CHAPTER IV 



The Finished Article 



IF more were required to justify the Allies' splendid war-horse, it is the 

 firm conviction, which cannot be emphasized too insistently, that the 

 light draught of American origin has come to stay in this country. Heaven 

 forbid that the world shall ever again be racked by the agonies of such another 

 war as this, or, indeed, of war at all, so that the question does not necessarily 

 arise of establishing big breeding depots throughout the United Kingdom at 

 which the type shall be bred and reared in readiness for another day. It is, 

 nev.ertheless, safe at this stage to prophesy that the Percheron-brcd light draught 

 horse will surely be introduced to this country as a permanent institution. 

 Actually I wrote this prior to the formation in this country of the British 

 Percheron Horse Society. Already now there are in England pure-bred 

 Percerhon stallions and mares, which have been imported from France. 

 They will take their place in history as the pioneers of the light draught breed 

 in the United Kingdom, just as will the best and most typical of the thousands 

 of mares that will be brought back to us after surviving the rigours and perils 

 of active service. Clearly such mares will be recovered and retained so that 

 they may perpetuate their fine characteristics. For, apart from their value 

 as war-horses, they must attract the employer of the general utility horse. 



After all, they are a distinct type. Some may be better than others, and 

 some may be heavier in physique than the vast majority, but these latter are 

 as if they had all come out of the same mould. By comparison the British 

 light draught is a nondescript, a misfit. He could be anything — a half-bred 

 Shire or Ciydesdale, a Welsh cob, a heavyish Hackney, a Cleveland bay, or 

 a heavy-weight " hunter " without true hunter lines and action. All these 

 odds and ends of horse-flesh we have seen pass through remount depots en 

 route to the theatres of war. They were classed as light draught because 

 they were neither heavy draught nor riding horse. But the Yankee was 

 essentially and absolutely a light draught horse, true to type, varying not at 

 all in character and very little in the non-essential details. He is the real 

 equine hero of the war, and by his triimiphs, which must be as real in peace 

 time as in war, he sim})ly must take his place, and an important one, too, in 

 the horse population of these Islands. 



Some fu ther light may be shed on his personality if we resume our associa- 

 te 



