116 VARIETIES OF THE HORSE 



certain, is that they were far smaller than their descendants, but the diflfer- 

 ence in size may be easily accounted for by the better stabling, feeding, 

 selection, and management that the Hackneys of the present day are 

 favoured with; though it may be added, that beyond a doubt all varieties 

 of horse have increased in stature since the period referred to. It does not, 

 however, appear from the published writings of old authors that the horse- 

 breeders of the past were over particular as regards the height at shoulder 

 of their steeds. Master Blundeville, of Newton Flotsham, Norfolk, who 

 wrote and flourished in the reign of good Queen Bess, was careful to im- 

 press upon his readers the desirability of breeding from tall roomy mares 

 " of a high stature strongly made large and faire", but unfortunately he 

 omits to mention the stature which in his opinion was high. Blundeville, 

 however, was exceptionally well qualified to express an opinion upon the 

 subject of what he was pleased to refer to as the "trotting pase", for his 

 part of the country. East Anglia, has from time immemorial been one of the 

 strongholds of trotting horses. Even so far back as the fifteenth century, 

 one Dame Margaret Paston, in the course of a letter addressed to her 

 absent lord, informs him that " there be bought for you three horses at St. 

 Faith's Fair, and all be trotters, right fair horses, God save them, and they 

 be well keeped". One of the earliest reliable references that may be quoted 

 as applying to the height of stallions in the olden days appears in the 

 Norivich Gazette of 1725 in the form of an advertisement of a gray horse 

 which -stood 14 hands; but before a hundred years had elapsed such giants as 

 Silvertailed Fireaway (West's), who was foaled in 1807 and stood 16 hands, 

 were in existence, and it may be mentioned that he in turn sired Pheno- 

 menon Fireaway, who stood 16 '2 hands. This height was considerably in 

 advance of that which was common a few years ago, when 15 "2 hands was 

 recognized as the maximum shoulder measurement by the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society of England; but in response to the ajjpeals of Hackney- 

 breeders the Council of the "Royal" removed their restrictions upon horses 

 over this height competing at their shows, with beneficial results to all 

 parties concerned. Of late years a very perceptible increase in the height 

 both of Hackneys and Hackney-bred horses has been perceptil)le, and in the 

 summer of 1895 King Edward (then Prince of Wales) disposed of a pair of 

 Hackney-bred harness horses, which stood just a trifle under 16 hands, for 

 a thousand guineas, a circumstance which, did it stand alone, would affbi'd 

 a practical and unassailable demonstration of the value of Hackney blood, 

 and likewise of the height to which Hackneys may attain. It will pro- 

 bably, however, be some little time before this class of horse will average 

 anything like 16 hands, especially when it is remembered that for years 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of England was disqualifying animals 



