THE COLONIAL HORSE 209 



Many horses in training, especially steeplechasers, are 

 daily turned out for a couple of hours in a field where the grass 

 has been closely cropped down. Trainers have great faith in 

 the efficacy of this practice to freshen up the legs of their 

 horses. Even hunters in regular work on the days when they 

 are not hunted are commonly allowed to run in a paddock with 

 a fawn rug covered by one of the common canvas rugs of 

 the colony. Though clipped or singed, no ill effect seems to 

 result from the practice, provided the horse has his regular 

 feeds of corn given to him. It is certainly not to the treatment 

 which the common hack of the country receives when in use 

 that this freedom from unsoundness is to be ascribed, for the 

 canter or ' lope ' is the invariable pace for an Australian hack, 

 and it is always a case of ' 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer 

 on the 'ard 'igh road/ and in the mountainous parts of the 

 country some of the roads are iron in their hardness. 



When considering the difference between colonial hack and 

 harness horses, and those used for similar purposes in England, 

 great allowance must be made for the appearance and condition 

 of the former. 



The extreme scarcity and dearness of labour make it 

 necessary that the farmer should himself do what grooming and 

 tending is necessary ; mares and foals are allowed to roam 

 in the fields all the winter without the shelter to which we 

 accustom them, even in the warmer European latitudes, and 

 the feed they receive is entirely the grass they can pick . up in 

 the paddocks. In the north island of New Zealand, owing to 

 the warm winter and frequent summer rain, this fortunately 

 grows all the year round. The result is to produce an animal 

 hardy though not showy, to escape the unsoundness of wind 

 and blemish of broken knees so often found in English horses, 

 though, on the other hand, a result of the use of barb wire is to 

 mark for life many a young horse with ugly scars and scratches. 



All the disadvantages, both in breeding and rearing, from 

 which the foal suffers in Australia but escapes in England, 

 could equally be avoided in Australia by a mere expenditure 



p 



