274 Horseshoeing. 



Now, if I had not taken the trouble to trace him back I should 

 never have known within fifteen or sixteen years how old he 

 really was. 



I have, at different times, met with four horses who were all 

 known to be over forty years old, and were still at work ; one 

 of them was shot at the age of forty-five, not because he was in- 

 capable of further work, but because his master saw the servant 

 ill use him. But, perhaps without taxing my memory for further 

 facts, those supplied by my own stable in November of last year 

 may sufficiently illustrate my position, that the natural life of a 

 horse is longer than it is generally supposed to be. 1 had at 

 that time six horses in my stable whose combined ages amounted 

 to one hundred and forty-five years, and five of them are still 

 there, with clean legs and hoofs looking like colts' hoofs. The 

 sixth 1 had destroyed last December at the age of twenty-six. 

 When I purchased him nineteen years ago he had incipient 

 navicular disease, but I contrived by shoeing and stable manage- 

 ment to keep it at bay all that time. 



The patriarch of the lot, who was bred only five miles from 

 Exeter, has just completed his fortieth year ; his early history does 

 not redound to his credit ; he was a very unruly, unmanageable 

 brute, and was perpetually changing masters for running away and 

 kicking carriages to pieces ; two hackney men in succession tried 

 him, but were obliged to part with him ; at length he was handed 

 over to the tender mercies of a commercial traveller, whose long 

 journeys tlirough Devon and Cornwall, after a few years, subdued 

 him, and he became a very useful horse, and at the age of fourteen 

 was sold to a friend of mine, from whom I purchased him exactly 

 twenty years ago. He is a high stepper and remarkably hand- 

 some, and if you do not look in his mouth his general appearance 

 would pass muster for nine or ten years old ; he is perfectly 

 quiet out of the stable, but he had been so leazed and worried 

 all his life, until he came into my hands, that even now he will 

 not permit a stranger to enter his box alone. The next in 

 seniority is twenty-nine years old, and is the best hack I ever 

 rode. Seventeen years ago, the smith who usually shod him 

 declared his feet to be so far gone that he could shoe him no 

 longer ; and he was on the point of being shot, as " used up," 

 and " quite done for," when I came to the rescue, and accepted 

 him as a present, with the view of trying what I could do to put 

 him on his feet again, and the result of my trial has been seven- 

 teen years of very efficient service. 



There is no specialtv attending the history of the other three; 

 one is twenty-one years okl, and has been in my possession 

 sixteen years ; another is sixteen years old, and has been in my 

 possession nine years ; and the last of the six above named horses 



