VARIED FORM OF THE HORSE. 241 



and closer ribbed home, giving him a quicker gallop ; for 

 iiorses, to live across a country, should go with quick collec- 

 ted steps ; the lengthened stride of the racer, allowed by a 

 long back and contracted belly, would soon exhaust and 

 sink the hunter injuriously in deep soils. He should not 

 be under fifteen, or more than sixteen hands high ; below 

 this standard, he cannot always measure the object befoie 

 him, and above it, he is apt to be awkward, 



His barrel should be rounder, to give greater room for 

 the heart and lungs to play ; and the chest deep and broad, 

 for reasons bef )re mentioned, is an excellence in a hunter : 

 a deep chest admits of expansion, when the horse requires 

 more room to breathe than usual. Muscular exertion fa- 

 cilitates the return ofthe veinous blood to the right side of 

 the heart, and in long-continued and violent exertion ofthe 

 chase, the respiration being quickened, the lungs, if small, 

 are unable to arterialize, and get rid of the blood so fast as 

 it is pumped into them : consequently, if there is not room 

 for the blood, congestion takes place, and the horse be- 

 comes what is termed " blown ;" the lungs being gorged 

 with blood, and possibly the animal destroyed ; and it is a 

 well-known fact, that the majority of the horses that perish 

 in the field are narrow-chested horses. For a horse to en- 

 dure long-continued and violent exertion, it is necessary 

 that he should have arrived at that age when all his powers 

 are developed ; therefore a horse should not be used as a 

 hunter under eight years old ; for though he attains his full 

 height, under ordinary circumstances, about his fifth or sixth 

 year, he increases in bulk laterally till eight; at which pe- 

 riod he arrives at his greatest strength and maturity; though 

 our ruinous system of work and shoeing brings on, in the 

 majority of cases, parmature old age, and they end their 

 miserable lives before attaining twelve. The hunter ought 

 not to be less than three parts bred, and under the present 

 system of racing after a fox, if seven eighths, so much the 

 better, and it is a sine qua nan that a hunter should go clear 

 of all his legs, not bruih a hair, and be a a true snaffle-bri- 

 dle horse. 



The Hackney, or Roadster, exceeds all the other va- 

 rieties in usefulness, and is so much in demand, that a good 

 and clever hack is worth a good price ; moreover, the early 

 and excessive labour to which Nag horses are exposed, 

 subjects them tosuch piematuie decay, that itis exceedingly 

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