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518 



AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



with the severe exercise of long inarches and great endurance. 

 Those men, whether in civilized or other lands, who spend 



most of their lives in the 

 saddle, seldom practice 

 their horses in more than 

 two movements faster than 

 a walk — the trot and the 

 gallop. A sustained, rapid 

 trot is a hard gait for the 

 inexperienced rider; but, 

 when oile is inured to it, 

 no other seems comparable 

 with it for long journeys. 

 General Sheridan's famous 

 black stallion, which bore him to the field of Opequan Creek 

 from Winchester, *^ twenty miles away" — an occasion already 

 celebrated irt history and song — is said to have been one of 

 the hardest-gaited horses that man ever bestrode — one which 

 it would be a sore task for many a professional jockey to have 

 to ride. 



y^j 



HORSES FOR THE BUGGY AND CARRIAGE. 



TTsually, the horse of the American farmer must be some- 

 what accustomed to almost every variety of exercise — to the 



saddle, the buggy, and the car- 

 riage as well as the plow and the 

 wagon. Hard labor, on the road 

 or in the field, impairs the quali- 

 ties for use under the saddle, and 

 the farm-horse is not generally 

 well suited to the carriage. Yet, 

 a horse of fine form and limb 

 will always be more active in the shafts of any vehicle than 

 one that is coarse and raw-boned. 



The best carriage-horses are not those of largest size^ 

 They should have height and length, but the body should be 

 light and compact, with small, clean limbs, and a hard mus- 



