CARRIAGE-HORSES 107 



Resolutions passed by the Council at a meeting held in 

 York, on April 17, 1888, laid down : " It is hereby agreed to 

 admit as eligible for the Stud Book, any horse or mare 

 showing three crosses of Coaching, or two crosses of 

 Coaching and one of Blood, such horse or mare to be 

 light or dark bay. No horse with direct Hackney or 

 Carting Blood allowed to enter." 



The result has been the establishment of a fine type of 

 powerful large-boned horse, with a considerable amount 

 of breeding, since a cross of thoroughbred blood is allow- 

 able every third generation. Though the level croup, a 

 very characteristic point, is apt to give riding-horses rather 

 a peacocky appearance, it is admirable for carriage work, 

 involving a good carriage of the tail. A cross of coach- 

 horse blood has frequently proved invaluable for light 

 mares, reintroducing size and bone, when a resort to a 

 thoroughbred horse might have produced a weed, useless 

 for general purposes. Whenever a mare throws small, light 

 foals, it is wise to try the effect of an alliance with a 

 Yorkshire Coach-horse before turning her out of the stud 

 altogether. In the writer's experience several good hunters 

 have been thus bred. 



The first volume of the Yorkshire Coach-horse Stud 

 Book was published in 1887, and in the Preface the remarks 

 of various writers are stated, showing that the animal the 

 Society had in view was more blood-like than the old Cleve- 

 land Bay, and capable of travelling at a faster pace. Thus 

 an extract is quoted from an article by Willoughby Wood 

 in 1854 with evident approval : — 



" As to the antique ' coach-horse,' that gaunt animal with 

 his red legs is now scarcely to be met with in his pristine 

 purity. His legs have been shortened and turned from bay 

 to black, his crest lowered, his head has been lessened in 

 more directions than one ; while evident crosses of blood, 

 which he shows, have imparted to him a decidedly more 

 modern and aristocratic appearance. His frame is deeper, 

 his body shorter, he can get his hind-legs under him, 

 and as to his pace, twelve miles an hour are easier to him 

 than eight would have been to his venerable maternal 



