Mr. Blaine once purchased a horse with an excellent character for steadiness, except that he was always much alarmed at a passing carriage, whether it was coming towards or overtaking him. A tilted wagon or a stage-coach were such objects of dread as no power could get him to face. “We knew it would be in vain to oppose human physical force to brute fears, and that it was only by introducing favourable recollections derived from those very objects, greater in degree than the fears hitherto entertained of them, that we could conquer this dangerous propensity. We began by leading the horse, previously exercised and fasted, towards a cart filled with clover hay: the smell of the hay was irresistible, and soon dissipated all dread of the stationary cart; but when it was purposely moved gently onwards, he became rather discomposed; a little coaxing, however, induced him to follow it, and we had the pleasure, at this his first lesson, of seeing him proceed confidently with the cart round a farm-yard, and finally into the road. To vary the effect, after he had steadily walked by the side of the carriage a certain time, we restrained him so that it got ahead of him; when he again reached it, slight indications of fear appeared, as he had to make his way up to the side of the cart, for we had a coverlet purposely drawn over the back, that he might not reach the hay from behind. We next passed the cart altogether, but it was a few paces only, and then turned him round to the other side of it; but his whole mind was so intent on the clover, that with the most trifling symptoms only of alarm, he fell to again on the hay, which finished lesson the first. Our next attempt was with a sieve, full of corn (presented to him on an empty stomach), which he could only reach from the tailboard of a tilted wagon—an awful object! After a few snortings and sniffings, here also hunger overcame his fears, and he munched the oats with great relish; but when the wagon was put in motion, his dread for a little time got the better of his appetite, and the flapping of the covering of the tilt appeared to him most portentous: his fears even in this case, however, soon gave place to confidence, through the skilfulness of a groom to whom he was much attached. This man mounted the wagon, and, resting on the tailboard, offered the oats to the horse, at the same time calling and encouraging him. This worked wonders; nor shall we readily forget the knucker of acknowledgment with which the confiding brute followed the groom’s call as the wagon moved on, occasionally dipping his nose into the sieve. After a few more lessons of a similar kind, one or two of which were varied by giving him hay from the window of a stage-coach, he lost all fear of carriages, and his former owner would willingly have taken him back at a very considerable increase of price.”
The stomach was long ago discovered to be an excellent medium of education; its lessons, aided by habit, are infallible. Here is another example of this truth:—Mr. Grant, a merchant of London, asked a friend if he knew of a saddle nag for sale; the other replied, that he himself had one to dispose of, which he could recommend were it not for his unconquerable dread of swine, which rendered him dangerous either to ride or drive, and on which account alone he must part with him. Mr. Grant was not a person to be dismayed at trifles; and being convinced he could remedy this evil, he bought the horse, and set about its cure by purchasing a sow and a large litter of pigs. The horse, sow, and pigs were all turned together into a sort of barn stable, where they were never disturbed except to give them food. The snortings, kickings, squeakings, and gruntings were for two or three days, great and continual, and the consequence was, that three or four of the younglings were demolished; but gradually the uproar ceased, and in a fortnight’s time the lady mother was to be seen under the belly of the horse, busily employed in searching for the grains of corn left in the straw, with her progeny as actively engaged around her. Well might White, in his “Natural History of Selbourne,” remark, that “interest makes strange friendships.”
With respect to the proper mode of administering punishment in these cases, we will adduce another example from Mr. Blaine: “At Harlow Bush Fair we were struck with the appearance of a likely nag; but as we saw our salesman was evidently one of a suspicious order, we squared our expectations accordingly; and after having cheapened the nag to a very low price, considering his figure, we bought him, after such a trial as this sort of places afford, and this sort of persons allow. On the next day we mounted our purchase, and proceeded five or six miles on the Hertfordshire road, the horse performing well in all his paces, riding to a good mouth, and being apparently as tractable as one could wish. We were, however, still aware, that either he must have been stolen, or that, according to stable slang, ‘a screw was loose’ somewhere, which would soon jingle,—and a turnpike-gate was to unfold the secret; for this gate he would not go through, not from any fear of the gate itself, but from mere restiveness. We battled it with him for some time, but it was to no purpose, and we were too well acquainted with horses to push matters to extremities; for even had we forced him through at this time, he would, without doubt, have repeated the same trick whenever the same spirit moved him. A radical cure was our object, and so we refrained from any further attempts to force him onwards, but, placing his head under the wall of the toll-house bar, we sat quietly on his back an hour. We then tried to pass him through the gate; but as his determination appeared to remain in full force, we gave him another hour of stationary riding, during which he was evidently very uneasy and oppressed with the weight he carried, unrelieved as he was by any change of position or any locomotion. At the end of the second hour we believe we might have forced him through, as his resistances were now feeble; but as they yet evidently existed, we gave him another half hour of waiting, and then he went through the gate as tractably as any horse could do. We did not let the matter rest here, but rode him fully ten or twelve miles further than we had intended, purposely to give him notice that implicit obedience would be exacted of him in future, on pain of a punishment not at all to his taste. He never afterwards showed the smallest disposition to rebel, although, as we learned subsequently, he had, several times before coming into our possession, been passed from hand to hand in the Rothings of Essex, as utterly incorrigible.”
