CHAPTER XXXV 



THE HACKNEY 



' I ^HE modern hackney is a descendant of the Nor- 

 "^ folk trotter — a family to which belonged the cob 

 immortalized by George Borrow in Lavengro. The 

 Norfolk trotter was a stout horse, equally good in 

 harness and under saddle, and rich in the blood both 

 of the thoroughbred and the Arab. He was a fast, 

 sure-footed, enduring roadster — such a roadster as 

 was needed in the days when railroads were not, or 

 were only beginning to exist. 



But for many years past his descendant, the hackney, 

 has been bred and used mainly as a show horse and he 

 is now so deficient in endurance that he is rejected for 

 army use and even for use as a road-coach horse. Mr. 

 Otho Paget, a leading authority in England on horse 

 matters, says In one of his books: "I have never 

 know^n a useful horse of hackney blood." 



The hackney is a handsome, round-turned, sweet- 

 tempered animal, with a good deal of knee action — 

 sometimes excessive knee action — but this knee action 

 Is usually of the up and down, pounding kind, and not 

 the graceful, round action of the trotting-bred horse. 



Some hackneys, however, as, for example, the little 

 stallion Dilham Prime Minister, might be mistaken 

 for trotters, so far as their action Is concerned. An 

 English-bred horse, by the way, can almost always be 



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