252 



T HE Book of the Horse. 



operation became fashionable, like many hideous and barbarous fashions which are supposed to 

 improve and adorn the heads of women in 1873. 



It will be observed that the fine coach-horse engraved after Marshall on this page is both 

 cropped and docked. The practice of cropping the ears has now entirely disappeared, although 

 it was not uncommon to find even hunters thus tortured and disfigured as late as 1840; while 

 to a much later date the stupid fashion of depriving cart-horses of their fly-flappers was 

 usual in several counties. Mr. Villebois' coach-horse is a specimen of a fine blood animal 

 spoiled by the fashion of the day. By intermediate stages the tails of coach-horses were 

 lengthened until the whole dock was preserved, and the hair squared off to a racing tail. In 

 1873 the tails are cut according to the character of the horse and the style of the carriage. 

 Since that date the vile fashion of short docks has again come into fashion and in imitation 

 of polo ponies, even well-bred full-sized horses are turned into caricatures by hogging the flow- 

 ing mane, one of the most picturesque points of a blood horse. 



-^'^31^l;l■o:^ / ->" _ 



A COACH-HORSE, A.D. 17S0, DOCKED AND CROPPED. 



