148 The Arabian Horse. 



the constitutional powers to work his large frame. A 

 small light horse, with light and sloping shoulders, with 

 powerful quarters and thighs, and even with great depth 

 of chest, may also be a weed, from being deficient in 

 barrel, flat and narrow instead of a swelling develop- 

 ment, and faulty in the loins. These horses may have 

 speed, they may be prepared and win a race, but they 

 are not the horses that would have won races a hundred 

 years ago. 



It may be called heresy, but it is nevertheless true, 

 that very many of our celebrated modern racers are 

 and have been nothing more nor less than weeds. 



Others have said, the Arab's weak points are his 

 shoulders, and his paces are bad ; nothing less than 

 execrable. The paces of a horse (except the gallop) 

 are very much what the rider makes them. 



Arabs have little or no trouble taken with their educa- 

 tion. In India they are taught to walk badly, to step 

 at a short contracted pace, by their being constantly, 

 and sometimes for weeks together, led by their syces 

 (grooms) at the rate of about two miles an hour. It is 

 hardly fair to blame a horse for the very faults man has 

 taught him. I suppose one would not be far wrong in 

 saying that ninety out of every hundred men who ride 

 are carried as their horses choose to go — not as their 

 riders like. If a horse trots, his rider is content to go at 

 a trot ; if he canters, the rider concludes he cannot trot. 

 So it is with the Arab ; he has been taught a cramped 

 action before at a walk. When his owner gets up, instead 

 of correcting the errors that have been forced upon his 



