116 TOE HORSE. 



it has ceased to see, I was particularly struck by the fact that 

 the American general horse, as compared with the English 

 horse, Avas interior in height of the forehand, in the loftiness and 

 thinness of the withers, and in the setting on and carriage of 

 the neck and crest, while he was superior in the general devel- 

 opment of liis quarters, in the let down of his hams, and in his 

 height behind, and farther remarkable for his formation, ap- 

 proaching to what is often seen in the Irish horse, and known 

 as the goose-rump. I still think that these are prevailing and 

 characteristic ditferences of the horses in the two countries. 

 Even in the race-horse, purely of English blood, I fancy that I 

 can perceive the same distinction prevailing, the American 

 racer standing very much higher behind, and lower before, than 

 his English congener. 



My judgment on this point seems to be confirmed by an ex- 

 amination of the portraits given in tlie Spirit of the Times of 

 many celebrated English and American horses, by which it ap- 

 pears that Boston, Wagner, and Shark measured exactly the 

 same at the withers and the highest point of the crouj) ; that 

 Bhick Maria, in a drawing of a little under six and a half inches, 

 measures two-tenths of an inch loioer before than behind, while 

 all the English horses are from one to two-tenths higher before. 



To what this difference in construction is owing, I do not 

 pretend even to conje^tr.re, nor whether it has or has not any 

 effect; on comparative speed. I believe the difference to be yet 

 more conspicuous in roadsters than in thoroughbreds. It is cer- 

 tain that a breast-plate, a thing commonly in use in England to 

 jn-event the saddle from slipping back, is never seen in America ; 

 and that, in the former country, a horse which would not carry 

 his saddle without a crupper, would l)e considered fatally defi- 

 cient in tbrm, while here it is not unusual, nor, I believe, consid- 

 ered a serious disadvantage. 



Another point in which the American horse of all conditions 

 diftei's extremely, and here, most advantageously, from the Eu- 

 ropean animal, is his greater snrefootedness and freedom from 

 the dangerous and detestable vice of stumbling. It is only ne- 

 cessary, in order to convince himself that this is a real and not 

 an imaginary difference in favor of our horses, to examine the 

 knees of the hack-horses let for hire, either in the cities or rural 