CHAPTER IV
SPEED AND ENDURANCE—CARNIVOROUS HORSES—HORSE FLESH AS FOOD—HORSE BAITING.
THE maximum speed of the racehorse appears to be at the rate of a mile in a minute; for few, if any, horses can retain the full velocity of this rate for even that time. A mile has, however, been run at Newmarket by a stop-watch in one minute and four and a half seconds. It is said, but was never proved, that Flying Childers did run at Newmarket one mile in the minute; certain it is that this celebrated horse, when carrying nine stone two pounds ran over the round course, which is three miles six furlongs and ninety-three yards, in six minutes and forty seconds. Bay Melton ran four miles at York, in 1763, in seven minutes forty-three seconds and a half. Eclipse also ran the same distance, on the same course, in eight minutes with twelve stone. The most extraordinary instance on record of the stoutness as well as speed of the racehorse was displayed in 1786, when Mr. Huell’s Quibbler ran twenty-three miles round the flat at Newmarket in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds. The speed of the greyhound, and that of the hare, is but little inferior to that of the racehorse, but their powers of endurance at their utmost velocity are not equal to his.
The racing gallop is evidently but a succession of leaps, in which the forelegs and the hind-legs start in pairs, each pair acting simultaneously. The hand-gallop is not so rapid a movement, in it the right legs are a little in advance of their fellows. It is well ascertained that a horse can never pass at once from a state of rest into the gallop of full speed, but must begin with the hand-gallop; and cunning jockeys sometimes derive profit from this circumstance by wagering with the unwary, that no horse shall be found to gallop one hundred yards while a man runs fifty, the two starting together. In this case the man is sure to win the race, for the horse has not time enough to acquire the necessary momentum, as he would do if the race were for a hundred and fifty yards.
The following account of a fearful race between a steam engine and a mare is extracted from a number of the Ipswich Express, for January, 1846:—“An occurrence, approaching the wonderful in its nature, took place on the Colchester end of the Eastern Counties Railway, early on the morning of Sunday the 4th instant. A mare, the property of Mr. Garrad, whose farm adjoins the railway and its Colchester terminus, had obtained access to the line in the course of the night, and ran off in front of the engine when the mail train started from Colchester at a quarter before three o’clock. It being quite dark, the animal was not at first observed by the engine-driver; but after the train had proceeded a short distance, and a smart speed was attained, the mare was seen ahead of the engine, between the up-line of rails, going along at a rate which seemed likely to test the power of the locomotive. The driver sounded the whistle, in the hope of frightening the mare from the line; but this only served to quicken her speed without diverting her course; on she went like the wind, with the engine and train puffing, clattering, and groaning in her rear: so desperate was her pace, that though the speed of the train had reached twenty-five miles an hour, the driver and stoker frequently lost sight of her in the gloom, and at first supposed the train had passed her, but ever and anon she was again caught sight of, still rushing along in the course of the engine; and the screaming whistle, which was now blown repeatedly, acting on the terrified mare more powerfully than the combination of spur, whip, and voice, drove her madly forward far ahead of the iron monster. What would have been the issue of this strange race had it continued much longer it is not difficult to surmise; the mare’s spirit was good, but what in the long run can flesh and blood do against the giant power of steam? As it was, she gallantly kept ahead for full five miles, when just as the flying pursuer reached the Mark’s Tey bridge, the poor animal caught her foot against a stone or part of the rail, and rolled headlong on to the down-line. The engine, with a parting shriek and puff, passed on; and the mare was found, when daylight appeared, nothing the worse for her race and tumble, and in due time was restored to her owner.”