CLEVELAND BAYS AND YORKSHIRE COACH HORSES. 55 



the physiological principle to which I have already drawn at- 

 tention. The crossing with such a straight- shouldered, under- 

 sized, crooked-hocked commoner as the Scandinavian horse 

 must have resulted in lamentable failure. Again, the black 

 points have been seen by Darwin very strongly denned on a 

 dun Devonshire pony. The pony not only had the zebra-like 

 stripes on the legs, and the mark down the back which was 

 so long a leading characteristic of Cleveland Bays, and which 

 is now very rarely to be iound, but he also had broad shoulder 

 marks as well. Darwin describes the pony as a fallow dun 

 that is, between " a cream and a reddish brown which 

 graduates into light bay or light chestnut ;" and it is worthy 

 of notice that it was amongst the light bays that the black 

 points of the Cleveland were the most frequently found and 

 the most strongly marked. There are also instances of the 

 black points being found strongly marked on light bay or 

 dun cart horses. Racing men speak of Doncaster's black 

 spots, and these black points which old Cleveland Bay 

 breeders used to value as such an infallible sign of purity of 

 blood would seem to be common, in a greater or less degree, 

 amongst all breeds of horses, and to be in some measure 

 a reversion to the feral horse. 



Leaving the region of theory, we come to the fact that the 

 existence of a breed of clean -legged active horses, clear of 

 thoroughbred and carting cross, was acknowledged quite two 

 hundred years ago. Unfortunately, the men in whose hands 

 this valuable breed of horses was principally to be found, did 

 not keep much record of their stock in writing, and it is 

 therefore on oral tradition that we have principally to rely 

 for our early history of the Cleveland Bay horse. I have in 

 my possession a letter which was written some eight years 

 ago by a man who was fast approaching his eightieth year, 

 in which he told me he had he'ard his great grandfather speak 

 of the breed with enthusiasm, and he claimed to have direct 

 descendants of a breed, the taproot of which had been in the 

 possession of ancestors still more remote. I have also heard 



