COLOUR. 243 



is very little in all the overdrawn theories that have been worked 

 up, and all the violent assertions that have been made as to the 

 connection between colour, temper, and usefulness. The English, 

 French, and American theories contradict each other, and 

 wherever two theories on this subject have agreed they are 

 evidently copies. You can find either irritable or soft horses of 

 any colour. Chestnuts are often hot tempered ; greys are often 

 very docile. There are more greys amongst the illused horses in 

 Paris than amongst the better used horses in London, and they 

 are getting more numerous in America. They are banished from 

 the East Indian artillery. They have not been successful on the 

 racecourse, and are little favoured there, but this is easily 

 accounted for. No horse has been very successful on the race- 

 course for many years past that does not carry down more or less 

 of the blood of the once despised Godolphin Arabian, and as he 

 was a dark bay, they were not likely to carry his blood under a 

 grey skiu. So that we need not wonder that more than half the 

 ■winners of the Derby and St. Leger have carried the same colour 

 as the ancestor to which they owe their speed. As those favourite 

 sires, Childers and Eclipse, were chestnuts, it is natural that that 

 colour should stand next to the bay in the number of winners 

 that have carried it, as well as the white nose and pasterns of the 

 Newmarket flyer. Greys are troublesome to keep clean, and as 

 they change their shade of colour twice a year, and get lighter 

 in an uncertain degree as they get older, it is impossible to keep 

 them matched. Browns, dark bays, and dark chestnuts, with 

 little or no white about then;i, are on tlie whole the best colours. 

 There is little or nothing in the old theory that the white leg 

 was always the weak leg, but it is the leg that will always want 

 most cleaning, and then will not look so well as a black leg. 

 White faces belong to many of our very best horses, but they 

 would look much better without them, and where such undoubted 

 quality can be got without theui, it is a pity that tht-y are not 

 bred out. 



teiiperAmkni. 

 580. - In any animal wanted for work temperament is a 



