[3] It, however, is treated more fully in a new section, [page 93], which, at the request of many readers, and in consequence of its increasing interest to a large portion of the community, has been added to this edition.
[4] The French dealers of the present day choose, for gentlemen’s hack-horses, chestnuts with legs white half-way up, causing the action to look more remarkable. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
[5] It is to be remarked of bays, mouse-colours, and chestnuts, having a streak of a darker colour over the backbone from mane to tail (which sometimes, as with the donkey, crosses the shoulder)—that animals thus marked generally possess peculiar powers of endurance; and rat-tailed ones, though ugly, prove very serviceable.
[6] The extremes of various bad positions of the head when the bit is put in operation are—the throwing up the nose horizontal with the forehead, a trick denominated “stargazing,” at which ewe-necked horses are very ready, and getting the bit up to the angles of the jaws. Such a horse can easily run away, and cannot be commanded without a martingal. Another bad point is when the animal leans his jaw firmly against the bit, and, placing his head between his fore legs, the neck being over-arched, goes where he pleases: such is called by horsemen “a borer.”
[7] The racer not coming within the province, of this little work, I will only offer one maxim with reference to such horses in general—viz., never race any horse unless you make up your mind to have most probably a fretful, bad-tempered animal ever after. The course of training and the excitement of contest will induce such a result.
[8] If you happen to buy a low-priced animal, and depend upon your own opinion as to soundness, it is well to feel and look closely at the back part of the fore leg, above the fetlock, and along the pasterns, for cicatrices left after the performance of the operation of unnerving, by means of which a horse will go perhaps apparently sound while navicular disease is progressing in his foot, to terminate in most serious consequences.—[See “Navicular Disease,” page 134.]
[9] The old-fashioned pattern, with leather gear, is, after all, the best, as proved by the most practical men of the day.
[10] It has been truly said by the well-known Mr Elmore, that there is a key to every horse’s mouth, requiring only proper hands to apply it.
[11] The famous Irish jumper “Distiller” was notorious among many other good fencers as a bungler on the road, though he would jump a six-foot-six stone wall with ease, sporting two large broken knees in consequence of his performance in that line; and in fencing he was also first-rate.
[12] I may recommend Gibson, 6 Coventry Street, Leicester Square, as an excellent, intelligent, and experienced saddler.