CHAPTER XIII. 

 Of Breeding, Feeding, and Training Horses. 



SECTION I. BREEDING. 



THE utmost attention should be paid in the selection 

 of brood-mares, because the progeny depends more 

 upon the dam than the horse, and the size and strength 

 of the foal will bear a considerable similitude to hers. 

 As a proof of this, we have found that those horses 

 that have been the produce of an Arabian stallion and 

 a mare, if she were large and well-formed, have not 

 resembled the horse in their stature. Up to the year 

 1829, only one Arabian horse had been brought to 

 Scotland, which was in the reign of Alexander I., who, 

 in the year 1131, presented to the Church of St 

 Andrew's an Arabian horse, furnished with costly 

 trappings ; this is the first that was brought to Great 

 Britain. In 1829, Capt. Home, of the Madras 

 Artillery, introduced a beautiful silver-grey horse, 

 called the Humdanieh Arabian. His height was 

 fourteen hands and a half a size which the Edinburgh 

 breeders thought too small to be a good breeding 

 stallion, and refused to use him as such. Sir Robert 

 Keith Dick, Bart., however, who had been long in 

 India, was well aware of the fallacy of size being an 

 objection. He offered to keep him at Prestonfield and 

 breed from him. The first colt of his produce turned 



