1 68 COMPARATIVE SHAPE OF HORSES. 



jumping points of the hunter. It is evident that the 

 steeplechase horse should be a judicious combination 

 of the hunter and the race-horse. The fast horse, whether 

 racer or American match trotter, can no more dispense 

 with a certain amount of strength, than can the heavy 

 draught horse attain excellence without a certain amount 

 of speed, even at a walk. The light vanner belongs to 

 a class intermediate between the light harness horse and 

 the heavy draught horse. 



The method of working from the whole to a part, 

 should be followed as rigorously in judging a horse, as 

 in painting or land surveying. If we desire to obtain 

 correctness in these arts, we must, as a rule, first get our 

 general outline, and then fill in the details. If, in our 

 preliminary examination, we allow our eyes to be caught 

 by some isolated beauty or defect, we would be — to use 

 an oft applied simile — like a painter who begins a full- 

 length portrait of a person by drawing the nose, and 

 then hangs the remainder of the body to it. We should 

 bear in mind that the degree of adaptability of an animal 

 for any special kind of useful work, depends more on his 

 general shape, than on the possession or absence of any 

 particular " point." 



In making comparisons, we should not be disconcerted 

 by the fact that some of the proportions of a horse may 

 vary a little according to the position in which he stands 

 and the nature of his bodily condition. Some allowance 

 has to be made for the fact, that the majority of the fast 

 horses and jumpers in the illustrations of this book, were 

 taken when they were in hard training ; and most of the 

 heavier horses, when they were in a " lusty " state. It 

 would be more satisfactory, if they had been photographed 

 at a time when they were all in " hard " condition ; but 

 that, obviously, was impossible to get done. The method 

 I shall indicate will, however, give results sufficiently 

 uniform for our purpose. We must also remember that 

 the respective proportions of animals of the same class 



