THE HACKNEY OR HARNESS HORSE 



Points, etc. — Speaking in a practical manner, when 

 purchasing a harness horse, or pair of these, it is not usual to 

 make any inquiries regarding the pedigree of the animal offered 

 for sale. There is an old axiom that a well bred horse should 

 carry his pedigree about with him, and, to a certain extent, this 

 is true. Most dealers would be highly amused if the intending 

 buyer demanded a pedigree, and, if this became a general custom, 

 bogus pedigrees would become as common as cobble stones. 



Well bred horses can be purchased without any history of 

 their antecedents, but such would be of no use to the breeder 

 of typical hackneys. A sire and dam, with a good pedigree, 

 and of the right sort, will, under favourable conditions, as a 

 rule, produce offspring fairly true to type. 



The reason why there are so many weedy roadster horses 

 all over the country, is chiefly owing to injudicious selection in 

 mating, and the exportation of the best animals from this 

 country. Take the average harness horse, such as one com- 

 monly sees running in broughams, landaus, etc., and it will be 

 found that fully one half are of bad conformation, sluggish 

 movers (daisy cutters), vicious, or showing evidence of coarse 

 breeding in other ways. A hackney true to his Hne of descent 

 has none of these bad qualities, and to purchase such an animal, 

 from a breeder of repute, is to some extent a guarantee of 

 style, action, and manners. Another point will also have been 

 gained, namely, that of having purchased an English bred 

 horse ; most of the West End carriage horses being foreign 

 ones, coming from Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, etc. 



With regard to colour, dark chestnut, hght chestnut, roan, 

 bay, bay-roan, brown, chestnut, and grey-roan, also dun and 

 iron-grey, are the prevailing ones. White points are very 



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