36 HORSE MA ASHIP. 



by far, with perhaps the exception of the Bedaween's Arab, 

 the most active and the best trained. When yarding cattle 

 or heading a bullock that has broken away, these horses 

 follow the fugitive, turning, twisting, and wrenching, with all 

 the activity of a sheep-dog. Fallen trees and all kinds of 

 obstacles are taken in the stride at the verge of speed. 

 The sudden halt, turn, or spin-round, as unexpected as in- 

 stantaneous of one of these stock-horses, would send the 

 best of our horsemen flying out of their saddles. All this 

 racing and chasing is accomplished by aid of the plain 

 snaffle bit, the reins, for the most part, lying loose on the 

 animal's neck, his rider being busy with his twenty foot, 

 short-handled whip. 



Ambling, or what in America and Canada is termed pacing 

 or racking, is a lateral camel-like motion much in vogue 

 in Eastern countries, and in the United States for harness, 

 where the speed is frequently very great and quite equal to 

 an ordinary gallop. The pacer Billy Boice, under the saddle, 

 covered his mile in two minutes fourteen seconds, and few 

 of our blood hunters, untrained, would cover that distance 

 in less than two minutes. Though unsightly to the English 

 eye, this peculiar gait is certainly the easiest of all to the 

 rider, and is the least injurious, save the walk, on the Queen's 

 highway. In India and in the East I have ridden pacers 

 long and continuous stages with the greatest comfort, and 

 it is wonderful how a trained pacer gets over the ground 

 seemingly untiringly and without effort. For invalids and 

 old gentlemen seeking a thoroughly comfortable airing, there 

 is nothing, outside a horse, like this pacing, the off fore and 

 hind feet being on the ground alternately with the near fore 

 and hind feet. In the State of Kentucky, America, where 

 men and women ride long distances and are frequently in 

 the saddle, their horses, all of Enghsh blood, are trained to 

 this peculiar running-walk. 



