BREEDING. 309 



neglected, and especially is this true of action. 

 Although it may seem paradoxical to say so, the gait I 

 would consider perfection in a campaigner would not 

 exactly suit me for a stock horse. I would prefer for a 

 sire a horse with abundant and exuberant action, both 

 before and behind, one with perfectly true and square 

 stroke, and without a touch of mixing. I do not 

 object to a horse starting on an amble, but when he 

 trots let it be a trot. I do not care how a horse is bred, 

 nor how good he is individually, if his action is faulty 

 he would not suit me for a sire. A foul-gaited horse 

 will get foul-gaited progeny, and that kind can never 

 hold their own with evenly balanced trotters. Action 

 is not the only thing in a sire, but it is an essential for 

 the absence of which nothing can atone. I believe that 

 the chief reason why Smuggler has not been a greater 

 success than he is as a sire, is because he had not the 

 proper order of action. He had practically no hock 

 action. I would expect of course the best results from 

 Smuo^o^ler when bred to mares with excessive action. 

 The truest kind of action is what we may call line- 

 trotting. The horse does not sprawl to get his hind 

 feet outside of the front ones. The hind foot goes low, 

 and the fore foot is lifted just high enough to let the 

 hmd one go under, not outside of, the front one. I 

 like a horse with a fairly wide chest, and the legs to 

 stand well apart, and fall straight to the ground (not 

 ^'both come out of one hole" like a saw-horse), and 

 they should be especially Avell muscled. The idea that 

 a narrow chest is favorable for speed, arose, I suppose, 

 from the idea that a horse's hind feet must necessarily 

 go outside of his front ones in trotting. It is certainly 

 an error. 



