THE SADDLE-HORSE 59 



Going to Goodwood Races a few years since the writer and 

 a friend, leaving the train at Drayton, hired a Hansom cab for 

 the journey to the course. The singularly good-looking bay 

 horse in the shafts stepped out so gaily that we felt it would be 

 cruel to overtax him, and offered to provide a leader to help us 

 up the hill. The driver, who had alighted and was walking by 

 his horse's head, thanked us, but said the little horse would pull 

 us up with ease, and as he was not going to make another 

 journey he did not care for aid. We asked where he got so 

 good a horse, and he told us at Tattersall's. He had paid i8/. 

 for it, had driven it for nearly two years, and was, he believed, 

 the only cab-driver in London who had not owned a whip for 

 that period. Though the man was reluctant to part with the 

 horse he was tempted to do so, and the animal has since done 

 excellent service in a "gentleman's stable, is a charming hack, 

 carries a lady, and has been hunted in a modest way with 

 satisfactory results. How he ever came to be parted with for 

 so absurdly small a price remains a mystery. 



Another friend of the writer gave 200 guineas for a horse, 

 well nigh perfect in shape and, so far as the purchaser, one of 

 the best of living riders, could tell from trial, as good as he 

 looked out of the stable. After a long ride, during which the 

 creature's behaviour was altogether admirable, the bargain was 

 struck. Next morning he was found with cruelly swollen and 

 bleeding hocks, having evidently occupied the whole night in 

 kicking desperately, nor would anything cure him of the vice. 

 In spite of a well-padded box the horse contrived to injure him- 

 self, and was sold for little over a tenth of his cost price. The 

 moral is that it behoves the purchaser to find out all about the 

 horse he proposes to buy if he can. 



An economical and satisfactory method of obtaining a good 

 saddle-horse, if a man have time, skill, and patience, is to make 

 one ; that is to say, to buy a likely colt from the breeder, and, 

 when the preliminaries of bitting and backing have been per- 

 formed and perhaps this may best be done by a breaker whose 

 character and capacity the owner really knows, unless he have 



