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CHAPTER XXVI. 



BREEDING, BREAKING, AND TRAINING. 



Choice of Mares — The Piinciples of Breeding — Form and Action Important — Colours — Best Pasture Dry Uplands — Feeding 

 Mares in Foal — Directions for Food — Estimate of Cost First Year — Root Food — Cost of a Thorough-bred Yearling — 

 Estimated Cost of a Five-year-old Ilalf-bred — Directions for Managing Mare and Foal — Weaning and Castrating — 

 Commence Education Young — The Brutal South American System — The Rough-and-Ready Australian — The Result — 

 Dull or Vicious Horses — The Sound Principles Laid Down by Rarey — His Three Fundamental Rules — The Four Stages ol 

 Horsebreaking — Longeing : its True Use — Colonel Greenwood's Plan of Longeing —After Leading Lessons Bitting Lessons — 

 The Proper Bits — How to Saddle a Colt the First Time — How to Mount — Saddle or Somerset Pad — How to Start — To Ride 

 under Cover — Out of Doors — To Rareyfy and Put Down a Horse — Woodcut Illustration — First Example — -A Quiet Colt — 

 To Put Down not Throw Down — Advantages of System applied to Harness — Use of Plan for Shoeing Vicious Horses — 

 The Author's Experience — The Disadvantages of Rareyfying — Training Shooting Pony to Make him Follow and Lead Well 

 — To Cairy Dead Game — To Stand Fire — To Stand Still Alone — Finishing Lessons — Finishing Lessons for Hacks — 

 Martingales — Three English — The Austrian Martingale, with a Woodcut — Training Horses in India — Colonel Shakespeare on. 



Breeding horses is a pretty amusement for those who can afford the luxury and reside on 

 property suited for the purpose. The grass fields or park round a mansion must be fed over 

 by somet'ning, and well-bred mares with their foals are almost as picturesque and more interesting 

 than a herd of fallow-deer or of Alderneys. There is no reason why all three should not feed 

 over the same pastures, assisted by a flock of sheep of the best mutton-making breeds — say 

 blackfaced Highlanders, or Welsh longtails, or horned Dorset. Highland bullocks look well 

 in a park, and pay their expenses, but will not always live in peace and amity with brood 

 mares, and as a Highland bullock can gallop, and has horns if irritated, he is not always a safe 

 companion for a valuable foal. 



Mares and sires selected for breeding should be sound in wind, in eyesight, with no hereditary 

 limb disease, such as spavin or ringbone, with naturally good feet, and good constitution. It 

 is a waste of time and money to breed from a straight-shouldered, light-framed, washy mare, 

 however great a favourite and however excellent in her place. As a rule, like begets like, 

 although there are astounding exceptions. 



If a mare has a decided defect in form, pains should be taken to put her to a horse excellent 

 in that particular in which she fails. 



More than twenty years ago (1854) Mr. Orton, of Sunderland, read a paper on "The 

 Physiology of Breeding " before the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Farmers' Club, which has been the 

 foundation of most of the papers on the same subject read before similar societies since that date. 

 Breeding what is called " pedigree stock " is more certain in its results than cross-bred, but 

 not absolutely certain ; it may, however, be assumed as ascertained that the more pure the 

 pedigree the more " prepotent " will be the power of either horse or mare. 



Mr. Orton supported the theory, long maintained, that the male animal gives the external 

 and the female the internal structures — the male the skin and form of head, the female the 

 size and quality. The breeding between the horse and ass is taken as an illustration of a theory 

 that presents many exceptions. 



The mule is the produce of a mare covered by an ass, and has tlie mane, tail, and hoofs of an 

 ass, and the skin, cars, and colour of a horse somewhat modified. The hinney is the produce of a 



