice and smooth. The Majorca is the largest of the imported jacks, the heaviest in weight, bone, head, and ear, and frequently grows to 16 hands. These are raised in the rich island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea. While they excel in weight and size, they lack in style, finish and action. The Italian is the smallest of all the imported jacks, being usually from 13 to 14 hands high, but having good foot, bone, and weight, and some of them make good breeders. The Poitou is the latest importation of the jack, and is little known in the United States. He is imported from France, and is reported to be the sire of some of the finest mules in his native land. These jacks have long hair about the neck, ears, and legs, and are, in some respects, to the jack race what the Clydesdale is to other horses. He is heavy set, has good foot and bone, fine head and ear, and of good size, being about 15 hands high.
“The native jack, as a class, is heavier in body, having a larger bone and foot than the imported, and shows in his entire make-up the result of the limestone soil and the grasses common in this country. He is of all colors, having descended from all the breeds of imported jacks. But the breeders of this country, seeing the fancy of their customers for the black jack with light points, have discarded all other colors in selecting their jacks, and the consequence is that a large proportion of the jacks in the stud now, for mares, are of this color.
“The native jack, being acclimated, seems to give better satisfaction to breeders of mules than any other kind. From observation and experience it is believed that our native jacks, with good imported crosses behind them, will sire the mules best suited to the wants of those who use them in this country, and will supply the market with what is desired by the dealers. The colts by this class of jacks are stronger in make-up, having better body, with more length, larger head and ear, more foot and bone, combined with style equal to the colts of the imported jacks.
“While many fine mules are sired by imported jacks, this is not to be understood as meaning that imported jacks do not get good foals, yet, taken as a class, we think that the mule by the native jack is superior to any other class. This conclusion is borne out by an experience and observation of some years, and by many of the best breeders and dealers in the United States.
“As the mule partakes very largely in its body and shape of its mother, it is necessary that care should be taken in selecting the dam. Many suppose that when a mare becomes diseased and unfit for breeding to the horse, then she is fit to breed to mules. This is a sad mistake, for a good, growing, sound colt must have good, sound sire and dam.
“The jack may be ever so good, yet the result will be a disappointment unless the mare is good, sound, and properly built for breeding. First, she should be sound and of good color; black, bay, brown, or chestnut is preferred. Her good color is needed to help to give the foals proper color, and this is a matter of no small importance.
“This should not be understood as ignoring the other colors, for some of the best mules ever seen were the produce of gray or light-colored mares, as many dealers and breeders will attest. The mare should be well bred; that is, she would give better results by having some good crosses. By all means let her have a cross of Thoroughbred, say one-quarter, supplemented with strong crosses of some of the larger breeds, and the balance of the breeding may be made up of the better class of the native stock. The mare should have good length, large, well-rounded barrel, good head, long neck, good, broad, flat bone, broad chest, wide between the hips, and good style.
“Having selected the sire and the dam, the next thing is to produce the colt. The sire, if well kept and in good condition, is ready for business, but not so with the mare. The dam is to be in season; that is, in heat. Before being bred, to prevent accidents, the mare should be hobbled or pitted. Having taken this precaution, the jack may be brought out, and both will be ready for service. Care should be taken not to over-serve the jack, as he should not be allowed to serve over two mares a day.
“The mare, after being served, may be put to light work, or put upon some quiet pasture by herself for several days until she passes out of season, when she may be turned out with other stock to run until the eighteenth day, when she should be taken up to be teased by a horse, to ascertain if she be in season, and if so, she should be bred again. Some breeders think the ninth, some the twelfth, and some the fifteenth day after service is the proper day to tease, but observation has taught me that the best results come from the eighteenth-day plan. After she becomes impregnated she should have good treatment; light work will not hurt her, but care should be taken not to over-exert. She should have good, nutritious grass if she runs out and is not worked, but if worked she should be well fed on good feed. The foal will be due in about 333 days. As the time approaches for foaling, the mare should be put in a quiet place, away from other stock, until the foal is dropped. She will not need any extra attention, as a rule, but should be looked after to see that everything goes right.
“After the foal comes, it will not hurt the mare or colt for the dam to do light work, provided she is well fed on good, nutritious food. Should she not be worked and is on good grass, and fed lightly on grain, the colt will grow finely, if the mare gives plenty of milk; if she does not the foal should be taught to eat such feed as is most suitable.
“The colt should be well cared for at all times, and particularly while following its mother, for the owner may want to sell at weaning time, which is four months old, and its inches then will fix the price. Good mules, at weaning time, usually bring from $75 to $90, and sometimes as high as $100.
“Feeders, dealers, and buyers prefer the mare mule to the horse, and they sell more readily. The females mature earlier, are plumper and rounder of body, and fatten more readily than the male.
“In weaning the colt, much is accomplished by proper treatment preparatory to this trying event in the mule’s life. It should be taught to eat while following its mother, so that when weaned it will at once know how to subsist on that which is fed to it. The best way to wean is to take several colts and place them in a close barn, with plenty of good, soft feed, such as bran and oats mixed, plenty of sound, sweet hay, and, in season, cutgrass, remembering at all times that nothing can make up for want of pure water in the stable. Many may be weaned together properly. After they have remained in the stable for several days they may be turned on good, rich pasture. Do not forget to feed, as this is a trying time. The change from a milk to a dry diet is severe on the colt. They may all be huddled in a barn together, as they seldom hurt each other. Good, rich clover pastures are fine for mules at this age, but if they are to be extra fine, feed them a little grain all the while.
“There is little variety in the feed until the mules are two years old, at which time they are very easily broken. If halter-broken as they grow up, all there is to do in breaking one is to put on a harness, and place the young animal beside a broken mule, and go to work. When it is thoroughly used to the harness, the mule is already broken. Light work in the spring, when the mule is two years old, will do no hurt, but, in the opinion of many breeders and dealers, make it better, provided it is carefully handled and fed.
“How to fatten the mule is one of the most important parts of mule-raising, for when the mule is offered to a buyer, he will at once ask: ‘Is he fat?’ and fat goes far in effecting a sale. A rough, poor mule could hardly be sold, while if it is fat, the buyer will take it because it is fat.
“The mule should be placed in the barn with plenty of room, and not much light, about the 1st of November, before it is two years old, and fed about twelve ears of (Indian) corn per day, and all the nice, well-cured clover hay it will eat, and there kept until about the 1st of April. Then, in the climate of Middle Tennessee, the clover is good, and the mule may be turned out on it, and the corn increased to about twenty ears or more per day. They will eat more grain, without fear of ‘firing;’ that is, heating so as to cause scratches, as the green clover removes all danger from this source. During the time they run on the clover they eat less hay, but this should always be kept by them. About the 1st of May the clover blooms, and is large enough to cut, in the latitude of Tennessee. The mules should be placed, then, in the barn, with a nice smooth lot attached, and plenty of pure water. A manger should be built in the lot, four feet wide by four feet high, and long enough to accommodate the number of mules it is desired to feed. This should be covered over by a shed high enough for the mule to stand under, to prevent the clover from wilting. The clover should be cut while the dew is on, as this preserves the aroma, and they like it better. While this is going on in the lot, the troughs and racks in the barns should be supplied with all the shelled corn (maize) the mules will eat. ‘Why shell it?’ some one will ask. Because they eat more of it, and relish it. A valuable addition at all times consists of either short-cut sheaf oats, or shelled oats, and bran, if not too expensive.
“From this time the mule should be pressed with all the richest of feed, if it is desired to make it what is termed in mule parlance, ‘hog fat.’ Ground barley, shelled oats, bran, and shelled corn, should be given, not forgetting to salt regularly all the while, nor omitting the hay and green corn blades. While all those are essential, oats and bran, although at some places expensive, are regarded as the ne plus ultra for fattening a mule, and giving a fine suit of hair. Be sure to keep the barn well bedded, for if the hair becomes soiled from rolling it lowers the value, as the mule is much estimated for its fine coat.
“The grain makes the flesh, and the green stuff keeps the system of the mule cool, and balances the excess of carbonaceous elements in the grain fed.
“The manner of feeding, if properly carried out, with the proper foundation to start with, will make mules, two years old past, weigh from 1150 pounds to 1350 pounds by the 1st of September, at which time the market opens.
