284 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



port to Bangor, which she won. This mare weighed 

 about nine hundred pounds ; her back was very short ; 

 her eyes were "large and expressive"; she was low- 

 headed, and a hard puller. I ought not, however, to 

 speak of her in the past tense, for my informant adds 

 "She is now nineteen years old, and hasn't seen a 

 windpuff." 



An old gentleman who has owned many valuable 

 horses told me lately that the best and most intelli- 

 gent of them all was a medium-sized gelding, with a 

 dash of Arab blood. One very hot day he drove this 

 horse sixty miles in a heavy buggy, putting up toward 

 night at the house of a friend. After the nag had 

 thoroughly cooled off, the negro groom in charge 

 mounted and took him out for a bath in a neighboring 

 river. The horse enjoyed it so much that he swam 

 hither and thither for a considerable distance with 

 the darkey on his back, and, finally coming ashore, 

 he finished the da\^'s work by taking the bit in his 

 teeth and running away on the high road for three or 

 four miles out of pure lightness of heel and heart. 

 " Massa," said the negro, when he led this extraordi- 

 nary animal to the door on the following morning, 

 not daring to get in the vehicle and drive, u Massa, 

 this hoss am de debil ! " 



One experiment now making in this country with 

 regard to Arabian horses deserves mention. Mr. 

 Eandoph Huntington is a veteran horseman, whose 

 devotion to the Henry Clay family of trotters (de- 

 scended from the Barb, Grand Bashaw) and to the 

 Arabian horse may be described without exaggeration 

 as heroic. I have quoted in a previous chapter his 

 description of old Henry Clay. For many years the 



