HIGPI GUOOMING. 119 



tainly would not be safe, much less wise or easy, to mount an 

 English liiglilj-bred colt without having the means of compel- 

 ling obedience in case of resistance, and insuring the victory to 

 the horseman, in case of what is constantly occurring, a long 

 and obstinate encounter of wits and trial of powers between the 

 intellectual man and the intelligent brute. 



As he begins, morever, so he continues to the end. One 

 rarely, if ever, meets a kicker, a runaway, an inveterate shyer or 

 balker, and hardly ever a furious, biting, striking, screaming 

 devil, whom he cannot approach but at the risk of limb or life, 

 in an American horse of any class or condition. 



Probably, this fact may be in some respect attributed to the 

 less high strain of blood in the American roadster ; and still 

 more to the hardier and less stimulating mode of treatment to 

 which he is subjected. The American trotter of the highest 

 grade being a very out-of-door plant indeed, as compared to an 

 English hunter or park hack, which is invariably in the most 

 pampered and blooming condition, generally above his work, 

 and excited, by the high and constant grooming, rubbing and 

 currying, which is going on in first-class English stables, to 

 great irritability both of skin and temper. 



No one who has seen hunters groomed in England, or race- 

 horses in this country, ^^ich are, one may say as a rule, the 

 only horses subjected to this extreme dressing, can doubt, when 

 he hears the animals squealing and snorting, and sees them bit- 

 ing or lashing out at every tiling they see, that the animal is 

 rendered in the highest degree sensitive, and has his nervous 

 temperament excited and stimulated very far by this treatment, 

 while his spirits, his health, his courage, and his beauty are 

 promoted by it, in at least an equal degree. Certainly I have 

 never seen horses in America, unless they were either race- 

 horses or trotters in match condition, either groomed, or show- 

 ing the grooming in the bloom and perfection of their coats, 

 which is expected of the horsekeej)er in every English gentle- 

 man's stable. 



I do not say that it is desirable, or that the American mode 

 should be altered ; I only assert that it is so. For the English 

 hunter, or steeplechaser, whose work is closely analogous to 

 that of an American four-mile-heater, nearly the same condi- 



