150 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



But the head was ill-shaped, and the eye had the un- 

 easy, glassy, indescribable, but easily recognized look 

 of a stupid and dangerous animal. Such he proved to 

 be ; and after being half starved to "keep him down," 

 and then " fed up ' ; to make him look fat again, he 

 brought matters to a crisis by running away. Where- 

 upon he was sold at auction for about one twentieth 

 of the sum that he had cost. 



Only the other day, a trainer of many years' expe- 

 rience assured me that there was nothing in the ex- 

 pression of a horse's eye, — nothing at all; the only 

 significance was in the shape of the head. ]S"ow the 

 shape of the head is significant, but not more so than 

 the eye. 



The horse that I have described as suitable for the 

 saddle is, as the reader will doubtless have perceived, 

 most apt to be found among half-bred animals, — mean- 

 ing those that have some fraction, it may be a very 

 large or a very small one, of thorough-bred blood. — 

 and the nearer thoroughbred, the better. 



Good carriage horses are often described as hunters 

 of a large pattern ; the Cleveland Bays were part-bred 

 horses ; the Yorkshire Coach Horse Society counts a 

 thoroughbred out cross ("two in and one out") as 

 not disqualifying the animal thus bred for recording 

 in its book ; and in general it may be said that good 

 horses for riding and driving are half-breds. 



But, as no horseman needs to be told, the half-bred 

 is often a very poor animal, combining the defects of 

 both strains and this is especially the case when all 

 the hot blood is on one side, and all the cold blood on 

 the other. The produce of a thorougbred horse and 

 a cart mare is sometimes a grand beast, with the spirit 



