WE love the cat: it is so cosy. Its purr of contentment is the voice of home, redolent 

 of the welcoming hearth, the kettle on the hob. We pity the dog's servility, its 

 trusting eyes that turn its master into a demi-god who dispenses food and exciting 

 expeditions, even if the latter are only through the local park. But the horse evokes other 

 sentiments. It is admiration that we feel for him, admiration not untinged with awe. The 

 horse embodies that irresistible combination of beauty and strength; the feminine and the 

 masculine are both contained within him. 



The cat has earned its milk by keeping ward over Man's granaries, though from time to 

 time too close an association with witches has made it suspect. The dog, creeping out in the 

 dawn of time to scavenge round human settlements, adopted Man and has earned its keep 

 by guarding our flocks. Cat and dog have been like fustian servitors who have become friends 

 of the family. 



But the horse has trod prouder ways than that. The horse has helped to make history — 

 indeed, the history of the horse is in many ways the history of Man. Even when it was 

 drawing a plough, no less than when it was smelling the battle from afar off, it was helping 

 Man to create the civilisation which has produced such a bewildering pattern of beauty and 

 cruelty, wisdom and folly. 



When most people think of the horse of the past they conjure up a vision of proud chargers 

 pawing the earth, mightily clad in chain mail, with fearsome spikes on their brows; pon- 

 derously bearing armoured knights who rode out to joust with their rivals for the honour 

 of fair ladies, as in the lists in which Ivanhoe fought. 



D, H. HILL LIBRART 



