9O LIGHT HORSES '. BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



" India's chief requirement is an unlimited supply of good 

 brood mares of a special type. Out there dogs run to nose, 

 and horses to leg. Such a class of mare as would meet hei 

 wants used to be bred in Cape Colony some years ago. These 

 mares were full of Arab and Barb blood. The original breed 

 of South Africa came from Spain. In Queen Elizabeth's time 

 the Duke of Newcastle considered the Spanish horse superior 

 to the Barb oi Morocco. ' The Barbes,' wrote that authority, 

 1 were the gentlemen of the horse kind, and Spanish horses 

 the princes.' The grandees had evidently made good use 

 of the blood introduced by the Moorish Sultans of Granada. 

 During the eighty odd ears since we ousted the Dutchman 

 from the Cape of Gooa Hope, many thoroughbreds from Eng- 

 land and Arabs from India have been sent thither. The 

 climate being all that can be desired, breeders produced from 

 this material a long, low, powerful, 'blocky,' sound, active 

 horse, up to great weight, and of as good constitution as tem- 

 per. The enormous wear and tear of horseflesh during the 

 Indian mutinies depleted the colony of these excellent general- 

 utility horses ; but what it has produced in the past it can 

 surely supply again. Mr. Melk's compact and shapely 

 * Kaapsche schemmels ' a pair of which frequently sell out 

 there for 300 testify to the Cape's horse-breeding capacity. 

 If the Indian Government insists upon Hackney or roadster 

 stallions the expression is of the widest latitude then let us 

 humour the whim, and breed them here and in South Africa 

 for the State and the native rajahs, now taking an interest in 

 the enterprise ; but by all means let the blood be hardened by 

 reversion to the Arab sire. Let the mares be of the big bony 

 sort, not too high under the standard, but let us be careful 

 that they have at least as much of the thoroughbred element 

 in them as has Bourdass' Denmark 177, or Mr. Burdett- 

 Coutts' Tom King. Some roadster mares are to be found 

 with grand shoulders, high set on beautifully-turned quarters, 

 fine Arab-like heads, and comparatively free from those tell- 

 tale long hairs in their pasterns. A bit of the much-admired 

 round wheel-like action might well be dispensed with. 



