A COUNTRY KIDE. 



The Book of the Horse 



INTRODUCTORY. 



ENGLAND — in which geographical expression Ireland, Wales, and Scotland are, also, 

 of course, included — is the breeding-ground, the original home, of the best horses in the 

 world. Englishmen invented, if one may be permitted to use so mechanical a term, the thorough- 

 bred horse, which combines with marvellously increased size, speed, and power, all the fire, 

 courage, and quality of his Oriental ancestors — the Barb and the Arab. The English 

 thorough-bred is universally recognised as the sole source of improvement for every variety of 

 the horse tribe in Europe and America, save those used in the dull useful labour of heavy 

 draught ; and even the British draught-horse has been brought to perfection by the application 

 of principles which were first employed, although recently neglected, in the breeding of the 

 incomparable race-horse. 



At the present moment there is in Continental Europe scarcely a State in which the 

 character of the riding and light harness horse has not been materially ameliorated by crosses 

 of English blood. The importations by private breeders and by the governing managers of 

 Royal and National studs, which commenced soon after the close of the great war in 1S15, 

 have been carried on ever since with annually increasing care and vigour. The first experiments 

 with English blood-sires were made, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, in those ancient 

 breeding-grounds of medieval war-horses, Mecklenburg and Hanover. In the long peace which 

 followed Waterloo, the merits of the thorough-bred sire conquered the prejudices of nations 

 inclined to detest everything English ; and now in the State studs of France, of the several 

 E 



