Post Horses in Siberia.
Mr. H. de Windt, in his book From Pekin to Calais, bears witness to the wonderful endurance of the small post-horses supplied to travellers in Siberia. He describes them as very little beasts ranging from 14.2 to 15 hands. "Though rough and ungroomed, they are well fed, as they need to be, for a rest of only six hours is allowed between stages." The speed maintained depends upon the condition of the roads; and the number of horses furnished for each tarantass is regulated by the same factor; three horses sufficing in good weather and as many as seven being required when the roads are heavy from rain or snow.
Ponies in India.
Captain L. E. Nolan, in Cavalry History and Tactics (1860), gives an account of an experimental march made by 200 of the 15th Hussars from Bangalore to Hyderabad and back, 800 miles. The objects of the march were to test the capabilities of the troop horses and to ascertain if there were anything to choose between stallions and geldings in respect of endurance. To arrive at a solution of the latter question, one hundred of the men were mounted on entires and the other hundred on horses which had been castrated only six months previously, regardless of age, for the purpose of making the experiment.
The squadrons marched to their destination, took part in field-days and pageants, and started to reach Bangalore by forced marches; they accomplished the last 180 miles at a rate of thirty miles per day, bringing in only one led horse, the remainder being perfectly sound and fit for further work. One horse, a 14.3 Persian, carried a corporal who, with his accoutrements, rode 22 stone 7 lbs. It may be added that there was nothing to choose between the performances of the stallions and geldings; though the fact that the latter had so recently been castrated was held to make their achievement the more creditable.
A forced march such as this has far more value as testimony to staying power than a more trying feat performed by a single animal; but mention must be made of Captain Horne's ride. This officer, who belonged to the Madras Horse Artillery, undertook in 1841 to ride his grey Arab, "Jumping Jimmy," 400 miles in five days on the Bangalore race-course; and accomplished his task with three hours and five minutes to spare, the horse doing the last 79 miles 5 furlongs in 19 hours 55 minutes, and being quite ready for his corn when pulled up. General Tweedie, in his work on The Arabian Horse (1894), quotes the above particulars from the Bengal Sporting Magazine, in whose pages full details are given.
Captain Nolan, in the work from which quotation has been made above, sums up the shortcomings of the cavalry trooper of his day in the following pithy sentences:—
"Our cavalry horses are feeble; they measure high, but they do so from length of limb, which is weakness, not power. The blood they require is not that of our weedy race-horse (an animal more akin to the greyhound and bred for speed alone), but it is the blood of the Arab and Persian, to give them that compact form and wiry limb in which they are wanting."
The great value of the pony in India was insisted on by Mr. J. H. B. Hallen, formerly the General Superintendent of the Horse Breeding Department, in a memorandum published at Meerut in 1899. Pointing out the many spheres of utility open to the pony, he urged the local authorities and agricultural societies to foster and develop pony breeding by providing suitable stallions for public use. As proving the value of the pony, Mr. Hallen points out that in the two-wheeled cart called an ekka, used by the natives of Northern India, a pony will draw a load of from 4-1/2 to 6 cwt. over long distances at a rate of 5 or 6 miles an hour.