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THE

HANDY HORSE-BOOK.

PART I.

BREEDING.

A FEW words only of observation would I make on this subject. Palpably our horses, especially racers and hunters, are degenerating in size and power, owing mainly, it is to be feared, to the parents being selected more for the reputation they have gained as winners carrying feather-weights, than for any symmetrical development or evidence of enduring power under the weight of a man. We English might take a useful lesson in selecting parental stock from the French, who reject our theory of breeding from animals simply because they have reputation in the racing calendars, and who breed from none but those which have shape and power, as well as blood and performance, to recommend them. They are also particular to avoid using for stud purposes such animals as may exhibit indications of any constitutional unsoundness.

*

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.

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SELECTING.

In selecting an animal, the character of the work for which he is required should be taken into consideration. For example, in choosing a hack, you will consider whether he is for riding or for draught. In choosing a hunter, you must bear in mind the peculiar nature of the country he will have to contend with.

A horse should at all times have sufficient size and power for the weight he has to move. It is an act of cruelty to put a small horse, be his courage and breeding ever so good, to carry a heavy man or draw a heavy With regard to colour, some sportsmen say, and with truth, that "a good horse can't be a bad colour, no matter what his shade." Objection may, however, be reasonably made to pie-balls, skew-balls, or creamcolour, as being too conspicuous, moreover, first-class animals of these shades are rare; nor are the roan or mouse-coloured ones as much prized as they should be.

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Bay, brown, or dark chestnuts,* black or grey horses, are about the most successful competitors in the market, and may be preferred in the order in which they are here enumerated. Very light chestnut, bay, and white horses are said to be irritable in temper and delicate in constitution.t

*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."

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)

Mares are objected to by some as being occasionally uncertain in temper and vigour, and at times unsafe in harness, from constitutional irritation. More importance is attached to these assumed drawbacks than they deserve; and though the price of the male is generally from one-fourth to one-sixth more than that of the female, the latter will be found to get through ordinary work quite as well as the former.

To judge of the Age by the Teeth.-The permanent nippers, or front teeth, in the lower jaw, are six.

The

two front teeth are cut and placed at from two to three years of age; the next pair, at each side of the middle ones, at from three and a half to four; and the corner pair between four and a half and five years of age, when the tusks in the male are also produced.

The marks or cavities in these nippers are effaced in the following order :-At six years old they are worn out in the two centre teeth, at seven in the next pair, and at eight in the corner ones, when the horse is described as "aged.”

After this, as age advances, these nippers appear to change gradually year by year from an oval to a more detached and triangular form, till at twenty their appearance is completely triangular. After six the tusks become each year more blunt, and the grooves, which

at that age are visible inside, gradually wear out.

The Hack to Ride.—A horse with a small well-shaped head seldom proves to be a bad one; therefore such, with small fine ears, should be sought in the first instance.

It is particularly desirable that the shoulder of a riding hack should be light and well-placed. A high

-that animals thus marked generally possess peculiar powers of endurance; and rat-tailed ones, though ugly, prove very serviceablo.

withered horse is by no means the best for that purpose. Let the shoulder-blades be well slanted as the horse stands, their points light in front towards the chest. Nor should there be too wide a front; for such width, though well enough for draught, is not necessary in a riding-horse, provided the chest and girth be deep.

As a matter of course the animal should be otherwise well formed, with rather long pasterns (before but not behind), the length of which increases the elasticity of his movement on hard roads. His action should be independent and high, bending the knees. If he cannot walk well-in fact, with action so light that, as the dealers say, "he'd hardly break an egg if he trod on it "-raising his legs briskly off the ground, when simply led by the halter (giving him his head)-in other words, if he walks "close to the ground ❞—he should be at once rejected.

With regard to the other paces, different riders have different fancies: the trot and walk I consider to be the only important paces for a gentleman's ordinary riding-horse. It is very material, in selecting a ridinghorse, to observe how he holds his head in his various paces; and to judge of this the intending purchaser should remark closely how he works on the bit when ridden by the rough-rider, and he should also pay particular attention to this point when he is himself on his back, before selection is made.*

*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 ewenecked 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

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