IRISH HUNTERS, AND THE BREEDING OF GOOD HORSES.
Much attention has latterly been attracted to the deterioration in the superior breeds of horses, having reference more to a decline of power and endurance than to diminished swiftness.
There is no reason why our old fame for breeding good horses of every kind should not be maintained. Unrelaxed attention must nevertheless be given to some well-known and established rules respecting breeding, and more marked encouragement might with advantage be in every way afforded to the production and rearing of young animals of a superior and valuable description. We would therefore suggest that prizes for young ones should be more liberally and generally awarded at exhibitions; likewise a careful revision and alteration of many of the present regulations in connection with racing.
The importance of most careful scrutiny in selecting the progenitors of horses can never be overrated; and though in Ireland experience has proved in many instances that a good hunter can be produced from a dam which, in England, would be considered too small, too plain, the blood in both parents has invariably been of the best. The mare, or perhaps her parents, might have been half-starved—no uncommon result of the scarcity of food during many successive years of adversity among the poorer classes in the former country—but her progenitors had been large powerful animals.
As, in the due course of things, it results in time that every denomination of useful horse, excepting, perhaps, the heavy dray and cart horse breeds, is influenced by the characteristics transmitted more particularly to the powerful, enduring, moderately fleet animal properly designated the hunter, it is a subject of deep interest to the community at large to know how the latter should be produced.
The “Irish hunter” is admitted to possess in a remarkable manner the qualities most desirable in a horse of that or the generally useful class. Hardy, enduring, courageous, strong, short-legged, short-backed, long-sided, tolerably fast, but any deficiency in speed made up for by jumping power; all action, able to jump anything and everything; intuitive lovers of fencing; their sagacity such that you have only to get on their backs and leave the rest to themselves;—under ordinary circumstances it is almost impossible to throw these animals.
THE PROPER FORM
Such is the breeding that I should be inclined to cross with that of the powerful English race-horse as sire, taking blood as nearly pure as possible in both parents, for the purpose of securing valuable stock, which would in time be dispersed over the country, and replace the progeny of those weedy thorough-breds which, in Ireland especially, have done much towards the decline in power and endurance of the present generation of so-called Irish hunters. The parentage might, of course, be reversed between sire and dam.
As to the question of climate, any one really interested in discovering its possible effects might be curious to know what would characterise the produce of a high-bred English racer and Irish huntress foaled and reared in France.
As far as we can judge from the peculiarities of those horses with which we are most familiar, extremes of either heat or cold are unfavourable to the development of size; whereas, under both conditions, a vast amount of endurance seems to be natural.
The Norwegian and the Arab, differing materially in point of swiftness, are both notorious for endurance. The plodding perseverance of the first is well known; while the Arab, ridden at an even gait with a fair weight, will go with impunity a greater distance, at a rate of eighteen to twenty miles an hour, than the best European can do. In sporting language, the Arab can “stay” better than the European.
Arab breeders rarely offer a really high-bred animal for sale under four, and generally five, years of age; hence he cannot receive the education bestowed upon the European racer, who, before he is three, often at less than two, years of age, is taught by the most scientific riders in the world to “go from the post” at very nearly top speed—a species of training that sometimes results in his beating horses which are really superior in every respect except that of being ready at starting, and capable of putting on their best speed at once. Besides, in those hot climates the young animal has not the advantage of a soft elastic turf, so essential to training, nor has he the assistance of proper trainers and jockeys.
It is much to be regretted that the breeders of Arabia cannot be tempted, for almost any price, to part with truly high-bred mares, wisely retaining them to breed for the benefit of their native land.
Warmth of climate seems thus, as instanced in the Arab, to favour swiftness and endurance; though, on the other hand, we may point to the mild, moist, but scarcely warm climate of our islands, as having fostered the production of animals possessing these qualities in the first degree, in addition to size and power beyond those of the Arab.
France has latterly, since the introduction of pure blood, produced some splendid horses; but time must tell whether the perfections of these animals are as lasting as those of others whose early growth may not have been so much forced by a more genial climate. Therefore, as far as we know at present, the climate of England is as favourable as that of any other land to the production and development of perfection in the horse, the specimens of which that she has presented being hitherto unsurpassed.