“A feeder of eighteen years’ experience claims that oats and bran will put on more fine flesh in a given time, coupled with a smoother, glossier coat of hair, than any other known feed. The experienced feeder follows this method from weaning till two years old.”
In war the mule is invaluable both as a pack animal and for army trains. He can stand the hard usage of army life much better than horses. In our great Civil War they were used very extensively. In his book General Grant told of a certain army chaplain who always took an active part in the battles. On one occasion the roads were blocked up with mule-drawn trains, and it was most desirable for them to get out of the way. The chaplain lent a hand to the teamsters. Now mule-drivers use language more forceful and picturesque than pure or elegant. Well, the parson “cussed and swore,” with the rest of them, and helped straighten out the tangle. That evening the General thanked the chaplain, but said: “How do you reconcile the language you used with your conscience?” “Oh,” answered the chaplain, “do mules understand any other language?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOW TO BUY A HORSE
It is far from my purpose to give any advice on the purchasing of horses to professionals or to amateurs who know the subject thoroughly. The professional knows his business so well, or is apt to think that he does, that my advice would be almost an impertinence, while the amateur who thinks he knows is incapable of learning. It is, by the way, a most astonishing thing how few men there are who are willing to confess ignorance as to horses. A little experience makes them wondrous wise. I once heard of a reader for a great publishing house who “turned down” a treatise on the horse because “the writer did not know the subject sufficiently well.” This reader, I learned on inquiry, had studied the subject thoroughly, for one summer a friend lent him a polo pony which was under his constant observation for nearly three months. This conceit that we have in our knowledge of horses whets our appetite for gambling on horse-races, and makes the opportunity of the bookmakers to undo us much greater and surer. It also induces us to make unwise purchases and then conclude that horses are delusions and snares while dealers are rogues of deepest dye. Only a few days before this page was written, I heard of a college professor who bought a pair of horses at a fancy price and without an examination from a veterinary, only to find after reaching his country place that one of the horses was blind. So, while I am sure that advice is needed, I am not at all certain that it is in demand.
We all recall the doggerel rule:
“One white leg, inspect him;
Two white legs, reject him;
Three white legs, sell him to your foes;
Four white legs, feed him to the crows!”
That is advice to which no attention should be paid at all, unless the markings be such that a person looking for a horse positively dislikes. And that is about the only rule I advise a person not to consider in buying a horse. Everything else should be looked over carefully, for pretty nearly everything about a horse has more or less importance, usually more than less.
The first thing a prospective purchaser should determine is why he wants a horse, and what he wants to do with him. Then he should decide whether he means to buy the horse on his own judgment or on that of some one else. If he means to be his own judge he should go alone; if he means to have a friend select his horse he should let the friend go alone. But he should never take his friend along with him to give advice and assist in driving a bargain. This kind of thing is annoying to a dealer, and tempts him to match his experienced and hard-worked wit with that of the seldom-used judgment of the buyer. That the dealer will win in such a contest goes without saying. I have taken for granted that the buyer will go to a dealer for any advice of any kind is wasted upon one who would buy a horse from a friend, unless he coveted his friend’s horse and wanted that particular animal from personal knowledge of him.
Horse dealers are frequently spoken of as unconscionable rogues. And there is no doubt that many of them do lack the virtue of probity and straight speaking. But a reputable dealer in horses with an established business can be as fair as any other business man, and I have known many such. Such an horse dealer has a reputation to maintain that is as valuable to him as that of a banker is to him. If you will place confidence in him he is not apt to betray it, for he values his customer and knows that there will probably be other sales to make.
But the dealers who advertise in the newspapers that they will sell from private stables horses worth $500 or $1000 for $100 or $200 are the pirates of the trade. They give one excuse or another why such immense bargains are offered, and they make many sales. They are really “confidence-men,” and why the police authorities should permit them to continue in their thieving operations is one of the mysterious manifestations of city life that I could never understand. It was from one of these rogues that the college professor I just mentioned bought his prize pair. Never on any account look for or even at any of these advertised bargains in a private stable. A good horse has a market value and a dealer knows it thoroughly. When he offers to sell below that value, you may depend upon it that he is trying to cheat you by imposing upon your ignorance. Having determined what kind of a horse you want, and what kind of work you purpose doing with a horse, go to a dealer and tell him all about it just as you would to your lawyer or doctor. He will show you horses and quote prices. If the prices are higher than you care to pay tell him that also, and he will show you others. He usually begins with the higher-priced horses, unless he “sizes you up” as lean of pocket-book. But in a large establishment the price you have fixed in your own mind is likely to be arrived at very quickly. Then you must determine whether the horse shown to you is of the quality you desire. But be not deceived by the hope that you can get a very superior and well-trained horse for very much less than he is worth. This can often be done with green horses. By green horses, I do not mean unbroken horses, but horses that have not been educated and developed. A skilful horseman, either rider or driver, will nearly always prefer a green horse because of the pleasure in training him, and also of the chance of securing a prize at a minimum of cost. But an inexperienced horseman will probably never make anything out of a green horse, so he had best not consider such. Having found a horse that seems to meet requirements, the horse should be tried and the reputable dealer will give the buyer every opportunity for such a trial. When the trial is satisfactory, the buyer should have him examined by a veterinary, and if sound the transaction should be closed. Warranties are not of much good. They cannot be enforced except through suits at law; and a lawsuit even when won would usually cost more than the loss on an unsatisfactory horse, if the horse were sent to the auction block immediately. Then try again. To buy one bad horse is no reason whatever for discouragement. One of the Tattersalls said that to have one good horse in a lifetime is as much as a man should expect.
The splendid specimens that we see in the show rings inspire us with the desire to have one or several of these, and as each show is followed by a sale there is our easy opportunity. But I am persuaded that to one not himself a horse-show exhibitor nothing is more unwise than to buy a horse-show winner. These horses are most highly keyed up and trained by most skilful hands. In the hands of one less skilful they rapidly deteriorate and in the ordinary park and road work they lose a major part of that style which originally inspired the purchase. This skill in handling has made itself so manifest that even in the horse shows the managers have been obliged to exclude the dealers from many of the classes. There are professional horse-show exhibitors notwithstanding this exclusion of the dealers, and their horses are probably more unsafe to buy than those of the dealers themselves. No, the horse-show horse is for the horse-show exhibitor.
Another discouraging thing about one’s first horses is the illnesses which they contract. As frequently as not this is due to the inexperience of the new owner, or to the change of home and climate. Dealers buying horses frequently have the animals inoculated against cold and fever—shipper’s fever, it is called. This should always be done as the result has been found to be most excellent. “You can get no use out of a Kentucky horse for the first year,” I have heard New Yorkers say. That may have been their experience; but when treated with the proper serum before shipment they do not suffer to any extent with colds and influenza. There is one disease, however, that I do not know how to provide against—nostalgia. The generality of horses are not very affectionate, for they are not very intelligent, being trained more by fear than anything else and going on in their work through custom. But they do love their homes, and that they should suffer from home-sickness until the satisfaction with the new environment wipes out the longing is inevitable. The homing instinct of a horse is very strong and also interesting. Take a horse ten or even twenty miles in a direction never traveled before, and then turn him towards home over a new route, and he knows it instantly and shows that he knows it by a quickened gait and a renewal of spirit. So these things should be taken into consideration with a new horse, and due allowance made for them.
A man who has an establishment and keeps many horses has one very difficult problem. It is customary for the coachman to get commissions, whether the coachman has been consulted in the purchase or not. The dealers understand this, and add to the price of the horse what will have to be paid to the coachman. I have had dealers ask me plainly whether I kept a coachman to settle with. And once when I sold a horse to a distinguished professional man in New York, he sent a check for $50 more than the agreed price, asking that that sum be given to the coachman as he did not want the horse lamed or put out of condition. This is a stable tradition that we have borrowed from England, and is a tyranny that should be suppressed not only by law but by custom. I sold a horse recently to a gentleman at a price not at all above his value. His negro coachman called at my house for his commission. I sent him away in short order and at once wrote his master a note telling of the visit and its object, and requesting him to pay his own servants.
