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CHAPTER XXIX. 



COLONIAL HORSES. 



Australasian Horses — Canadian Horses — South African Horses. 



Australasian Horses. — This term includes the horses 

 of AustraUa, Tasmania and New Zealand. 



Between the years 1864 and 1890, I had a long and inti- 

 mate acquaintance in India with these horses, many 

 scores of which I owned, trained, raced and steeplechased. 

 As I have seen very few Australasian horses since that 

 time, I shall hmit my remarks to those of a by-gone 

 period. In those days, many of the horses (about 3,000) 

 annually imported into India from Australia and New 

 Zealand were of an admirable saddle type, and were dis- 

 tinguished by their excellent flat shoulders, light necks, 

 well-shaped legs, sound feet, and ability to jump cleverly. 

 At that time, the Antipodes appeared more suitable for 

 the production of thorough-breds with large bone and 

 substance than the United Kingdom, because a compara- 

 tively large number of animals of the hunter and charger 

 type, which had little or no stain in their pedigrees, came 

 from these colonies.' Although, as a rule, their fore-hands 

 were lighter and their shoulders better than those of our 

 half-bred horses, their head, loins, barrel and croup were 

 not so well shaped. The fault of being a bit " three- 

 cornered " was more apparent in Australian than in New 

 Zealand horses. Owing to the comparative absence of 

 cart blood, they did not make such good Field Artillery 

 wheelers or vanners, as English horses. These Colonial 



