MORGAN HORSE : HIS RELATION TO BREEDING. 341 



horse. It is a public loss when such an animal is 

 monopolized for private purposes. The Knox colts 

 are apt to be rather coarse, especially about the head ; 

 and should be crossed with fine-bred, gamy-looking 

 mares. Their friends must understand that speed alone 

 is not enough to make a colt valuable to-day, save for 

 pure gambling-purposes; that beauty must be borne 

 in mind when breeding. A coarse head, big ears, 

 small eyes, and long hair, are detestable in a true 

 horseman's eye, and should be bred out of the family 

 which happens to be cursed with them just as soon as 

 it is possible to do it. The fact is, the Messenger family 

 was a coarse-looking family. The old Messenger was a 

 coarse horse : his most famous descendant, Abdallah, was 

 coarser yet, with a big head, little or no mane, a rat- 

 tail, an overplus of bone-substance, and an ashen-colored 

 rump. This ancestral coarseness is continually cropping 

 out in his descendants. There is more than one colt in 

 America with the homely Abdallah body and Messenger 

 head, without their speed. Tliorough-hred does not al- 

 ways mean beauty by a long-shot, as the lop-eared 

 Melbournes and the coarse-looking Messengers prove. 

 Breed an Abdallah mare to a high-bred Morgan stal- 

 lion, and you will be very likely to get a colt with 

 the beauty of the sire and the speed of the dam. 

 If you do, you have got a "hit" indeed. 



But I will detain the reader no longer with my 

 speculations. The task which has consumed the leisure 

 of years is completed ; and I have, at least, the author's 



