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CHAPTER VI. 



FOREIGN AND COLONIAL HOUSES. 



French Breeds of Light Horses — Ardennes — Limousin — Tarbes — Descendants of Saracen Cavahy — Decline of the Limousin — 

 Of Equitation in France — Louis XlV.'s Cavalry Mounted on Danes and Germans — Origin of French State Studs — State 

 of Supply 1813-14 — Serious Investigation, 1830 — System Adopted Described — i,SOO Official Stallions — Normans the Best 

 French Riding-horse — Ancient Reputation — English Sires used 1774 — Degradation of Norman — Result of Madame Du Barri's 

 Fancy — Greatly improved under Napoleon IIL — The Percheron — Origin of — Camargue — Lorraine — Breton Horses — Camargue 

 Horses Trampling Out Grain — The Lorraine — The Breton a Welsliman — His Horse — Double-bidet, a Cob — The Boulonnaise — 

 The Mule-breeding Poitevin Mare — The Two Breeds — Reasons for the French System of State Studs and Stallions — The 

 French bad Grooms — Anecdote of French Circus Rider — Frederick the Great's Cavalry — Prussian System of Depots — 

 The Best Horses from East Prussia — Great Improvement in Province of Posen — Westphalia prefers Hogs to Horses — The 

 Royal Breeding Studs — Royal Carriage Horses — Austria — Horse-loving Hungary — Anecdote of Emperor as King of Hungai-y 

 — Statistics of Horses in Austria and Hungary — The State Studs and Stallions — Hungarians fond of Hunting and Racing — 

 Boner's Posting in Transylvania — Note, Description of Hungarian — Russia : its many Breeds of Horses — The Russian Country 

 Gentleman resembles Old English Squires — The OrloflT Breeds : their Origin — Orloflf Trotters — Russian Mares may be worth 

 Importing — Italian Horses — Account of Roman Horses before Roman Fox-hunt established — Lieut. -Colonel F. Winn Knight's 

 Account of — Note, Virgil's Horse — Alfieri's First Horse — Tlie Roman Horse, by a Master of Roman Fox-hounds — Norwegian 

 Horses — American — No Aboriginal Horses in America or Australia — Frank Forester on the Horse of America — The Mustang, 

 Colonel Dodge's Account of — Lord Southwell's Indian War-horse — Anthony Trollope's — Lady Duff Gordon and Lady Barkly 

 on Cape Horses — Canadian Horses Useful and Tough — Colonel White's Opinion of them for Cavalry — The Americans 

 have no Taste for Horsemanship — Trotters engross their Taste and Wealth — Australian Horses — Colonel Mundy on — A 

 Mob of Horses — Exciting Scene — Tasmanian Horses — Description of Australian Horses, by a Tasmanian. 



A FEW years ago all that would be likely to interest an English reader on the subject of 

 French horses might have been comprised in two or three paragraphs — we imported no French 

 horses ; we exported every year a few of our own of the best blood and action. The exportation 

 of high-class English horses appears to have commenced as early as 160S, in the reign of 

 Henri IV., and has continued ever since, when not interrupted by wars. But this importation 

 has generally been more important for quality than for number. Indeed, under the fashion 

 set by the late Emperor of the French, higher prices were obtained in Paris than in 

 London for " stcppares" whether for harness or riding. For more than forty years the 

 managers of the national studs of France have almost every year purchased a certain number 

 of thoroughbred and half-bred English horses and mares for stud purposes ; but the remount 

 department of their army has only come to us when it has been necessary to put the cavalry 

 and artillery on a war footing. 



After 1872 the export of French horses to England assumed great commercial importance. 

 So late as 1870 two Percheron stallions — saved from the roasting fpit during the siege of Paris, 

 which had received medals of honour wherever they had been exhibited in their own country — 

 were pa.ssed over by the judges of the Agricultinal Ilall Horse Show as quite unworthy of 

 notice ; and it was only on further appeal that medals v/ere awarded to them as a matter of 

 hospitality, in the character of " distressed foreigners." Since that date we have been only 

 too glad to get anything in the shape of a French omnibus horse to work oiu' omnibuses, &c. 



