Riding for Ladies: With Hints on the Stable

by Mrs. Power O'Donoghue

Horse-breeding is a pleasant recreation for those whose tastes, means, and residential qualifications enable them to carry it on, and at the same time conduce to its success. Living in the country, for example, in a house surrounded by good grass lands, a more delightful species of pastime, or one of a more engrossing kind, can scarcely be sought for or imagined, while the practical question of making money of it may be met with the assurance that it can be done.

At the present crisis it is especially advisable that attention should be given to horse-breeding, as it is a matter to which, when times are bad and land-culture unprofitable, lady farmeresses and others may turn their thoughts with greater chance of profit than when sheep, cattle, and every description of farm produce brought more grist to the agriculturist’s mill. Land rent is low, fodder cheap and plentiful, and labour easily obtained. Some years ago, when seasons were good, and farmers could sell their stock at a fair profit, horse-culture might not under ordinary circumstances have been found to pay; but it is entirely different now, and never perhaps was there a period at which good horses, especially high-class hunters, were in more substantial demand than at present. I know some persons, particularly in Ireland, who are ready to cry “No” to this statement, but the most substantial proof of its truthfulness lies in the fact that at sales, as well as at the autumn horse-shows, almost everything that is good is speedily bought up at fairly remunerative prices, while only those who demand excessive rates for second and third-rate animals carry their stock home with them, and grumble at the blindness of buyers and the ticklishness of the times.

Without going into any unnecessary preliminaries, I may continue my subject and say, that it will be well, when selecting a mare to breed from with a view to the production of high-class hunters, to choose one if possible that has herself been a good performer to hounds,—but remember that this is not an indispensable quality, although it may be, and is, an important one. The breeding of the animal chosen to represent maternity ought to be a point much dwelt upon; it cannot indeed be over estimated—as coarse-bred mares are, even when well mated, certain to perpetuate unsatisfying stock. I am of opinion that compactness of form, robustness of frame, and capability of endurance, fatigue, and exertion, are far before actual beauty in the brood mare. I like to see short stout legs, thick and bulging in the upper portion, denoting plenty of strength and muscle—good, fleshy, sloping shoulders, a deep chest, high withers, a strong well-ribbed frame, big broad loins, hips wide apart, substantial quarters, a high arched crest, a good sound mouth, nostrils wide and healthy, and, most important of all, a sound and well-formed foot. This last point should be rigorously observed, for my experience has taught me that no outward defect is more surely hereditary than small, narrow, ill-shapen, or unhealthy feet.

The same precautions may in great degree be applied to the sire—and as he is supposed to supply the locomotive power to his progeny, an animal should be chosen that has good hunter-like action, and not one whose paces are like those of a racer or park horse. His height will not be of much consequence, provided that the mare be of suitable size, but his general form ought to be most carefully weighed.

A good sound constitution on the part of both mare and sire will be of the utmost importance in breeding, and for this reason I prefer young strong mares for stud purposes.

It is with many a very vexed question whether or not a filly is improved by having a foal. I maintain, even against much contradiction, that she decidedly is; and I have met with a good many sound judges who have agreed with me, while on the other hand some old-fashioned horse-fanciers have told me that they would not have anything whatever to say to a “widow.” I believe that the system of keeping a flock of idle brood mares has contributed largely towards the impoverishing of many a promising horse-breeding company, and a few who have had the sense to see the folly of such a course have bred with much advantage from fillies, without ever suffering a particle of loss by it. A young robust three-year-old—one that has been “gentled” and taught to jump in long reins without being ridden—will prove a capital speculation as a matron, and will at four have produced a foal which need not detain her from her training beyond the weaning time.

Wealthy horse-owners, who wish to go in for breeding racers, ought to keep their best and most promising foals entirely for breeding purposes; and I believe that such a speculation would answer admirably as a means of making money, and would in time astonish the world of the turf with a show of youngsters that would bid fair to sweep the land. Well-nurtured animals—those that had never been subjected to any sort of training—would be certain to bring forth finer and healthier specimens of horseflesh than aged quadrupeds, who were only put to the stud because they had met with accident, or had broken down. I cannot, for my own part, believe in such animals perpetuating a valuable or healthy stock; and experience has amply proved that it is only after long periods of repose—during which the waste and exhaustion consequent upon training and running have become mitigated, if not absolutely cured—that racing mares and sires attain celebrity through the progeny that they produce.

Turfites might pick up many a good and paying thing, if breeders would only relinquish some of their standing prejudices, and be induced to set apart a certain number of untrained animals for stud purposes, selecting the best of the foals produced by them, and keeping these apart until their sixth year; by so doing, they would generate a company of clippers that would make fortunes for their purchasers, and fairly open the eyes of the racing world. Strange to say, the system finds but little acceptance—a fact shown by the bad, weedy, and mis-shapen lots that are sent out to contest many of our leading races. More of them break down in the training than ever actually go to the post; and, even among the starters, how few are found in the run home really contesting the race. The horseflesh of the country has degenerated under the pursuance of a wrong system; and yet, it is asserted that racing is kept up to improve the national breed of chasers throughout the land. How far it succeeds in its so-called purpose, the public markets daily testify. Wretched blood stock is everywhere to be found, and when not absolutely what could be called wretched, it is at all events decidedly poor. A number of the foals born never return the first expenses of their existence, much less of their education. Their worthlessness is soon discovered, and after awhile they are to be met with in riding-schools and job stables, between the shafts of cabs and carts, and engaged in a variety of other work for which they were never meant—their very fitness for such demeaning labour proving at once their utter lack of value for higher callings, and testifying the hollow ignorance of those who, from blind prejudice, or some other inexplicable cause, tend to perpetuate this pitiable waste and degradation.

So-called “blood stock” is fast contaminating the pure native breed of the country. There is, every season, a glut of worthless bloods; the refuse of the stud farm is sold away to the highest bidder, and he in his turn seeks to make temporary profit out of it, with the result of impoverishing and deteriorating such chances of good things as he may happen to have among his stock. Thus it goes on from one year to another, and looks, by its continuance, as though it were meant to go on to the very end of time.

My advice to would-be breeders of racers is, to discard as sires and matrons all animals that have been trained for the turf; carefully select those of good blood, pedigree, and qualifications; reserve the best of their progeny, when brought forth, and breed from these again, ere ever they are allowed to pass into a trainer’s hands. In this way, and in this alone, will strength, stamina, courage, speed, endurance—all that is most necessary in a racer—be absolutely ensured.