Types and families of horses are produced either by careful "selection and exclusion," or by the chances of environment In the first manner was brought about the thoroughbred, the Percheron, the Orloff, the Trakhene, the Denmark, and every other race or family of real value.
All over the world isolated groups of horses may be found which have become types by an accidental seclusion, and these from various causes are usually undersized and often ill-formed. Such are the mustang and its cousins on the plains, many breeds in Eastern Asia, the Norwegian Fiord pony, the Icelander, the Shetlander, etc., the last-named three being, it is supposed, degenerates of pure desert descent from animals taken north from Constantinople by the returned Varangians in the eleventh century.
In breeding for the saddle, or for any other purpose, the mare should be nearly of the type the breeder desires to obtain, and she should be of strong frame, perfectly sound, of healthy stock, and with a good disposition. If her pedigree be known, the stallion, well-bred or thoroughbred, should be selected from a strain which has been proved to have an affinity with that of the mare. The mingling of certain strains is almost as certain to produce certain results—not, be it understood, everything that may be desired—as does the mixing of chosen colors on the palette. That is to say, size, form, action, and disposition may ordinarily be foretold by the mating between families that are known to nick. The stallion should be no larger than the mare, of a family in which there is no suspicion of transmissible disease, and of good temper, and it certainly should not be lacking in the slightest degree in any point where the mare is not fully developed. The mare might be the stronger animal, the stallion the more highly finished.
FIG. 10.—TRAKHENE STALLION
FIG. 11.—TYPICAL DENMARK STALLION