64 THE HORSE 



The French Government, ever alive to the importance, from a military 

 point of view, of keeping up the quality and quantity of horses in the 

 country, continue from time to time to import English blood, but not to 

 tlie extent that was necessary when the above list was first published. 



The number of English thoroughbreds now imported into France is 

 comparatively few, as will be f-:een by the following official information 

 kindly supplied by Mr. Heniy Blount : — 



" The French Jockey Club sends each year a commission to England 

 with the intention of purchasing thoroughbred stallions. Names of some 

 of those purchased in recent years are appended, but it will be seen that 

 none have been purchased since 1893. 



THE FLEMISH HORSE 



The Netherlands have a great advantage over most of the countries 

 nto which the continent of Europe is divided, in the possession of exten- 

 sive meadows which are not flooded, and in which the fine clovers, so 

 requisite to the development of the horse, are produced in tolerable 

 abundance. For this reason chiefly, I believe, the Flemish horses have 

 long enjoyed a high reputation, second only to our own, and to them we 

 owe many useful crosses among our dray and heavy agricultural draught- 

 hoi'ses. Both their light and heavy breeds are remarkable for high crests, 

 small heads, somewhat narrow across the eyes, heavy shoulders, and round, 

 powerful, but very drooping quarters. Their hocks are comparatively 

 small, but clean, and their legs light and free from hair. Their worst 

 point lies in the feet, which almost always have flat and thin soles, 

 unfitting them for fast work on hard roads. Just prior to the introduction 

 of railroads the English system of coaching was introduced into Belgium, 

 and I have sat behind several teams of mares drawing a heavy diligence 

 more than ten miles within the hour. We now possess a class of animals 

 in our heavy omnibuses, a pair of which will draw the enormous weight 

 of four tons at the rate of six or eight miles per hour ; but they do not run 

 more than six miles in one stage, nor, as far as I am aware, does any 

 omnibus travel nearly as fast as the crack Belgian diligences which were 

 running between 1830 and 1840.^ Indeed, I hardly think any horses 

 could have been found in this country at a price suited to coaching work, 



^ Large numbers of these horses were imported into London and other great cities in the 

 "sixties" and "seventies," but proved incapable of sustaining the concussion of roads 

 which at that time were chiefly stone and macadam. Their feet were flat and weak, wliich 

 gave rise to much lameness. Witli heavy heads, light middlepieces, and goose rumps, 

 they must have been but sorry representatives of the class described by the author. A few 

 years .ifter the importations ceased they disappeared as it were from the streets of London. 



