152 HORSE AND MAN. 



' The officers, thorough ly disgusted, proposed a 

 third race, and brought to the ground a magnificent 

 Kentucky mare of the true Lexington blood, and 

 known to beat the best of the others at least forty 

 yards in four hundred. The Indians accepted the 

 race, and not only doubled the bets as before, but 

 piled up everything that they could raise, seemingly 

 almost crazed with the excitement of their previous 

 success. 



' The riders mounted, the word was given. Throw- 

 ing away his club, the Indian rider gave a whoop, at 

 which the sheep-like pony pricked up his ears and 

 went away like the wind, almost two feet to the 

 mare's one. The last fifty yards of the course were 

 run by the pony with the rider sitting face to the tail, 

 making; hideous grimaces, and beckoning to the rider 

 of the mare to come on.' 



The reader will probably have noticed the enor- 

 mous weight of the man who acted as jockey, as well 

 as the fact that when the rider really wanted the 

 horse to do its best he abandoned the stick and only 

 urged the animal with his voice. 



The hardness and sure-footedness of the unshod 

 horse is not confined to the American animal, and 

 neither are due to the effects of climate, as is urged 

 by many objectors. Here, for example, is an account 

 of the wild Exmoor ponies, which, in many respects, 



