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CHAPTER XI. 



PARK HACKS — PHAETON STEPPERS — CARRIAGE HORSES. 



The Park Hack— The Many Sorts in Rotten Row— Morning Rides— The Chief Justice— The Queen's Counsel -The Greek 

 Merchant— Baron Bullion— The Engineer— The Pliysician— The Park Hack Proper— Form, Action, Mouth, Manners- 

 Description of Form— Must Behave like a Gentleman— The Bad Rider spoils the Good Hack— The Horse suitable to the 

 Rider's Size, Age, Weight, and Character — Reminiscences of Rotten Row — Lord Althnrpe and Top-boots— Lord Melbourne^ 

 Susannah and the Elders— Count D'Orsay, Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Seftou, the Last of the Dandies— Military Horsemen : Lord 

 Anglesea, Field Marshal Lord Combermere, The Marquis of Londonderry— High School— The Duke of Wellington ; his Horses 

 — Lord Palmerston's Roadsters— Jacob Omnium — Earl Russell on his Pony — Anecdote — Modern Ministers on Horseback — 

 Proposal for Cabinet Hacks— Polo Ponies' Fashion and Origin— Mail Phaeton Pair Steppers— State Coach, Chariot, and 

 Barouche Horses — Phaeton Pair Steppers scarce — Require Lofty True Action, Beauty, Good Mouths, Courage, Fine 

 Temper— Always Easy to Sell— Colours and Matches— Must Settle your Size— Must be Symmetrical— Grooms, Neat, 

 Active, not too Big — Steppers must be Shown not Used — Ornamental Knee-action must be Protected — Coach, Chariot, 

 and Barouche Horses of Great Size — Demand for Town Use — Court— Full-dress Entertainments — Park Parades — England 

 the Last Country adopting Pleasure Carriages — Beckman's Account of Neapolitan Caretta, Thirteenth Century — Early 

 Picture of a Charette — Taylor the Water Poet's Protest — Flemish — The Fine, Fashionable Carriage Horses — Cromwell's 

 Coach Upset — Queen Anne— Sir Charles Grandison — The Coach-horses of George H. same as of Roman Cardinals, 1848 — 

 Her Majesty's State Cream Stallions — Black and White Hanoverians Discontinued — Anecdote of William IV. and Platting 

 Manes of State-horses — The Cleveland superseded Flemish -The Blood-horse extinguished Cleveland— Blood Carriage-horse 

 reached Perfection in the Time of George Prince Regent — The Horse of the Period what the Period Requires— The Modem 

 Carriage-horse for Pleasure, not for Journeys— Must look well Standing— Bearing Reins, Advantage and Disadvantage of— 

 Grand Action — Eight Miles an Hour Fast Enough — Colours— Barouche-horses more Blood than Coach-horses —The Large 

 Horses almost entirely in Hands of Jobmasters— Experiment with German Coach-horses a Failure — Evidence of Colonel 

 Maude, C.B.— Joshua East— Edmund Tattersall before a Committee of the House of Lords— Principles of Selecting 

 Coach-horses, from Gervase Markham. 



The park hack is essentially an ornamental animal. He may be an extraordinary weight- 

 carrier, strong as an elephant ; but to deserve the prefix of " park." he must have style, if not 

 elegance. He may be strong, he must not be coarse. 



It is quite true that people who ought to know better ride horses in Rotten Row in 

 the height of the season which are as much out of place in that scene of equestrian luxury 

 as a coalheaver, in the costume of his trade, in the stalls of the opera. Some ride coach-horses 

 of camel-like proportions ; some ride brutes that would be useful in a carrier's cart, and call 

 them cobs ; some ride weeds with every sort of defect, and no merit except a head and tail 

 derived from an illustrious and remote ancestor ; tall men are to be seen on ponies, and short 

 men on giraffes ; country gentlemen appear on old hunters, valuable animals in the field, no 

 doubt, very safe conveyances over a cramped country, but showing, in round stiff joints, a 

 poking neck, and many scars, anything but the action and appearance of an old gentleman's 

 hack ; ladies who have declined to go into a weighing machine, in spite of the tempting 

 invitations at every metropolitan railway station, are to be seen risking their lives on screws 

 two stone under their weight ; but, perhaps the very worst class of horse will be bestridden 

 by some rich man, who tells you, with all the fond pride of a parent, that he " bred it himself" 



These remarks only apply to Rotten Row at the hours in the season when everything most 

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