1 62 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS. 



coated chestnut, with a round barrel and a strong 

 back. 



No, their horses if not quite "clean-bred," as the 

 Irish themselves call it, are at least of illustrious parent- 

 age on both sides a few generations back, and this high 

 descent cannot but avail them, when called on for 

 long-continued exertion, particularly at the end of the 

 day. 



Juvenal, hurling his scathing satire against the patri- 

 cians of his time, drew from the equine race a metaphor 

 to illustrate the superiority of merit over birth. How- 

 ever unanswerable in argument, he was, I think, wrong 

 in his facts. Men and women are to be found of every 

 parentage, good, bad, and indifferent ; but with horses, 

 there is more in race than in culture, and for the selec- 

 tion of these noble animals at least, I can imagine no 

 safer guide than the aristocratic maxim, "Blood will 

 tell ! " 



