198 BREEDS OF POLO PONIES. [Chap. VIII. 



big, well-shaped hocks, perfect fore legs, and plenty 

 of bone, I bought him in [890, at Cairo, for £21^ 

 and without any preliminary training took him 

 straight on to the polo ground, where he played 

 perfectly, in a snaffle bridle, on the very first occa- 

 sion. I knew him to be an exceptionally hard, good 

 animal, and a perfect player ; but as I considered him 

 too slow to be first-class at the game, I kept him as 

 the slave of the establishment. He often carried me 

 six miles down the hard high road in less than half- 

 an-hour to the racecourse in the morning, and played 

 polo on the same afternoon. I took him home in 

 1 89 1, after having added him to the list before starting. 

 Thinking that he was not of much value for polo, I 

 lent him to a child to hunt all the following winter, and 

 sold him early in the spring for £^60. As he proved 

 unsuitable to his buyer, he was returned to me, so I 

 began to play him again, and soon discovered that, in 

 the meanwhile, he had acquired the one thing, namely, 

 speed, which he had before lacked to make him a polo 

 pony of the highest class. His great improvement in 

 pace appears to have been undoubtedly due to his 

 having been " well done " all the winter on the best of 

 English hay and oats, and having been galloped with a 

 light-weight on his back. The practice which he had 

 through heavy ground enabled him to go faster on our 

 soft English turf. Purchasers of foreign ponies should 

 remember that these animals greatly improve on good 

 English food, and that they are seldom at their best 

 until they have been a year or two in this country. 

 The same remark applies to Arab horses in India 

 which get into the hands of careful owners. 



In the following spring, Peter fetched 250 guineas at 



