THE HACKNEY HORSE. 23 





CHAPTER II. 

 THE HACKNEY HORSE. 



THE position occupied by the Hackney horse at the present 

 time, when it is compared with that in which he was placed 

 less than a generation ago, would be absolutely astonishing, 

 even to his most ardent admirers, were they not well aware 

 of the intrinsic worth of the animal upon whose production 

 so many of them are expending not only their time, but vast 

 sums of money. It is, in fact, only of late years that the 

 Hackney has been, if not entirely resuscitated, at all events 

 rescued from the slough of neglect into which the apathy or 

 the ignorance of English breeders had plunged him. Either 

 of these expressions is a hard term to apply to a brother lover 

 of the horse, but yet no more polite one can reasonably be 

 bestowed upon a body of presumably business-like men who 

 had for years ignored the merits of one of the most useful 

 varieties of native horse. That the Hackney has not been 

 popular as an instrument for gambling purposes is certainly 

 very creditable to the breed ; but, at the same time, it is 

 quite within the bounds of possibility that, had the English 

 been, as the Americans are, addicted to trotting as a pastime, 

 a great deal of the attention that has been devoted to the 

 thoroughbred would have been lavished on the Hackney. 



It is chiefly due to the exertions of the Hackney Horse 

 Society that the horse, to whose interests it is pledged, 

 has emerged from the obscurity which surrounded him but 



