3H POLO 



quicker at starting, though an Arab can, if properly trained, and 

 put through the riding school, be made equally quick. Besides 

 this their price is considerably lower. Altogether the ' tat ' is 

 by no means a bad animal on which to play polo if once he is 

 ' Europeanised.' 



During recent years the fashion as regards ponies in general 

 has undergone a great change, and nothing has brought about 

 this result more than polo. Size, substance, breeding, and 

 speed have been aimed at, and in many cases obtained by 

 crossing pure- bred Exmoor and other mares with both thorough- 

 bred and Eastern stallions, and the result is an animal that 

 can not only gallop, but carry weight, and is in many instances 

 a miniature hunter and racehorse combined. Some polo ponies, 

 it is true, have no pure pony blood in them, being merely, as I 

 have before said, undersized thoroughbreds. But many of them 

 combine the points of a Leicestershire hunter and a thorough- 

 bred racehorse, and the result is a picture of formation in an 

 animal that would doubtless have been a horse had not some 

 freak of nature ordained otherwise. It is an undeniable fact 

 that an infusion of Eastern blood has in the past considerably 

 improved, even if it has not been the making of, our present 

 breed of thoroughbred horses, and this opens up the question 

 as to the advisability of again recurring to the strain for the 

 improvement of our ponies, and particularly the breed of ponies 

 suitable for polo. The first or even second cross might indeed 

 be no great success according to some theories, but that it 

 would tell in the long run, if done judiciously, is, I think, not 

 open to contradiction. An improved Exmoor mare by an Arab 

 or Barb sire, put to a small, neat thoroughbred horse with a 

 strain of Venison or Newminster blood in him, ought to pro- 

 duce something very near perfection. The dash of Eastern 

 blood would answer for soundness of constitution, quickness, 

 bone, sagacity, and freedom from roaring, while that of the 

 thoroughbred would produce symmetry, gameness, and speed. 

 Mr. Knight and Sir Thomas Acland have greatly improved 

 their breed of Exmoor ponies by adopting this course, and it is 



