110 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



rupted, and made subordinate to another consideration. 

 Now, all this, continued season after season, affects the 

 animal most injuriously. 



He may not actually break down; but the reserve 

 force has been drained away, and his stamina impaired. 

 Now, let a stallion thus superficially in the highest 

 possible condition, but latently and in fact in an 

 impaired condition, become a sire, and the foal will 

 share, not the original constitutional characteristics of 

 the horse, but those artificial peculiarities introduced 

 by his public career and training therefor. Hence it 

 comes about, that few horses of either sex noted for 

 their public performances have ever become the parents 

 of horses good as themselves. Hence it happens that 

 the foals of these horses not only fall short of that 

 degree of excellence which their parents had, but are 

 actually, and in many cases fatally, crippled in force, or 

 made heirs of an evil inheritance. Ethan Allen, for in- 

 stance, — a horse of superb bone-structure, and belong- 

 ing to a family noted for constitutional vigor, — got a 

 great many colts with feeble legs : he bred his high- 

 fevered, artificial state into them. Many of his colts 

 have been unpleasantly nervous and excitable ; to drive 

 which was a task and a risk, rather than a pleasure. The 

 fact is, no stock-horse should ever be trained for a race, 

 or gotten into abnormal state or condition of health or 

 mood. He should be kept in a healthy, normal state, 

 quiet, and with all his powers and faculties in even poise. 

 The severe training to which colts intended to be kept 



