90 THE DIFFERENT BREEDS OF ENGLISH HORSES. 



by whom she was well fed, and had no disgraceful tasks imposed upon her ; and in 

 a few months she looked as fresh and clean upon her legs as in her best days. 

 So far as speed was concerned, there was nothing in the annals of trotting com- 

 parable to her performances. 



Of stoutness, whether confined to this pace, or the accomplishment of great 

 distances with little or no rest, there are too many instances ; and the greater 

 number of them were accompanied by circumstances of disgraceful barbarity. 



Mr. Osbaldeston had a celebrated American trotting-horse, called Tom 

 Thumb. He matched him to trot 100 miles in ten hours and a half. It 

 seemed to be an amazing distance, and impossible to be accomplished : but the 

 horse had done wonders as a trotter ; he was in the highest condition ; the 

 vehicle did not weigh more than 100 Ibs., nor the driver more than 10 at. 3 Ibs. 

 He accomplished his task in ten hours and seven minutes ; his stoppages to 

 bait, &c., occupied thirty-seven minutes so that, in fact, the 100 miles were 

 done in nine hours and a half. He was not at any time distressed ; and was 

 so fresh at the end of the ninetieth mile, that his owner offered to take six to 

 four that he did fourteen miles in the next hour. 



An English-bred mare was afterwards matched to accomplish the same task. 

 She was one of those animals, rare to be met with, that could do almost any- 

 thing as a hack, a hunter, or in harness. On one occasion, after having, in fol- 

 lowing the hounds, and travelling to and from cover, gone through at least 

 sixty miles of country, she fairly ran away with her rider over several ploughed 

 fields. She accomplished the match in ten hours and fourteen minutes or, 

 deducting thirteen minutes for stoppages, hi ten hours and a minute's actual 

 work ; and thus gained the victory. She was a little tired, and, being turned 

 into a loose box, lost no time in taking her rest. On the following day she was as 

 full of life arid spirit as ever. These are matches which it is pleasant to record 

 and particularly the latter ; for the owner had given positive orders to the driver 

 to stop at once, on her showing decided symptoms of distress, as he valued her 

 more than anything he could gain by her enduring actual suffering. 



Others, however, are of a different character, and excite indignation and 

 disgust. Rattler, an American horse, was, in 1829, matched to trot ten miles 

 with a Welsh mare, giving her a minute's start. He completed the distance 

 in thirty minutes and forty seconds being at the rate of rather more than 

 nineteen miles an hour and beating the mare by sixty yards. All this is 

 fair; but when the same horse was, some time afterward, matched to trot thirty- 

 four miles against another, and is distressed, and dies in the following night 

 when two hackneys are matched against each other, from London to York, 196 

 miles, and one of them runs 182 of these miles and dies, and the other accom- 

 plishes the dreadful feat in forty hours and thirty -five minutes, being kept 

 for more than half the distance under the influence of wine when two brutes 

 in human shape match their horses, the one a tall and bony animal and the 

 other a mere pony, against each other for a distance of sixty-two miles, and 

 both are run to a complete stand-still, the one at thirty and the other at eighty 

 yards from the winning point, and, both being still urged on, they drop down 

 and die when we peruse records like these, we envy not the feelings of the 

 owners, if indeed they are not debased below all feeling. We should not have 

 felt satisfied in riding an animal, that had done much and good service, 

 seventy miles when he was thirty-six years old ; nor can we sufficiently 

 reprobate the man, who, in 1827, could ride a small gelding from Dublin to 

 Nenagh, ninety-five miles, in company with the Limerick coach ; or that 

 greater delinquent who started with the Exeter mail, on a galloway, under 

 fourteen hands high, and reached that city a quarter of an hour before the 

 mail, being 172 miles, and performed at the rate of rather more than seven 