It would appear that we make a serious mistake in not providing greater encouragement to breeders and purchasers of yearlings and two-years-old of the different descriptions. A decided advantage would, we think, result from competition among these classes at horse-shows, due care being necessarily given to placing them in a situation specially adapted for them, and where they would be free from noise and excitement. Nothing would tend more to incite to the careful breeding of horses among farmers than the possibility of obtaining handsome prizes, and thereby securing the prospect of early remuneration; while the opportunity for market afforded by these exhibitions would present additional inducements to the rearing and purchase of young animals. Having in view the encouragement of a superior breed of horses, it is beginning at the wrong end not to support it, in the first place, by allotting at such meetings the most numerous and valuable prizes to the babies.
Fortunately the ventilation given to this important subject of the deterioration in our horses, more especially in that particular class denominated the Irish hunter, has aroused the interest of the country at large, and already led to more earnest efforts on the part of the landed proprietors and breeders to regain lost ground.
It ought to be borne in mind that the light weights allowed by the present racing laws for Queen’s plates are, as examples for weighting in other races, most pernicious. These grants from the Crown were originally bestowed with the view to encourage the raising of strong thorough-breds, capable of carrying twelve stone sometimes for four or even five mile heats; therefore the present arrangement of weights is positively, however unintentionally, a misapplication of those public funds.
It is probably to the turfmen that the change in the character of steeplechasing is greatly due; they found it their interest gradually to alter the weights and distances, so as to bring profitably into play their second and third rate beaten race-horses. Steeplechases were not intended for these latter, whose perfection is in proportion to their speed. Pace is not the chief desideratum in hunters, to prove the qualities of which steeple or castle chases were instituted; power and endurance are at least as essential: and it is contrary to the law of nature, as well as of mechanics, to combine a maximum of speed with that of power, and vice versa. Either will preponderate to the detriment of the other.
The difficulties, natural and artificial, presented by the general face of the country in Ireland, have no doubt contributed to the development of those qualities which render the Irish hunter so valuable. The style of fence is continually varied; and in the course of a run there will be encountered double ditches, with a narrow or wide bank, single ones, stone walls, brooks, bullfinches, gates, wide drains, and occasionally posts and rails, or iron palings—hurdles being, however, of rare occurrence; but the horse that can master the above impediments to his course will soon find out how to jump a hurdle.
PREPARATORY CANTER
The Irish colt has sometimes also a kind of training not expressly designed for him by his owner; for being not unfrequently left with other animals in a field affording an insufficient supply of grass for them all, he undertakes to prove the truth of the proverb that hunger will break through stone walls, by jumping over if not through one to obtain more or better food.
Transplanted to England, the accomplished Irish hunter often finds himself tested in a manner strange to him; the rate of speed is greater than he has been accustomed to, for the Green Isle has not yet adopted generally the extremely swift pace of hounds now so much in vogue in England, and is thence, as regards the hounds and the horses, in unquestionably the most sportsmanlike condition. It was never intended that hunting should become steeplechasing; and the unnatural pace to which hounds are now forced causes them often to overrun the scent after they have got away; then, when at fault, the entire ruck of the field have an opportunity of coming up, to be, of course, once more distanced, at the repeated sacrifice of the sound principles of hunting, and to the disadvantage of the true breed of hunters.
If breeders of horses would give their full attention to the pursuit, there is no reason why they should not be as successful in producing the best description of every class of this animal, as breeders of sheep and cattle are in their line. By judicious crossing, animals can be secured with any peculiar characteristics that may be desired; and for the encouragement of energy and exertion in this direction, we may remind our readers that there is now so much competition for the possession of first-class horses, that our Continental neighbours constantly outbid us, having learned to value them even more than we do who have been suffering our best sires to be bought up and removed from their native soil to improve the foreign stock. It is not impossible that, circumstances having directed so much attention to this subject, good will in this as in many other cases spring out of evil, and the fostering of valuable breeds of horses will become a more widely-recognised source of emolument than it has been for many years past, regaining, likewise, its proper standing among Britons as a matter of deep national interest and importance.