62 THE COMPLETE HORSEMAN 



to that which our grandfathers knew by the name 

 and he is wanted for a very different purpose. 

 The hack of a hundred years ago had a hard 

 life. He was expected to carry his owner long 

 journeys and to put up with all the inconveniences 

 and discomforts of inn stables and he did it, 

 and did it well. The Yorkshire Hackney in 

 which was a considerable infusion of the thorough- 

 bred, was the standard riding-horse of the early 

 and middle years of the nineteenth century. 

 But when the boom in Hackney breeding set 

 in in the late seventies and early eighties Hack- 

 ney breeders began to work on different lines 

 from their predecessors. The Hackney was to 

 be the fashionable harness horse of the future 

 and to ensure his fitness for the place assigned 

 to him, he was bred on bigger lines and with 

 more knee action. To ensure these two points 

 some valuable ones were naturally somewhat 

 neglected, and whether taken on the whole the 

 policy was a wise one this is not the place to 

 discuss. What is however an undoubted fact 

 is that a very handsome and valuable type of 

 Riding-horse has almost disappeared and the 

 Yorkshire Hackney, a perfect saddle horse stand- 

 ing from 14 hands 3 inches to 15 hands 2 inches, 

 is scarcely now to be found. 



I have had one or two of them through my 

 hands and can testify to their work. The last I 

 had, a mare, stood 14 hands 3 inches and was 

 as perfect a hack as a man need wish to cross. 

 She was good in all her paces and was as hard as 



