270 POLO PONY BREEDING. [Chap. XL 



increase in size, owing to the nature of English food 

 and climate, they are more likely to be of the same size 

 as their sire than if they owed their parentage to a 14- 

 hand English thorough-bred, which, very likely, was 

 sired by a horse 15.2, out of an equally big mare. 



Lord Harrington was very successful with the Barb 

 Awfully Jolly, which I believe was an excellent polo 

 pony in his day. Personally I do not like Barbs, 

 though I would be the last to say there are no good 

 ones among them, as I do know a few. Lord Har- 

 rington says that he has never been able to find another 

 one like Awfully Jolly, a fact I am not surprised at. 

 If one is going in for Eastern blood, I am quite certain 

 it would be better to use the pure, high-caste Arab than 

 any less aristocratic breed. With respect to breeding 

 from an Arab, we must remember that not one Arab in 

 a thousand has good enough shoulders for the purpose ; 

 and that the defect of bad shoulders seems to be more 

 hereditary than any other fault. 



Rosewater (Fig. 100) and his son Sandiway, out of 

 the polo pony mare Cuddington, both breed ponies, 

 and as far as I can hear, the former gets all his 

 stock of polo height, but it remains to be proved 

 if they will breed first-class performers at the game, 

 although I have no doubt that they will succeed. 



Other considerations must be taken into account in 

 pony breeding, such as climate, feeding and soil. A 

 pony bred on rough mountains, and forced to get his 

 living as he can, without care or shelter, is certain not 

 to grow as big as he would do, if he was brought 

 up on rich pasture, and given oats from the time he 

 was a yearling. 



The real difficulty about pony breeding is that we 