If a man have leisure for travel, the breeding farm is a good place to purchase a horse. At most of these farms the horses are green, but at some they are thoroughly trained before being offered for sale. But none of these horses are accustomed to the fearsome sights and sounds of the city. So I should advise none but skilful horsemen to go to the farms to make purchases.
But the wisest course that an amateur can pursue is to take a loss quickly. Just as soon as you find that you do not want a horse, sell him. If there be a purchaser ready at hand, well and good; if not there is sure to be an auction block not far away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE STABLE AND ITS MANAGEMENT
Badly-constructed, badly-kept, and badly-managed stables are the contributing causes to most of the illnesses that horses suffer from. As nine stables out of ten in America are bad in all these three regards, I am confirmed in the belief that horses are very hardy animals instead of the delicate creatures that we sometimes think they are. That so many of them should be equal to hard and continuous work considering the conditions that surround them when they are at home is really quite remarkable. Even on breeding farms, where it is the business of the proprietors to rear fine animals for sale, the stables more frequently than not are wretched barns not fit even for the lodgement of mules. This is the case in Kentucky, even in the Blue Grass region. In many of the stables there I have seen tons of manure, that were most valuable for fertilization, left in the stables for no other reason that I could fathom than that it seemed to be no one’s business to take it away. “Why don’t you spread it on the pastures, or use it on the ploughed fields?” I asked one gentleman. “Oh, the ground does not need it,” he replied. I did not like to go any further for fear of seeming intrusive. Then again I did not believe that a man who thought tilled ground even in the limestone enriched land of the Blue Grass section would not be better for stable manure would bother particularly about the advantages of keeping stables clean.
Stables should be light not dark. There is a notion as old as the hills that a stable should be a dark and somber place. There are those who still hold stoutly to this view. Why a stable should be dark and the living room of a human being light, I cannot conceive. Light and air are the great purifying agents. Germs of various kinds multiply mightily in the dark, while many are killed by the light. The only reason that is given for a dark stable is that constant light in a horse’s eyes is likely to injure his organs of sight. I grant that cheerfully. Still there is no reason why there should not be light without the light shining directly into the eyes of the horses. It is as easy as possible to place the windows above the heads of the horses, and even to shield them with shutters that open upwards, shutters such as are so generally used on seaside cottages.
Ventilation is most important. This should always be provided for, however, so that in securing it there will not also be draughts either on the body or the legs of a horse. To accomplish this is not difficult even in the stables of the dry-goods-box pattern. The one supreme affection of a horse is for his home, and it is as little as an owner can do to make that home comfortable. Cleanliness is an imperative necessity. Without it the other things go for naught. There is no good reason why a stable should not be as clean as any other part of a gentleman’s establishment. And yet this is so seldom the case that a man who has visited a stable often brings with him to his house odors that are unmistakable and entirely objectionable to the sensitive olfactories of the more delicate members of his household. This cleanliness can only be secured by unremitting good housekeeping. The stable should not only be cleaned very thoroughly once a week, but it should be kept clean the other six days in the week. Any owner, no matter whether he be a good horseman or not, can see to this. He may not know the nice points in harnessing a horse or even the points of a horse, but his eyes and his nose can tell him whether his stable is clean. The droppings should be removed as soon as they are discovered, and they should not be piled up in the stable or against one of the walls of the stable on the outside, but removed to a distance, if in the country and treated for fertilizers; in a city stable they should be removed daily. This latter can be done without any expense to the owner, as there are manure collectors only too glad to cart it away.
Drainage is also most important, but it should always be surface drainage. Pipes beneath the floor are always getting clogged up, and hence becoming foul. Besides plumbing everywhere is expensive and bothersome. There should be as little as possible of it in a stable. Of course running water is most desirable if not necessary. But it should be restricted to two hydrants, one for carriage washing and one for drinking water. The surface drainage can be got rid of by having the floor of the stable a little bit elevated above the surrounding ground. Where the stable can be located so that there is declining ground on one side other than the exit, there is natural drainage which is a great advantage. The stalls also should have a very slight incline, so that they will keep dry naturally. This stall inclination, however, should be very slight, as it is desirable that a horse should have all his feet pretty nearly on the same level.
Box-stalls or not? This is a disputed matter. Some owners have only box-stalls in their stables; some none at all. In my opinion both ideas are wrong. Cutting up a stable into a series of boxes does not facilitate drainage, ventilation, light, or cleanliness. Then again it is doubtful whether a horse in a loose box-stall does not often acquire habits of independence that are sometimes uncomfortable and dangerous. In a stall a horse is tied, he is also more easily observed and therefore always under control. Box-stalls, however, are excellent for a horse that comes in very tired, or for one that is sick. So I should advise that in every stable there be one or two box-stalls, but that as a general thing the horses be kept in ordinary stalls. These stalls should be 9 feet long and 5 feet wide. A wider stall makes it easier for a horse to get cast. The ceiling of a stable should not be less than 12 feet.[[10]]
[10]. A carpenter in my neighborhood once asked me to select a horse for him from a drove that was on sale in the village. I picked out a large fine fellow, and the carpenter bought him. The next day I saw him with another horse. “Why, where is the roan?” I asked. “Oh, I had to take him back, he was too big for the stable!” “Why the dickens did you not make the stable bigger?” was my comment to the carpenter.
Every stable should be kept cool in summer and warm in winter. But artificial heat should never be used, as it is in some of the sumptuous stables of the over-rich in the large cities. A horse does his work in the open, and there is no sense in pampering him. In very cold weather the stable should be kept as warm as is possible without stoves or steam-pipes, and the horse made comfortable with good blankets and plenty of straw for his bedding. In the summer when the thermometers are trying to climb to a hundred in the shade, then the shutters should be regulated so as to keep out the direct rays on the sunny side, and other windows and doors be left open.
Harness room and coach room depend almost entirely on the size of the establishment that is kept. Both, however, should be light—then both can be seen without difficulty by the owner when he makes inspections. These inspections, by the way, should not be made at stated times, but at any time. An owner who expects his horses to be kept in good condition and turned out with proper harness to proper traps must take an interest in his stable and be on good terms with his servants. There is no suggestion of familiarity in this, but only the good understanding and the good feeling that always exists between that master and man, when the one gives and other gets good service.
A well-groomed horse is so fine a thing that we have latterly applied the term to fine men and beautiful women. The grooming of a horse is an art, which is not practised on more than one or two per cent of the horses at work in the United States. The others are cleaned in a happy-go-lucky fashion, which makes them neither clean nor beautiful. This is not as it should be; a horse that is compelled to give service to a man is entitled to good attention. An ungroomed or improperly groomed horse has an offensive odor. This does not conduce to the pleasure of a person using such a horse nor to the well being of the horse himself. In grooming a horse the brush and cloth alone are needed. A currycomb—once universally used—should never be put on a horse. It serves a good purpose, however, in cleaning the brush. And that is its only service. Where an owner knows or suspects that the currycomb is used directly on the horse it is better to banish it entirely. When a horse has been put away covered with sweat and the sweat allowed to dry, it is very much easier to remove this salty deposit with a currycomb than with a brush. But a horse should never be put away without being thoroughly groomed except when he comes in so tired that the grooming would further fatigue him. This is sometimes the case. When it is so the horse should have quite loosely-wrapped bandages put on his legs, he should be well blanketed, given a swallow of water and turned into a box-stall knee deep in straw. Then when this horse is rested enough to be groomed, the mud on his legs will have become caked and will come off by using the hand and a wisp of straw, the polishing being finished with the brush and cloth. The dried sweat should be removed in the same way.
