STANDARD-BRED HORSES II9 



In travelling through Europe, I have been repeatedly 

 asked if America can really claim a 7iational horse. For 

 it is argued that the trotter, which belongs distinctively 

 to America, cannot be called a breed, since it is his peculiar 

 education alone which makes him a trotter. I know that 

 it is a continual and well-known source of grief and dis- 

 appointment to breeders that there is 710 certainty of pro- 

 ducing a ' trotter ' from parents of distinguished talents 

 and records as trotters. 



'Ah, yes, there is a national horse in America. The 

 one indigenous to the country is the broncho or mustang, 

 or wild horse of Texas. Sad to relate, however, they 

 are said to have become a nuisance and a perfect terror 

 to ranchmen: When thoroughly broken and trained, 

 only the Arab can rival them in endurance and capacity 

 for steady speed or work. But in their wild state they 

 love their freedom so dearly, and are so cunning in their 

 methods, that they never fail to inspire a similar longing for 

 independence in their bridled and conquered " sisters and 

 cousins and aunts." With marvellous intelligence the 

 mustangs prepare the way for a stampede, and swooping 

 down upon the enclosure of the ranchmen, persuade the 

 ponies to brave the certain dangers of jumping a barbed 

 wire fence, and thus clearing the corral. They have become 

 the despair of the Texas ranchmen, for, although years 

 ago it paid to catch and tame them, now it is said to 

 be almost impossible to sell a mustang for use, even as 

 a cow pony. 



