I2O LIGHT HORSES: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



and particulars of this useful type of horse. At the period 

 to which I refer sons of these weight-carrying sires were 

 themselves continued as sires. Thus a course of line breed- 

 ing was established, so that there came to be a breed of light 

 horses quite distinct from the thoroughbred. Why men 

 should not have persisted with this line-bred stock of horses 

 it is difficult to understand. It can only have been through 

 the craze for speed, without regard to other important attri- 

 butes, such as size, bone, and usefulness generally. 



" Among many other pictures of old hunter sires to which 

 we might have made reference, there is one of ' Pantomime ' 

 in the Sporting Magazine of the year 1836. This is called 

 * a favourite hunter, the property of David Marjoribanks 

 Robertson, Esq.' The dam is described as ' not thorough- 

 bred.' And in the article appended it is stated that ' the 

 sire of Pantomime was Grimaldi, a race of hunters nearly 

 extinct, and justly celebrated for their high courage, honesty, 

 and stoutness.' What, it may be asked, became of that 

 ' race of hunters ? ' 



"With cattle and sheep it is fortunate that the practice 

 has been different. We have had men whose enlightened 

 minds led them to persevere throughout on the lines that 

 their forefathers adopted, and the success which has thus 

 been achieved proves line-breeding to be right. Bakewell, 

 in the last century the great pioneer in improving nearly all 

 descriptions of stock bred from animals which were on 

 both sides of exactly the same character. He had no intake 

 of fresh blood for upwards of twenty-five years, and the 

 merits of his method are recognised by herd and flock-owners 

 down to the present time. 



" But in our attempts to breed hunters and heavy weight- 

 carrying horses the idea has prevailed that with these no 

 distinct type can be fixed in the same way, because no 

 relationship should exist between the sire and dam. This 

 arose from fear that the progeny would be too near akin, 

 and that if mares of a good line-bred sizeable sort were put 



