THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 349 



the roadster. A smooth, well-filled, evenly-rounded quarter is regarded 

 with much favor. The tail should be set well up and carried high. In the 

 shoulders the same point of smoothness and lack of angularity are re- 

 quired. The withers should be high and thin, the neck smoothly joined 

 to the shoulders, long and clean, with a full crest, the head fine and of 

 medium size, with fine ears, a full, clear eye, and large open nostrils. 



Quality is ;.s important in the coacher as in the roadster, and for 

 similar reasons. 



Action. — Conformation and action are absolutely essential to a coach 

 horse and to each other; that is, a horse cannot lay claim to merit as a 

 coacher unless he has both of these qualifications. Proper conformation 

 should first be present, for then the animal may be trained to act fairly 

 well, but if a fine actor is rough and "weedy" in make-up no amount of 

 feeding and care can give him form and style. 



In discussing the coach action the necessity for the legs to be moved 

 straight and true is perhaps the first thing to be considered, for the ex- 

 treme flexing of the legs, especially at the knees, makes it all the more 

 difficult for the horse to move them in a straight line, and thus increase 

 the danger of injury to himself by interfering, to say nothing of the un- 

 sightliness of faulty action. The fore legs are flexed as high as possible 

 and the feet extended with a sort of rotary motion that is very different 

 from the long reach of the roadster. 



The most difficult action to acquire is at the hocks. That of the 

 knees may be developed by training and shoeing, but high, elastic hock 

 action is well-nigh a hopeless proposition unless bred in the horse. It 

 may be easily inferred that it is far less common than first rate knee 

 action. The hocks should be flexed without any deviation from a straight 

 line, the feet carried in much the same manner as in front and placed 

 directly in front of their former positions, with as little jar as possible 

 At all time a coacher must "keep his legs under him." He does not ex- 

 tend himself as a roadster; there is not the long reach in front nor the 

 swing behind. 



A moderate degree of speed always gives added value to a coach 

 horse, but much speed is not only not absolutely necessary, but is, accord- 

 ing to the nature of things, usually out of the question. Much of the 

 energy of the horse's effort is expended in lifting his feet as high as pos- 

 sible, and the combination of this effort with that of speed-making reach 

 is asking too much of a horse, as it entails so great an amount of wear 

 on the animal organism that it would soon give way. 



While a coacher must be thoroughly sound, he is not required to have 

 the great speed powers or endurance of the roadster. Short distances 

 only are expected of him at a rate of from 6 to 10 miles an hour. 



Demand. — The demand for a stylish animal for city driving takes all 

 the available horses that come to the market. Some are exported, but 

 the foreign demand has comparatively little effect on this class. The 

 demand from the American cities is strong, the only complaint being that 

 the right kind of horses are extremely difficult to find. 



