The Romance of the Horse 



From "Rider and Driver" 



A FEW years ago one heard on all sides that the 

 horse was doomed to extinction, would soon be 

 found only in a museum and many other cheerful 

 prognostications. These sentiments were voiced by all 

 sorts of people, and for all sorts of reasons. The natural 

 born pessimist took special delight in telling you all about 

 it, rubbing it in more particularly if he met you riding 

 or driving, because, in common with all of his breed, he 

 objects to seeing anyone enjoy himself in a natural way. 

 The terribly up-to-date person, in order to show you how 

 antiquated you and your ideas were, as compared with his 

 own, voiced much the same ideas, expressed real pity for 

 you and hoped that ere long you would see the error 

 of your ways, dispose, at any price, of your horses and 

 join the gas machine procession. Others, whose tastes 

 inclined toward mechanical means of progression, told 

 you that the world was entering on an iron and steel era 

 and that, in order to keep your end up in either business 

 or sport, you would have to give up the horse or be left 

 entirely behind in the race. 



The most earnest and vociferous of all the prophets 

 was the man connected with the making or selling of 

 motor vehicles. He pretended to believe, himself, and 

 did his best to make everyone else believe, by means of 

 garbled facts and figures, that the horse as an aid to 

 business or recreation was done for. And he did succeed 

 in doing quite a bit of harm to the horse industry. He 

 showed the breeders of all classes of horses how foolish 

 it was to continue to produce an article for which the 

 demand was already lessening and would soon cease to 

 exist; an article expensive to produce and grow to a 

 marketable age; liable to all kinds of accidents from its 



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