136 The Book of the Horse. 



mules. In my opinion, the Spanish mares only want the same treatment that a good brood- 

 mare gets in this country to make the produce equal to our own. They are of all colours, many 

 spotted and pied. One very beautiful colour, not uncommon, is Isabel or caf^ an lait, with 

 black bands down the back, thighs, and legs." 



Colonel Henry Shakespeare, writing on " The Breeding and Rearing of Horses in India," 

 mentions the Kattiwar breed, of the same Isabel colour as the Andalusian. " They stood high 

 for an Eastern horse, 15 hands or more; the prevailing colour a dun, with a black stripe down 

 the back, with black mane and tail ; of great power and courage. I conclude that the native 

 mare must have been improved by a cross with the high-caste Arab, for the Kattiwar horse 

 had the beautiful eye, breadth of forehead, and endurance of the Arab." 



It is worthy of remark that the big head, with the hooked or Roman nose,* which we so 

 much condemn, but which Spanish horse-fanciers look upon as an essential point of distinction 

 in the pure breed, not a little resembles the Roman-nosed Dongola, the only African horse 

 that, reaching and exceeding 16 hands, has all the quality in skin and hair, and all the fire 

 of the Oriental blood. 



It may be that this carnero breed is the result of a remote cross with the Dongola, possessing, 

 as he does, the size, power, and slow stately action well calculated to carry a knight in armour 

 proudly, and bear him in a short course at a tournament or in a martial procession. A 

 portrait by Velasquez of the Conde Duque Olivarez, represents that celebrated statesman in 

 armour, mounted on a prancing grey horse, what we should call a dray horse with a back as 

 broad as a prize Shorthorn. 



The stallions of this breed are invariably used as riding-horses. Every great Spanish 

 nobleman has or had several in his stables (before English horses came into fashion), trained 

 to the nicest points of manege riding by picadors, that is, riding-masters, kept in every great 

 establishment for that and no other purpose. 



How they look in a procession has never been better described than in one of George 

 Augustus Sala's letters, from Madrid. 



" I was fortunate enough to reach the Fonda de Paris, Madrid, ten hours before the royal 

 entry took place. Now, some loyal admirer at Valencia had presented to the royal youth 

 the tallest, handsomest, and the wickedest white steed that eyes ever beheld. He was Bucephalus ; 

 he was Incitatus ; he was a Pegasus without wings. He was bigger and more vicious than the 

 terrible black dcstncr which poor little General Prim bestrides in M. Regnault's picture. Now, 

 as the boy king came, bareheaded, with radiant joy in his face, and mounted on his great white 

 horse, into the Puerto del Sol from the Calle de Alcala, there arose from the enormous 

 multitude a gritaria — a shout not only of loyalty to the monarch, but of admiration for the 

 superb horseman — cahallcrcsco en sii caballerosidad, as an enthusiastic Castilian by my side 



* "The Asturian and G.ilician liorses are described by Pliny to have been of a middling size (like the present genets), 

 remarkable for the time and exactness with which they dealt their feet, and, so to say, regulated their motion as it were to count 

 their steps. Martial, speaking of the Spanish horse, descriljes their distinct and bold action : — 



' I lie brevis ad ninneruni rapidos qui ccilligit ungues 



Vcnit ab aurifeiis gcntibus. Aster equus.' 

 (' I'his little horse that moves his feet in time, 

 Came from Asturia's gold-producing clime. ') 



Vegetius (a. n. 392), who lived at Conslanlinople, and compiled a book on the art of war, says that the African mixed with the 

 Spanish blood produces most active and fleet horses, and the fittest for the saddle. . . .Succeeding times have confirmed their 

 character, and they stand now, as of old, most valued and most admired. — " History aiiJ Arl of Ilorsciiiansfii/'," by Kichani 

 Perfii^^t-y, GenlUnian of the Noisi to His Mojesty. \^^\■ 



