The Percheron horse

by Charles Du Hays

The Percheron of the primitive type has a gray coat like the Arab; and like him an abundant and silky mane, a fine skin, and a large, prominent, and expressive eye; a broad forehead, dilated nostrils, and a full and deep chest, although, the girth, with him, as with the Arab, is always lacking in fullness; more bony and leaner limbs, and less covered with hair than those of other draft-horse families.

He has not, it is true, the fine haunch and fine form of the shoulder, nor that swan-like neck which distinguishes the Arab; but it must not be forgotten that for ages he has been employed for draft purposes, and these habits have imparted to his bony frame an anatomical structure, a combination of levers adapted to the work he is called upon to perform. He has not, I again acknowledge, such a fine skin as the Arab, nor his prettily rounded, oval, and small foot; but we must remember the fact that he lives under a cold climate, upon elevated plains, where nature gives him for a covering a thicker skin and a warmer coat, and that he has been for ages stepping upon a moist, clayey soil.

In all that remains in him, we recognize a heavy Arab, modified and remodeled by climate and peculiar circumstances. He has remained mild and laborious, like his sire; he is brought up, like him, in the midst of the family, and, like him, he possesses in a very high degree the faculty of easy acclimation. He acquires this in the midst of the numerous migrations he accomplishes in Perche, the counterpart of those that the type horse makes upon the sands of the desert. A final comparison, which has not, as yet, been sufficiently noticed, is, that, like the Arab, he has no need of being mutilated in order to be trained, managed and kept without danger. In a word, the Percheron, notwithstanding the ages which separate them, presents an affinity as close as possible with the primitive horse, which is the Arab.

From this similarity of form and probable relationship, comes the thought of new alliances. But in order to form a more easy estimate of their effects, it will not be without interest to classify the horses with reference to their origin. This classification produces three very distinct groups: the primitive horse, the natural horse, and the compound horse.

The Primitive Horse, oriental in its origin, is the pure Arabian horse; no other is acknowledged.

During the time of the crusaders, as we have already said in our first part, in consequence of wars and all kinds of excursions, individuals of this race were spread over almost all parts of the globe. Although at first the prestige which their superior merits deserved led to their being bred in-and-in, these exiles were placed under different latitudes, in different atmospheric and hygienic conditions, which gradually modified their qualities and led to the degeneracy of the race. And it became more or less degenerate in proportion as the soil upon which the colts were foaled was colder, poorer, and more inhospitable; for the horse is as much, and more, the son of the soil upon which he is foaled and reared as he is of his sire and dam.

This fact has no need of proof. We see it every day before our eyes in studying at home the changes that our French breeds themselves undergo when transported from one province to another. It might, however, be thought that these new latitudes, these new regions, would differ but little from those in which they lived.

The first change that the primitive horse undergoes, from the difference of the regions into which he has been transplanted, being due to nature itself, we call the result the Natural Horse.—Here it is proper to remark how wise nature always is. If it modify the primitive horse for the worse, it modifies him, however, under conditions better adapted to his wants. In rendering him more puny, it renders him more temperate, and enables him to live and to nourish himself upon the food that the locality is able to furnish. Submitted to the trials and the fatigues of war, and to all the miseries in its train, the natural horse, badly built, ungainly and puny as he is, endures fatigue almost as well as the primitive horse.

The Cross-bred Horse is, as his name indicates, the issue of a sire and dam of different breeds. This crossing, made with a view to improvement, may give, when judicious, more elegant, better made, and finer-bodied progeny and also quicker in their various gaits, but always requiring, especially if derived from the English, exceptional care, and so much the more particular as they are of a more distingué nature.

Abandoned to himself, deprived of blankets, shelter, grooming, and oats, the cross-bred deteriorates early, and in war perishes miserably, while the natural and the primitive horse thrives in browsing upon the scantiest herbage. On this score, our two campaigns of the Crimea and Italy have furnished unquestionable proofs.