THE HACK OR HACKNEY. 17 



THE HACK OR HACKNEY. 



A HACK, in our modern stable phrase, signifies a ROAD HORSE, and not merely 

 a horse let out to hire, as some of the uninitiated suppose. The British and Irish 

 Hackney, with respect to his proper average height, is from fourteen hands one 

 half to fifteen hands one half : beyond the latter, unless the rider be also a topper, 

 he had need carry a pocket ladder for mounting convenience. With respect to 

 DENOMINATIONS, the term of poney is applied to all horses beneath thirteen hands 

 in height ; from thirteen to fourteen hands, a galloway ; at fourteen hands, ahorse: 

 a cob is a short, cloddy hackney : a Merlin is a Welsh poney or galloway, from a 

 certain part of the principality, where Old Merlin, many years after his racing 

 services had been completed, covered a great number of the small country mares, 

 and left a peculiar and valuable race to posterity. 



The Hackney, like the Hunter of the present day, is always a horse with some 

 portion of racing blood, the whole English race, even to the cart horse, being 

 more or less imbued, and equally improved by it. Thus our road horses are half, 

 three parts., seven eighths, or thorough-bred. The two latter degrees are, in several 

 respects, less fitted for the purpose of travelling the roads than the former ; chiefly 

 on account of the tenderness of their legs and feet, their longer stride, and straight- 

 kneed action, not so well adapted to the English road pace the trot. Never- 

 theless, bred hacknies are elegant and fashionable, and, when good canterers, 

 pleasant to ride ; insomuch that, a certain colonel of the Guards of former days 

 insisted, there was the same difference to be felt in riding a bred hack and one 

 without blood, as between riding in a coach and in a cart. One good property in 

 the thorough-bred road horse is, that he seldom shies, many of them never. 



The Road Horse should have a considerably lofty, yet light forehand or crest, 

 a deep and extensive shoulder, well raised at the withers, straight back with sub- 

 stantial loins and wide fillets, the croup not suddenly drooping, nor the tail set on 

 low. The head should not be thick and fleshy, nor joined abruptly to the neck, 

 but in a gradual or taj>ering form ; the eye full, clear, and diaphanous. The fore 

 arms and thighs, with plenty of muscular substance, should be of reasonable 

 length, but the legs should, at no rate, be long. Much solid flat bone beneath the 

 knee, is a great perfection in a hackney ; and the feet, standing straight, turning 

 neither in nor outwards, should be of tough, dark, shining horn, the heels wide 

 and open. The saddle-horse's fore-feet should closely approach each other, the 

 wide chest being rather adapted to the collar. Nor need any apprehension be 

 entertained from this near approximation of the fore feet, of the horse's cutting in 



