392 SMUGGLER. 



Smuggler is a dark bay or rich brown horse, with a large stinpe or 

 blaze the entire length of his face. He is about 15 hands 3^ inches 

 in height, but, having high withers, he has been called 16 hands high. 

 I have only the statement of his trainer on this point, and suppose 

 it is accurate. He has a very striking resemblance to the great 

 racing stallion Ijongfellow, being at this time almost exactly the same 

 color. He is not so tall nor so lengthy in appearance as Longfellow, 

 but carries very much of the latter's expression of grim resolution and 

 conscious power. His barrel does not seem to be long, but he has an 

 appearance of length from the coupling to the croup, and also that of 

 length of quarter and limb from hip to hock. His exact measure, in 

 this respect, is, from hip to hock 40^ inches, and length of thigh 24^ 

 inches (that given in a former chapter, from memory, is not quite 

 correct); this measurement, and that of his forelegs, being the only ones 

 taken by myself. His hips are somewhat prominent, but not so 

 much so as to appear unsightly, and his frame is so massive and pow- 

 erful as to call for some boldness of outline. He must be a horse of 

 great weight, as he has an appearance of extreme solidity in every 

 part. He is compact and muscular in every particular. Take the 

 entire horse, from the forelegs backward, he is evenly made, and 

 as powerfully built as any I have ever seen, and every part and mem- 

 ber, both in bone and muscle, lever and carcass, seem exactly adapted 

 to the most perfect action at great range of stroke, and with perfect 

 precision of motion. His length of limb from hip to hock — his long 

 and immensely powerful quarter, are in exact and proper proportion 

 with his powerful thigh and gaskin for a long, true and steady stroke, 

 without a single false motion, or the slightest appearance of hobbling or 

 wabbling in his gait. I had heard that his action behind was uneven 

 and unsteady. It is far from this. It is of the powerful and demon- 

 strative kind, full of energy and force, but even and precise in every 

 stroke. He spreads his feet out behind wider than his hocks. He 

 does not lift his hocks high, but sends his feet far out behind, and 

 apparently as high in the air as his hocks; not strictly so, but, in a 

 degree, he does so to appearance. His long leverage of 40^ inches 

 from hip to hock enables him to handle his long thigh; and yet such a 

 length of thigh as 24:|: inches can not fail to insure a wide, open gait. 

 He brings his hind feet forward, and sets them, not exactly under his 

 body, but alongside and outside of the places marked by his forefeet, 

 with great reach of limb, and great precision of stroke, and with a 

 power so terrific, that it is absolutely impossible to describe it. The 