When a muddy horse comes into the stable it is a great temptation to play the hose on his legs, and so wash the mud off. This should never be done. The only places where water should be applied to a horse are the feet and the other hairless portions. These should be washed with a sponge. The washing of a horse’s feet before he is put away is most important. “No foot, no horse” is the old English rule. And it is as true as gospel. The feet should always be kept clean in the stable, and at night they should be packed with sponge or felt. The foot of a horse is an important part of him, and every owner should see that they are well looked after. And in accomplishing this he will not find it an easy job, for a horse has to have his shoes changed every three or four weeks, and if the feet be not ruined by the farrier or the fads of his groom or coachman then he is lucky. Every man that has anything to do with horses sooner or later develops notions as to horseshoeing, the blacksmith usually knowing much less than any one else but confident that he knows it all. He should know it all, as to shoe horses is his business. As a matter of fact, however, his practice, if he be permitted to have his own sweet will, is to lame horses and ruin their feet. There are a few good horse-shoers, however, and if an owner find one in his neighborhood he is lucky. I shall not attempt, however, to write a treatise on horseshoeing. There are books in abundance on the subject, and any man who wishes to become an accomplished amateur on the subject can find plenty to study and also an abundance of instruction. But there are a few principles that dominate all else. The shoe should be neither too large nor too small. A large shoe stretches the hoof too much, a small shoe pinches the hoof and makes corns. Then do not permit the blacksmith to pare the sole and frog of the foot or rasp or burn the hoof to make it fit the shoe he has selected. The shoe should be made to fit the hoof, and as few nails used as is consistent with security. As the hoof is growing all the time, just as a man’s finger-nails grow, the shoes need often to be changed so that they will not be too small and so contract the hoof. The ideal horse is the barefoot horse, but this is not possible when a horse is used on pavements or hard roads. Then the shoe should not be too heavy. Heavy shoes merely make a horse’s work very much harder.
The feeding and watering of a horse are most important. The horse can carry only a little food, as his stomach is small compared with his size and his need of nourishment. But he can drink a good deal of water. He should have both food and water equal to his needs. He should always be fed three times a day, and he would not be the worse if he were treated as the Germans treat themselves, with four meals a day. Moreover, a horse’s food should be varied a little. Oats and hay three times a day for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year may suffice, but it seems to me very like a cruelty when it is so easy to vary the food with barley, beans, pease, corn, turnips, and many other things easy to obtain and not at all expensive. A little nibble of fresh grass occasionally is also a grateful change, but not much of this should be given when a horse is doing steady work. The allowance of oats in the United States army is ten quarts a day. This with plenty of hay is a good allowance and will keep a horse in good condition, but a hearty eater can make way with twelve quarts a day and be all the better for it. The hay should not be fed from a rack over the manger, but from the ground. When carrots are fed they should be sliced; whole they might choke a horse. When corn is fed it should be given on the cob. In this way the horse improves his teeth and helps his gums, while he is obliged to feed slowly.
A horse should be watered before eating, and the last thing at night before the stable is closed. And when the horse comes in tired he should be given a mouthful of water, even before he is permitted to drink his fill. I have seen stables where there was running water in a trough in each stall. I do not recommend this, nor yet a common drinking-place for all the horses in a stable. A bucket filled from a hydrant and held up to the horse is the best way. A horse needs salt. The best way to give it to him is to put a crystal of rock salt in his trough and let it remain there. He will then take it when he pleases, and not too much at a time.
One man cannot properly look after an unlimited number of horses. If the stableman does no driving he can look after four together with the vehicles and harness. If he has to go out with the carriages he cannot manage more than three. Without a proper, sober, and sensible stableman, a gentleman can never have any satisfaction out of his horses. They are hard to get, but there are such. If a man be an accomplished horseman he can train his own servants, and be pretty sure of nearly always being well served. If he know nothing himself he will have to use his own intelligence and learn. In case he will not do this he had better not keep horses. Saddles should be dried in the sun when it is possible. Stirrups and bits should be cleaned at once as it is much easier to prevent rust than remove it. The same rule should apply to all harness and to carriages. The best results will never be obtained unless the grooms be given ample time to harness or saddle a horse. Sometimes, of course, in cases of emergency this has to be done “on the jump,” but generally speaking the groom should be given time to do his work with calm carefulness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RIDING AND DRIVING
All of us have heard of natural riders. It must be that when any one with knowledge of the art of riding speaks in this way that he means to say that the individuals alluded to had a great natural capacity to acquire the art of riding, for riding is an art and does not come to any one except through practice, instruction, and imitation. Some persons can acquire a foreign tongue with what seems an easy facility—while others of equal mentality—have the greatest difficulty and never succeed in any eminent degree. Those to whom the acquirement of foreign tongues is easy have a gift for languages, just as some others have a gift for mathematics or for rhyming or for drawing. And so it is in Equitation. To some riding comes easily, to others it is difficult, while some others seem absolutely incapable of acquiring a good seat, good hands, and that knowledge of horse nature which complete the equipment of every expert in the art. I confess that I do not know much about riding schools, nor indeed that I have seen much of them. When I was a boy in Kentucky there were no riding schools there, and I am not at all sure that there have ever been. And yet so competent a judge and careful an observer as Mr. Edward L. Anderson has expressed the opinion that the Kentuckians are the best riders in America.
If this be so, and I agree with him, it must be that the Kentuckians in educating their horses also educated themselves. This seems reasonable enough, for the Kentucky saddle-horse is the best trained of any saddle animals in America, though the circus tricks of what are called the “high-school horse” are unknown. It used to be common there at the county fairs to have rings for men, and for boys under fifteen, in which they competed with one another as to skill in horsemanship. The competitors put their horses through all the paces and were required by the judges to change horses, so as to see what each rider could do on a strange horse. These rings were most interesting, and the largest crowds of visitors were usually attracted by these features. I never saw any “circus tricks” but once. Then a German, who had served in the Civil War, entered in the contest making his horse do the common high-school feats, including that of going to his knees and lying down. This German carried off the blue ribbon to the amazement of many, including myself. The fact proved, however, that the Kentuckians, who happened to be judges that day, were not inhospitable to foreign ideas, and recognized that the best rider was the one who had the greatest control over his horse and could get the most out of him. Now I believe that they were right, though at the time I protested against such a judgment with all my might. Since then in the army riding schools many of these arts are properly included in the course of instruction. No good knowledge is amiss in a horse, and the best rider is he who can make his horse do the most kinds of things, even though some of them seem rather absurd and useless. It goes rather against the grain for me to say this for I, like most gentlemen riders in America, was brought up with the English notion that to ride straight and fast and be in at the finish was both the beginning and the end of horsemanship, while I looked upon anything else as not only superfluous but rather unmanly. In this country at that time, and to a very great extent now, we looked upon all the Continental people of Europe as most unsportsmanlike and mere dandy frivolers in horsemanship. This is the case in England to-day, universally the case. There the hunting field and the polo grounds are the only places where horsemanship is put to the test. In those fields the riding of Englishmen and Irishmen is superb. No other people can compete with them. That is natural enough, however, as they do more in the way of hunting and polo than any others and pay more attention to the breeding of horses suitable to these kinds of work. But the prejudice against the Continentals in horsemanship is as insular as many other opinions that are cherished there. It is also entirely undeserved. Among the French, the Germans, the Austrians and Italians are splendid riders, men who can go anywhere an Englishman can, and also perform feats an Englishman never dreamed of.
I recall very well when Buffalo Bill first took his “Broncho Busters” to England that the press and the people, particularly the horsemen, insisted that these vicious wild horses, that had been spoiled in the breaking, were merely trick horses, trained to their antics and taught to buck and plunge and turn somersaults. At length came the request that some English riders be permitted to try the bronchos. The request was hospitably entertained, and one afternoon several men appeared. They insisted, however, that they be permitted to use English saddles and bridles. This request was acceded to and the experiments were tried. I never saw a more pitiful exhibition of helplessness. They tumbled off as though they were inexperienced babies, and some were more or less hurt. Indeed the experiments resulted in so many accidents that they were given up as too dangerous. The English saddle and the English seat are well adapted to the hunting field, but not at all suitable for the kind of riding cow-punchers have to do and the kind of horses that they have to use. This is proved by the fact that when an Englishman goes into ranch life in this country, and many of them have done it, they soon adopt the Mexican saddle and the cowboy seat. The many exhibitions given by Cody in Europe have made the people over there believe that the Rough Rider is the typical American horseman. It is unquestionably an American style that is well adapted to the work and the purpose which created it. And yet there are no schools at which a man can learn rough riding except the ranches. There I am sure there is no systematic instruction; but the beginner observes and imitates the experts, and by practice acquires the art which enables him to “bust” a broncho. Some learn quickly, some slowly, and some never at all.
