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.