RACE HORSE. 



43 



service, for this very action diminished his speed, and added to his labout 

 and fatigue. 



A considerable change has taken place in the character of our war- 

 horses : lightness and activity have succeeded to bulk and strength ; and 

 for skirmishing and sudden attack, the change is an improvement. It is 

 particularly found to be so in long and rapid marches, which the lighter 

 troops scarcely regard, while the heavier horses, with their more than com- 

 parative additional weight to carry, are knocked up. There was, how- 

 ever, some danger of carrying this too far ; for it was found that in the 

 engagements previous to, and at the battle of Waterloo, our heavy house- 

 hold troops alone were able to repulse the formidable charge of the French 

 guard. 



The following anecdote of the memory and discipline of the troop-horse 

 is related on good authority. The Tyrolese, in one of their insurrections 

 in 1809, took fifteen Bavarian horses, and mounted them with so many of 

 iheir own men ; but in a skirmish with a squadron of the same regiment, 

 no sooner did these horses hear the trumpet, and recognise the uniform of 

 their old masters, than they set off at full gallop, and carried their riders, 

 in spite of all their efforts, into the Bavarian ranks, where they were made 

 prisoners. 



Pliny relates a curious story about the war-horse ; but, although an ex- 

 cellent naturalist and philosopher, he was either very credulous or too 

 fond of the marvellous. The Sybarites trained their horses to dance. 

 The inhabitants of Crotona, with whom they were at war, had their 

 trumpeters taught the tunes to which the horses were accustomed to dance. 

 When the opposing troops were in the act of charging upon each other, 

 the Crotonian trumpeters began to play these tunes — the Sybarite horses 

 began to dance, and were easily defeated. 



THE RACE HORSE 





There is much dispute with regard to the origin of the thorough-hrcd 

 horse. By some he is traced through both sire and dam to Eastern pareiit- 

 *ge ; others believe him to be the native horse, improved and perfected I'y 

 judicious crossing with the Barb, the Turk, or the Arabian. " The Stud 

 Book," which is an authority acknoAvledged by every English breeder. 

 traces all the old racers to some Eastern origin j or it traces them until 