This is as it is in other kinds of riding whether in the park, over the hurdles or in the hunting field. Instruction, imitation, and practice are what make a rider—the man who rides the most being apt to be the best. Even, however, when a man rides a great deal, unless he use intelligence he will never become either expert or graceful. I have known men who rode for many years without acquiring either grace or skill in the saddle. This was either from inaptitude or from a careless disregard of the principles of the art. I have known other men who had strong seats, which enabled them to acquit themselves well in the hunting field, but who never were graceful or seemed entirely at ease. They simply lacked the grace that usually is part and parcel of good horsemanship. It is generally supposed that at West Point Military Academy there is maintained the best riding school in the country. This is probably true. But I have seen comparatively few American army officers who looked “smart” in the saddle. Their idea is, no doubt, to be businesslike rather than finished. In this I believe they are quite wrong for “slouchiness” is out of harmony with the military seat just as it is in the park or the show ring. It finds its only appropriate place among the rough riders of the plain.
“I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,—
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus;
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”
The Indian should probably be considered the real American type[[11]] of rider. There were no horses here when the whites came, but the Indians rather quickly caught and subjugated some of the wild horses that were descended from the castaways of the Spanish explorers. They undoubtedly taught themselves to ride in the first place, though many of them had seen mounted white men. It is impossible to think that in the many generations that they have been using horses, that they have not improved in their horsemanship. At any rate they have a style of their own, and as bareback riders they cut a great dash. But they are not good horsemen. They are cruel to their horses, and are far from getting the best results out of their mounts. The whites, as was proved year after year in the frontier warfare, can outride them even when the whites carry more weight and more impedimenta.
[11]. I hope it will never occur to a visitor to this country to think that what is called the mounted traffic squad of the New York police represent any American type of riders. With them it is go-as-you-please and kind Heaven help us from falling off. Only a few moments before making this note I saw a group of these police going through the Fourth avenue. Some were ambling, some single-footing, some in a hand gallop and some trotting. One noble horse, fit for a general’s charger, was going two or three gaits at once and the rider keeping his seat with the help of the reins.
The best horseman usually gets his instruction and acquires most of his skill in his early youth. But there is no use in putting a boy on a horse until he has intelligence enough to learn what he is told to do and strength sufficient to keep his seat and manage his horse. The pony for very young children is merely a plaything. No child ever learned much from a pony or by means of a pony. The horse is what a man rides, and it is upon a horse that a child should be taught. A large horse would not be suitable for a boy of ten or eleven, the earliest age that a boy can learn much that is valuable of the art. But the small horse, something like a polo pony for instance, may be and should be very much of a horse—all horse, indeed. Where there is a good riding school—that is the place to send a lad for his first instruction. There are some grooms, however, who make excellent instructors, even though as a general thing grooms look like the dickens in the saddle. They know horses, however, and know how to ride them, even though they do not acquire the finish and excellence that is to be expected of gentlemen. But as critics of the riding of others they are often unexcelled. Have some kind of a master, unless he be an ignoramus, for a lad in the beginning, and by no means let him go at the game by the light of nature. Uninstructed he is sure to acquire habits that it will be harder for him to overcome than it would have been for him to be correct from the beginning. And he should be given a reason for everything he is told to do. That it is necessary to be reasonable in riding makes me sometimes think that it would be just as well not to put a boy on a horse until he was fifteen or sixteen. The objection to this delay is that a lad will be kept out of four or five years of fun in the very playtime of his life.
A beginner should use only a snaffle-bit with one rein. The awkwardness of a beginner and his disposition to help keep his seat with the aid of the reins is frequently a severe hardship on a horse and pretty sure to ruin a horse’s mouth. Besides both snaffle and curb are in the beginning confusing, and too much of a handful for a tyro in a novel position. Of course a correct seat in the saddle is impossible at first, but an effort at it should be made from the start. When the beginner is placed in the saddle he should sit up straight and let his legs hang down straight. Then the stirrups should be adjusted so that when the ball of the foot is upon the iron, the leg still being straight, the heel will be about three inches below the stirrup. Then the rider should be required to so bend his knees that his toe and heel will be on a level without moving back into the saddle so that his buttocks will be against the cantle. This bending of the knees will bring them in a position so that they can clutch the horse and secure his seat. Great emphasis should be laid upon the fact that the toes should not be turned out. The feet should be parallel with the horse. When they are so the knees come in contact with the saddle and the seat is secured. When a rider turns out his toes he must depend upon the calf of the leg to form his clutch. This not only is awkward, but it prevents the thighs from doing their part of the work.
Being thus mounted the beginner should only walk his horse at first. Indeed I should not recommend anything faster than a walk in the first lesson. The object of that first lesson is to familiarize a novice to a novel position, and enable him to know something of the sensation of being astride a horse. If he go faster at first he is sure to bump around and tug on the reins, the latter being about the greatest sin against horsemanship. After this he can go in a very slow trot, and still later in a hand gallop. Having acquired the capacity to keep his seat in these gaits with his feet parallel to the horse and his knees well in and without tugging on the reins to keep his balance, he has reached the point when he may be instructed to ride with both reins, snaffle, and curb. There are some riders who never use other than the snaffle, indeed it was quite a fad in the neighborhood of New York a few years ago. But I do not believe that the very best results can be obtained without the curb. The curb enables a rider to keep his horse better in hand, and a horse not in hand under the saddle is apt to do several disagreeable things—sprawl or be slouchy in his gaits, for instance, or worse than all tumble down.
To hold the snaffle and curb reins in the left hand properly so that either one or both may be used at pleasure is most important. The reins of the curb bit should be divided by the little finger, the reins of the snaffle by the long finger, the loose ends of both pairs being carried through the hand and held by the thumb against the forefinger. The right hand should be kept on the loose ends of the reins behind the left, and when reins are needed to be shortened the right hand should pull them or either of them through the bridle hand; but when the right hand is needed in assistance of the bridle hand, the right should be placed in front of the left. The knuckles of the bridle rein should be kept up. This all seems simple enough, and it is so simple when learned that an experienced rider never gives it a thought; but new riders some times find it hard to learn, indeed some never learn it.
The beginner should not use a spur. Most people think a spur is an instrument of punishment. It should seldom be so used. It is merely a tool to assist the rider in conveying his wishes to the horse. But to an obstinate, pig-headed horse it is a reminder that the rider has something in reserve. The horse, by the way, is not the intellectual animal that some think, and “horse sense” ought not to be much of a compliment to a man. Seven horses out of ten will become bullies, and get the upper hand if they be suffered so to do. There is one sense, however, that even a bullying horse always preserves—he knows the touch of the master hand and stops his “monkey shines” in very short order. But there are other horses—crazy horses and fool horses. The crazy horse can be subdued by the Rarey or other similar method, but for the fool horse there is no hope. He learns nothing, remembers nothing—the glue factory for him is the only proper place.
And how late in life can a man take up horseback riding? That is hard to say. There are men and men—some at forty are to all intents and purposes sixty, while others at sixty appear not over forty. So long as a man retains a reasonable amount of suppleness and agility he is not too old to take up horseback riding and get great pleasure and benefit out of it, while if he began as a youth and has kept it up there is no reason why he should give it up so long as he can sit a horse and the exercise is not too exhausting. Remember what Lord Palmerston said: “The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.” And it is so; there is no exercise that so aids digestion, none which more completely takes the cobwebs out of the brain. A man who takes up horseback riding in middle life need not expect to become as accomplished say as his son who began at twelve; but if he will give his mind to it he will be apt to do very well and will surely get from it both pleasure and profit. I know a lady who did not take up horseback riding until she was a mother. I have seen her in the hunting field since she became a grandmother sailing along as gaily as a bird, and even taking a tumble with the serene amiability of a youth in small clothes. But she has found the fabled spring.
That every rider will sooner or later have a fall is inevitable. Therefore when the first one comes there should be no discouragement, even to a man of middle age. Many falls are prevented when a horse stumbles by gathering the horse, and assisting him to regain his footing. But often, in jumping particularly, the fall cannot be prevented. When the rider feels it coming the best way is to take the feet from the stirrups, tuck in the chin, and fall as much like a ball as possible, holding the reins, however, until the feet are surely clear of the stirrups. I was recently knocked off my horse on a steep hillside path by coming in contact with the limb of a tree. I rolled down the hillside for fifty feet, but suffered no inconvenience though I weigh 175 pounds and carry an undue amount of that weight at the middle. Had I landed on my head, the consequences would probably have been serious.
