THE SIRE. 117 



unfit stallions to breed to. A stock-horse should, by 

 judicious exercise and dieting, be kept at just that 

 point at which the nervous and muscular forces are at 

 the flood. It is astonishing how much exercise a stock- 

 horse can take, and keep improving in his nervous and 

 muscular condition all the while. From ten to twenty 

 miles a day is not generally too much work during the 

 covering season : with this amount their condition will 

 be superb. What a coat, what eyes, what limbs, they 

 will have ! How little like a pig, and how much like a 

 horse, they will look when led from the stall ! A horse 

 thus treated will also be a sure foal-getter. Half of the 

 mares he served will not * be returned upon him the 

 next season. Indolence on the part of the sire during 

 the covering season is the curse of American breeding. 

 I know stallions in New England that are fat as swine, 

 and are rarely driven a mile, but stand day after day in 

 sluggish, vigor-sapping idleness. What colts can you 

 expect from horses kept in such a condition ? 



I have already given my views as to the degree of 

 influence derived from either parent; but I may say 

 here, that I would never breed a mare to a stallion with 

 the expectation of getting a trotting-colt, unless the 

 stallion could trot. The trotting -action seems to be 

 peculiarly the gift of the sire, 'provided that he is not 

 weak in those nervous and constitutional forces which 

 enable him to repeat himself in his offspring. A horse 

 with trotting-action, but weak in vital force, will not be 

 apt to transmit his way of going, or any thing else of 



