RACE HORSE. 



43 



service, for this very action diminished his speed, and added to his 

 labour and fatigue. 



A considerable change has taken place in the character of our war- 

 horses : Hg-htness and activity have succeeded to bulli and strength ; and 

 for skirmishing and sudden attack the change is an improvement. It is 

 particularly found to be so in long and rapid marches, which the lighter 

 troops scarcely regard, while the heavier horses, with their more than com- 

 parative additional weight to carry, are knocked up. There was, how- 

 ever, some danger of carrying this too far ; for it was found that in the 

 engagements previous to, and at the battle of Waterloo, our heavy house- 

 hold troops alone were able to repulse the formidable charge of the French 

 guard. 



The following anecdote of the memory and discipline of the troop-horse is 

 related on good authority. The Tyrolese, in one of their insurrections in 

 1809, took fifteen Bavarian horses, and mounted them with so many of 

 their own men ; but, in a skirmish with a squadron of the same regiment, 

 no sooner did these horses hear the trumpet, and recognize the uniform of 

 their old masters, than they set otF at full gallop, and carried their riders, 

 in spite of all their efforts, into the Bavarian ranks, where they were made 

 prisoners. 



Pliny relates a curious story about the war-horse, but, although an ex- 

 cellent naturalist and philosopher, he was either very credulous or too 

 fond of the marvellous. The Sybarites trained their horses to dance. The 

 inhabitants of Crotona, with whom they were at war, had their trumpeters 

 taught the tunes to which the horses were accustomed to dance. When 

 the opposing troops were in the act of charging upon each other, the 

 Crotonian trumpeters begun to play these tunes — the Sybarite horses began 

 to dance, and were easily defeated. 



THE RACE HORSE 



There is much dispute with regard to the origin of the thorough-bred 

 horse. By some he is traced through both sire and dam to Eastern parent- 

 age ; others believe him to be the native horse, improved and perfected by 

 judicious crossing with the Barb, the Turk, or the Arabian. " The Stud 

 Book," which is an authority acknowledged by every English breeder, 

 traces all the old racers to some Eastern origin ; or it traces- them until 