Every rider should learn how to make a horse change his lead in the gallop, that is, change the leading foot from right to left and back again. Horses naturally go with the right foot in front or the left foot in front, as the case may be, just as children are more dextrous with the right hand or the left. When the change is desired, the horse should be well in hand, and when from right to left is required the right heel should be applied when the leading foot is on the ground, and the hind legs are leaving it; immediately thereafter as the right fore foot is rising the left rein should make a slight play and the change in lead will be effected without a false step or disturbance in pace. Every rider should practise making figure eights, each circle being from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and asking his horse to change the lead when going from one circle to the other. In some show rings the judges require that the riders do this, and those who accomplish it easily and gracefully help their score very considerably.
The American jockeys have developed a new method of race riding, a kind of acrobatic horsemanship, which when the English first saw it they called the “monkey-on-the-stick” style. The jockeys use very short stirrups and seem to throw the weight even forward of the withers so as to relieve the hind legs, where the propelling power is, from as much weight as possible. It seems effective and has been almost universally adopted by all save steeplechase riders, who still use a stirrup long enough for both knees and legs to embrace the horse—or as Mr. Anderson says, they still ride like men.
A good rider is apt to be also a tolerable driver. The contrary of this, however, is not in the least the case. There are many good drivers who were never mounted in their lives. Probably also there are many more good drivers in this country than good riders. It is with us a more universal method of employing the horse. Notwithstanding this, good driving is by no means universal. Indeed I doubt whether it is common. It seems the easiest thing in the world to sit in a wagon and pull on the right rein or the left and go wheresoever one chooses. Because it seems so easy all kinds and conditions of people essay to drive no matter how little experience they may have. I have sometimes been nearly scared out of my wits in driving with a man or woman whose every act displayed ignorance of even first principles. Probably no more grievous insult could be paid to a man than to betray lack of confidence in his capacity to drive, and latterly when I have been asked to go with a man, even to the golf links two miles away, when I knew he did not know how to handle the reins or manage a horse I have blandly declined. Death comes to all of us, but there seems to be lack of wisdom in seeking it in such an ignoble fashion.
The men who train trotting horses in America are the most wonderful drivers the world has ever seen. They seem to get more speed out of a horse at less expense than any others. I have often thought that the lowering of trotting records in America had been assisted in a great degree by the increasing skill of American drivers. How many seconds this skill may be responsible for I have no idea—maybe one second, maybe five or ten. But their patience in developing the horse and their skill in driving is responsible for a good deal. I have often watched the trotters on the Speedway in New York, and many a time I have seen contests which I was sure would have been reversed had the drivers been changed. No doubt some men have an aptness for driving, just as others have an aptness for riding; but driving is also an art which can be acquired only by instruction, imitation, and practice together with a knowledge of and consideration for horses. There are so many things that a man must know to make him a good driver that it would take a book by itself in which to set down the rules. I shall not make such an essay, but content myself with a few fundamental principles.
The first that I shall mention may seem trifling but is really of much importance. It matters not so much what kind of coat a driver may wear, but he must have a hat that fits so well that it will not be blown off even in a gale. Many awkward happenings have resulted from a driver’s efforts to secure his hat at a moment when all his attention was needed by his horse or horses. He should also have proper gloves. They should be loose enough to enable him free use of his fingers, and indeed of all of his hands, but not so loose that they will slip off while he is driving. A size larger than his dress gloves would, I should say, be about the right thing. They should also be heavy enough to prevent the reins from hurting his hands. Dogskin is probably the best material.
Then he should, even in a runabout, be, at least, above his horse. This is regulated by a driver’s cushion with a slant, the back being about three inches above the front. His feet should not be sprawled out against the dashboard, nor yet tucked awkwardly underneath him. Indeed with a driver’s cushion either attitude would be uncomfortable if not impossible. What he should seek for is a position in which he is at ease in all his movements for a driver has to drive all the time, at every moment from the starting out until he sets foot on the ground and turns over his horse to the groom. It is carelessness in driving that causes nearly all the accidents, for it is the unexpected that is always happening.
One should always drive with the left hand, using the right to hold the whip and give assistance to the left when it is required to shorten the rein. A good mouth is just as excellent in a driving horse as in a saddle-horse. The mouth should be like velvet, and at all times responsive to the telegraphic signal from the hands of the driver. To drive with a slack rein makes a horse slouchy even when a check is used. To pull on a horse hardens his mouth and lessens the control of the driver. Nothing is more unpleasant than a pulling horse. It is as fatiguing in harness as in the saddle. And a puller is the easiest thing to accomplish. When it has been accomplished the driver does as much work as the horse. To smack a horse with the reins instead of using the whip may be well enough for old Dobbin on the farm, but it is a silly habit which hurts the horse, without being effective for the purpose intended, while it proves the driver to have no knowledge of the business. Jerking on the reins, or rather giving a pull and then letting them loose to make a horse quicken his gait is unworthy even of a peddler or a city huckster.
Keep your eye on your horse. That is the most important thing in driving. The driver is in command, and it is the horse’s part to obey. This may seem an unnecessary thing when jogging along on a long clear road. But we should not jog along. A brisk pace is the proper pace to drive at, and if the road be very long a rest can be taken and no time be lost, while if the journey be only seven or eight miles the brisk pace reduces the time, and the horse is sooner in the stable and at rest. Poking along at a jog will in time ruin any horse. It will spoil his style, detract from his speed, and take away his spirit. When a horse is taken along briskly, it is absolutely necessary to keep him always well in hand—not a pulling on the bit, but a feeling of the bit so that the horse will know every instant of the time that he is being driven by one who is master.
A driver should keep in communion with his horse. A horse has a keen sense of hearing and a good memory for a voice. The master should have his horse well acquainted with his voice. But he should not do too much talking or chirruping when other horses are about. That is a discourtesy to other drivers whose horses may be fretted and made restless when it is meant that they should stand still. The disregard of this is not only annoying but has been the cause of many accidents at crowded railway stations, where many traps are waiting for the home-comers.
As to the method of holding the reins Mr. Price Collier, a most accomplished horseman and charming writer on driving says: “The reins should be held with the near rein between the thumb and first finger, the off-rein between the third and fourth fingers. Hold your hand so that your knuckles, turned towards your horse, and the buttons on your waistcoat, will make two parallel lines up and down with the hand three or four inches from the body. The reins should be clasped, or held by the two lower, or fourth and fifth fingers; the second finger should point straight across and upward enough to keep the near rein over the knuckle of that finger and the thumb pointing in the same direction, but not so much upward. The reins are held not by squeezing them on their flat surfaces, but by pressure on their edges. The edges, in a word, being held between the two last fingers and the root of the thumb. This arrangement makes a flexible joint of the wrist, for the reins and for the bit to play upon. This suppleness of wrist, just enough and not too much, is what is called ‘hands.’ It means that your wrist gives just enough play to the horse’s mouth to enable him to feel your influence, without being either confused or hampered by it. As this is the key to perfection in all driving, everybody claims to possess it; only the elect few have it.”
In leaving the stable or starting out from any other place, you should go quietly. Nothing is more vulgar than to rush off with the idea of “cutting a dash.” It does not give the horse a fair show, and driver and horse are not yet in good adjustment. And in stopping also it is vulgar to rush to the stopping place and throw the horse on his haunches by a quick pull. Neither of these things is done by good drivers, but is the practice of either the ignorant or vulgar who wish to attract attention to themselves at places where there are likely to be spectators.
