GALLOWAYS AND PONIES. 



5T 



n a constant state of irritation and fever, he rapidly loses his condition, 

 and sometimes comes up in August little better than a skeleton. 



Let the horse be turned out as soon as possible after the hunting season 

 is over. Let him have the whole of May, and the greater part, or possibh 

 the whole of June ; but when the grass fails, and the ground gets hard, 

 and the flies torment, let him be taken up. All the benefits of turnincr 

 out, and that which a loose box and artificial physic can never give, will 

 have been obtained, without the inconvenience and injury which attend 

 an injudiciously protracted run at grass, and which, arguing against the 

 use of a thing from the abuse of it, have been improperly urged against 

 turning out at all. 



The Steeple Hunt is a relic of ancient foolhardiness and cruelty. It 

 was the form under which the horse-race, at its first establishment, was 

 frequently decided. It is a race across the country, of two, or four, or 

 even a greater number of miles ; and it is generally contrived that there 

 shall be some deep lane, or wide brook, and many a stiff and dangerous 

 fence between. It is ridden at the evident hazard of the life of the 

 sportsman ; and it likewise puts to hazard the life or enjoyment of the 

 horse. It is getting into gradual disuse, and no man whose good opinion 

 is worth having would deem such an exhibition creditable to tliQ head or 

 heart of him who was engaged in it. 



GALLOWAYS AND PONIES. 



A horse between thirteen and fourteen hands in height is called a Gal- 

 EOWAY, from a beautiful breed of little horses once found in the south of 

 Scotland, on the shore of the Solway Firth, but now sadly degenerated, 

 and almost lost from the attempts of the farmers to obtain a larger kind, 

 and better adapted for the purposes of agriculture. There is a tradition 

 in that country that the breed is of Spanish extraction, some horses having 

 escaped from one of the vessels of the Grand Armada, which was wrecked 

 in the neighbouring coast. This district, however, so early as the time ©f 

 Edward I., supplied that monarch with a great number of horses. 



The pure Galloway was said to be nearly fourteen hands high, and some 

 E 