I have often heard it said that two horses were easier to drive than one. I always marked down the person who made such a remark as not being thoroughly in earnest, or not knowing the subject he was discussing. I do not know how much harder it is to drive two horses than one. That is I cannot express the difference mathematically. But there is a good deal. Any reasonably strong man can prevent one horse from getting away with him. Few can prevent a thoroughly frightened team if they once get off. The thing is not to let them get off. Not to permit this requires that he shall control two animals, for when one of a pair gets frightened he quickly communicates his fear to his mate. When the panic is serious then serious trouble is likely to ensue. With a runaway horse or a runaway pair the circumstances of the moment must control. If the road is clear and the driver can keep the horse straight all may go well; but horses nearly always choose to get frightened when the conditions are nearly the opposite of this. Then the circumstances of the moment must guide the driver. If he keeps his head cool and can prevent collisions, he will probably come out safely. But the best of them have been run away with. This comes sooner or later to every man who uses horses constantly. Eternal vigilance will prevent most all of the accidents that might happen; but human nature is fallible and horses are very uncertain. Carelessness in the driver, however, is responsible for ninety and nine of every hundred driving accidents that happen. The flying automobile, in recent years, has been responsible for a great many. I must say, however, that I never met but once with anything but the greatest consideration from automobilists that I have encountered when driving. The discourteous one proved to be a dentist, and the mission of dentists in the world is, I believe, to give people pain.
Every driver should know when his horses are properly harnessed and hitched to the vehicle. And he should never fail to look over the whole “turn out” in every detail to see that all is secure and each part in proper adjustment to every other part. The horse show authorities have formulated rules as to what is proper for one vehicle and another. The experts are veritable martinets and attach as much importance to a strap here and a buckle there as the unlucky King of Prussia, who did battle with Napoleon, attached to one row or two rows of buttons on a soldier’s coat. Intelligence, however, can find its way without much regard to these fine points. But it is never safe to trust to grooms and stablemen even though they may really know more about it than the driver himself. The driver is the master, and he should make the inspection even though it be only a formal one—he should assume a virtue though he has it not. Inspections of the work of stablemen do not go amiss unless the unlucky master should take to finding mares’ nests. Two or three such discoveries will hurt discipline amazingly.
There is now a good deal of four-in-hand driving in America. It is only now pleasure driving, and quite different from that of the coaching days of our grandfathers’ time. This is an art which a man may be able to pick up himself. But the safest and quickest course is to take instruction from a professional or from a friend, if so amiable a friend can be found. It is, of course, more difficult to drive four than two horses. But this can be learned by any cool-headed man who has the good fortune to be a horseman to start out with. Not having that gift he would do well to let it alone. Some of the most accomplished four-in-hand drivers about New York are women, which shows that it is not main strength that is effective, but skill and practice. Practice and intelligence combined will overcome most all of the difficulties. By practice I do not mean an hour a day for a couple of weeks, but six hours a day for two or three years; and by intelligence I mean the instructed knowledge which enables a driver to know the reason for each thing that is done.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRAINING VS. BREAKING
As has been frequently remarked before in this volume, the horse is not a very intelligent animal. Nor has he any of that natural affection and fidelity that is so remarkable in the dog. This being the case—and it is so no matter what the sentimentalists who know nothing about the subject may say—the training of a young horse is a thing requiring much patient intelligence on the part of the person who undertakes the job. But this patience is rewarded if the young horse have qualities that are worthy of development. I fancy that seven horses out of ten in the United States are broken before their training begins. This means, in my opinion, that a large percentage of a horse’s value is deliberately thrown away in the very beginning of his career of usefulness. A horse broken is a horse half spoiled. The “Broncho Buster” is the typical horse breaker. Those who have not been on the frontier have seen the Broncho Buster’s methods in the Wild West circuses. A young horse or a wild horse is saddled and bridled. A Rough Rider mounts and stays on the back of the young thing until the animal is conquered and subdued through fear and fatigue. This brutal method of treating young horses used to be universal in America. That so much of it should still be done is not complimentary to the intelligence and kindliness of American horse owners. It is about on a par with the treatment that weak-minded persons received a century or so ago. They were beaten and maltreated and kept in order by cruelty and harshness—ruled, indeed, by the fear of those who should have treated them with the most patient kindness. When the spirit is taken out of a horse by his early handling, we can never hope to develop his small intelligence very far, or to guide his instincts in the right direction. While a horse’s intelligence is of a low order, he has a fine memory. His fear being aroused in the beginning, he remains afraid, and is controlled by his fear alone—his fear of being hurt. This always seemed to me a cowardly way of acting, for the horse is one of the most timid of all animals. To beat a horse is about as noble as to beat a child.
The breeders of good horses are pretty generally giving up the rough methods of breaking. Their horses are too valuable to be trifled with in this way. There are some horses that are naturally vicious. With them the gentle method will not accomplish the desired result. They have to be conquered in another way. When this is the case, I much prefer the Rarey method. Rarey so fashioned a harness that he could cast a horse the moment that a horse disobeyed. After a horse has been thrown a few times he usually comes to the conclusion that obedience is the safer plan. There is nothing cruel in the Rarey method and with bad horses it is much to be preferred to the brutal breaking style. The horse is not hurt, he is merely surprised at the result of his own waywardness.
The Arabs handle their horses from the time they are foaled, so that they are from the beginning accustomed to men, women and children and all the other things common to a human habitation. That is the way all young horses should be treated. To be sure this involves a good deal of work and many think that it does not pay, so they turn their colts out and let them get two or three years old before anything is done with them. This is as wise as to let a boy run wild and uninstructed until a year or so before he is bidden to go forth and earn his own living. When a colt is accustomed to persons and not afraid of being touched or led, only patience and intelligence is required to complete his education without any fight or contest whatever.
Before the colt is a year old it should be accustomed to the cavesson while running in a paddock, and when a year old it should be practised on the lunge, a rein of fifteen feet long attached to the nose-piece of the cavesson. This is a head-collar with a metal nose-band, upon the front and each side of which are rings. To the front ring the leather lunge is fastened and from the side rings straps will be buckled to a surcingle or girth at such lengths as will prevent the colt from extending the face much beyond the perpendicular. The colt should then be led about, stopping and starting, time and time again until it has some comprehension of the word of command. The feet should be lifted so that the colt realizes that the trainer has no intention to do him harm. After good terms have been established the colt should be practised on the lunge, the trainer standing in the center of a circle, and letting the colt walk first and then trot slowly around the circumference of the circle—first to the right, then to the left. These short lessons should be given every day. Soon a colt enjoys the exercise, evidently thinking it play. If it be a driving horse that is being trained, harness should soon be added so that the colt will not be afraid of it, and also a light bridle with a snaffle-bit or, better still, a leather bit. If it be a saddle-horse that is being trained, the lunging and bitting should continue until the colt is passed two years old before he is saddled or mounted.
Suppose we take the saddle-horse first. Two-year-old colts are often trained by light weight riders. At three their serious education is continued, and at four they are given their accomplishments. The colt, after being practised on the lunge, should be taught somewhat the meaning and the purpose of the bit before he is mounted. Patience and gentleness to the end that fear may be banished will enable a trainer to get a colt into such an acquiescent condition that when the rider finally gets into the saddle the colt accepts the innovation with nothing exceeding a mild surprise. The saddle should be used in the lunge exercise several times before a man mounts. Some recommend that a weight, such as a bag of meal, be tied into the saddle towards the end of the lunge exercises so that the colt will get used to weight on the back. This is not a bad idea. Before the rider mounts the first time, the stirrups should be pulled down and pressure be put upon them so that the colt may feel the weight of the saddle. When the foot of the rider is first put into the stirrup he should raise himself very gently, the left hand being in the mane of the colt. After bearing all his weight a few seconds in the stirrup he should return to the ground without taking his seat in the saddle. This he should repeat several times, the number of times depending upon how the colt acts. At any rate, this half-mounting should be continued until the colt is no longer disturbed by it. Then the rider may take his seat in the saddle. This should be done as quietly as possible. He should sit in the saddle a few minutes and then dismount. The mounting and dismounting should continue until the colt is accustomed to it. This will not be long if everything be done easily, slowly and gently. An awkward man has no business in trying to train a saddle-horse. A flop into the saddle would, naturally, frighten a colt and defeat the purpose in view. When the colt has become used to a rider in the saddle the rider should close his legs against the sides of the colt, draw a slight tension on the reins, and induce the colt to go forward in a walk. There should be nothing but the walk in the first few lessons. In them, however, the colt should be taught the meaning of the bit so that he could be guided in whatever direction the rider wishes. In nine times out of ten a colt that has been treated as I have described will be quiet and do what is asked of him without any excitement. If the colt does get excited then the whole work will have to be done over and over, with more patience and more gentleness, until the colt acquiesces. It is most important that all these first steps be taken quite slowly, otherwise the colt will get hot and excited, and then may come a fight which is the thing most to be avoided. I can see a rough rider turning up a scornful nose at these admonitions. Very well! Be scornful as much as you choose, I am not writing about the training of a broncho, but of a horse fit for a gentleman to ride.
After the mounted colt goes quietly in the walk, then he should be trotted gently, and if the rider is a light weight, cantered, too. But as a two-year-old work should be very light—play, indeed. At three years old the colt may be confirmed in his gaits, but not worked a great deal harder than at two. At four years old the colt is ready for the finishing touches and the beginning of his life work. But he is not nearly up to the hard work of which he should be capable between six and sixteen.
Trainers of colts for driving hitch them up when they are yearlings, and drive them a little to a low cart built with long shafts and running out behind. Before being hitched up, however, he is harnessed and driven around with a pair of long reins, being guided by the driver to one way and another, and being stopped and started at the word of command. When the colt is harnessed to the cart a strong kicking strap should be used. A few lessons a week driven in such a cart will work wonders so that when the colt is two years old there will be no difficulty in driving him in an ordinary road cart. In driving a colt the same precautions should be used as in training a colt for the saddle—it should not be frightened or treated roughly.
It is probably more important to accustom a young driving horse than a riding horse to the sights and sounds that are likely to be encountered on the road. Here, too, patience and gentle firmness are amply rewarded. Whenever I see a driver thrashing a young horse to compel him to go by an automobile or a trolley car or some other strange and fearsome thing, I have a desire to get the whip and apply it to the driver. Such treatment of a horse is not only cruel, but it is utterly foolish. The horse is frightened at what he sees. He is afraid that in some way it will hurt him. And why should he not be? These devil wagons are frightful enough in appearance to scare a less timid animal than a horse. There is only one course to pursue. Teach the horse that the automobile or other frightful machine will not hurt him. Do this, not with the whip, not with shouts and execrations, but by leading the horse up to the offending machine until he realizes that it is not some monster of destruction. Patience and sense will prevent almost any horse from acquiring bad and dangerous habits of shying and bolting. Curing a horse of established habits is quite another and a different thing. It is like reforming the dissolute or regenerating the depraved. The horse, however, is not blameworthy. These bad habits are always the result of foolishness on the part of some man. The sensible course is not to permit a horse to acquire bad habits. This is a thousand times easier than curing them. Patient firmness and gentle insistence will prevent bad habits in all save those that are fools. A fool horse is too worthless to bother about.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CONFORMATION AND ACTION
In the horse shows an exhibitor, except in the Thoroughbred classes, is not required to furnish the pedigrees of his horses. The judges, therefore, decide entirely on conformation and action. These two things are what make or unmake the excellence of the individual animal. A well-formed horse is apt to have good action. Sometimes this is not so, just as sometimes a woman may have beauty of form and feature and lack animation, vivacity, and that infinite variety and sympathy which recently we have accustomed ourselves to call temperament. Good conformation in a horse, however, is the advantage which conduces to good action. When action and conformation supplement, adjust, and confirm each the other, we have what may be called an approach to the ideal horse. I have never seen the ideal horse; but pretty close to it. I have owned a few that were very satisfactory, but never one that was entirely so. Still I have hope. I suspect that when one realizes his ideal in anything, life loses some of its zest. The pursuit, the seeking, the longing for the unattained—these are the things that make life so interesting, so absorbing. If I had the horse I have long had in my mind I should be glad, no doubt. But I might be sorry, too. There is one saving fact, however. We change our ideals as we get more experience and further knowledge. I have changed my opinions often about horses, since I first became interested in them. While writing the last chapter of this book I confess that I have changed some of my opinions during the two or three months that I have been engaged in the composition. I have learned some things that I did not know before; I have parted with some prejudices which I ought never to have entertained. So it was inevitable that I should modify my views. If, therefore, I should ever obtain my ideal in horse-flesh I might awaken a few weeks later to find that I really wanted something just a little different. I seek the ideal, therefore, without fear of achieving it and meanwhile I have lots of fun with horses that are not more than half what they ought to be.
The oldest writer on horses was Xenophon. He says: “The neck should not be thrown out from the chest like a boar’s, but like a cock’s, should rise straight up to the poll, and be slim at the bend, while the head, though bony, should have but a small jaw. The neck would then protect the rider, and the eye see what lies before the feet.”
Xenophon is the oldest writer on the subject. Mr. Price Collier is the latest and in many regards the best, because he not only knows how to write, but knows what he is writing about. Here is what he says about the proportions of a well-formed horse:
“One cannot go to buy a horse with a tape-measure, but certain proportions are well enough to keep in mind. The length of the head of a well-proportioned horse is almost equal to the distance; (1) from the top of the withers to the point of the shoulder; (2) from the lowest point of the back to the abdomen; (3) from the point of the stifle to the point of the hock; (4) from the point of the hock to the lower level of the hoof; (5) from the shoulder blades to the point of the haunch. Two and a half times the length of the head gives: (1) the height of the withers and the height of the croup above the ground, and (2) very nearly the length from the point of the shoulder to the extreme of the buttock.”
The tape-measure test is all very well, but if a man does not have an eye for a horse he will never be able to select a good one by mathematics. And an eye for a horse is a singular endowment. I have known men of proved intellectuality quite incapable of learning about horses. Also I have known men who, in the ordinary affairs of life were very fools but who knew good horses by a kind of instinct. The man with an eye for a horse takes the whole animal in at a glance; his minute examination, in nine cases out of ten only confirms his instant judgment. When I am buying a horse I do not need to hesitate very long. I have inspected and bought as many as twenty in a day, giving not more than fifteen or twenty minutes to each horse. Yet these purchases in the main have been satisfactory. No one of them, however, was my ideal.
In a general way, all horses should have certain points. Therefore general rules apply in all the types, from the Pony to the Percheron. Every horse should have (1) a bony head and small ears; (2) medium-sized eyes, neither protruding nor sunken, and without an excess of white in the pupil; (3) the forehead should be broad; (4) the face should be straight and neither concave nor convex; (5) the neck should be small and lean, its length regulated by the size of the head and the weight of the shoulders, the head being so joined to the neck that the neck seems to control the head instead of the reverse; (6) the shoulders should be oblique or sloping; (7) the back should be short; (8) the ribs should be well rounded, definitely separated and full of length; (9) the legs should be flat and lean, with knees wide from side to side and flat in front, the upper bone of the leg being long and muscular in proportion to the lower or the common bone; (10) the feet should be moderately large; (11) the pasterns should be long rather than short, but, better still, neither long nor short; (12) the hair should be short and fine.
I might have added another point, making thirteen in all, but for luck I stop at the dozen, feeling sure that if any of my readers gets a horse with the good points noted he will have a treasure beyond the lot of most men and maybe far beyond his deserts.
A well-formed horse ought to have good action. This does not always follow. But good conformation without good action is a kind of disappointing fraud. The best action is that which is natural to the horse. We expect this in families and in types. But training can modify the action of a horse, indeed, change it entirely as when a pacer is converted into a trotter. With pacers, however, I am not concerned as I presume that this book is written for gentlemen.
There can be no good action which is not straight. In the walk, the trot and the gallop a horse must move his feet and legs in parallel lines. The horse that does that naturally can be taught the other things that may not come to him by nature—high stepping, for instance. When a horse moves always without paddling or any other lateral motion, he is a very fit subject for cultivation. He can be taught to go daintily and gracefully as our grandmothers walked through the minuet de la couer. Throwing the feet far out in front or lunging, as it is called, is a very ugly trick and can be remedied in the shoeing, I am told. I believe this to be true, but I have never tried it. A horse with this inclination always seemed to me badly bred—Hambletonian, for instance—and I have not recently bothered with such. Paddling also can often be corrected by shoeing. General rules cannot be laid down as to these things. Each horse has his individuality. He must be so studied. When an owner brings general knowledge and acute intelligence to this study he can determine in a little while what is best to be done in each case. In the great majority of cases the best plan is to sell the horse that seems unpromising, but as no horse is ever entirely satisfactory some of them must be retained and educated by training, a training dominated by gentleness, courage, firmness and patience—but most of all patience.
THE END