THE HORSE, HOW TO BUY. 163 



The faults of shape to which the Cleveland Bay is most liable are 

 narrowness of body, and flatness of the cannon and shank bones. Their 

 color is universally bay, rather on the yellow bay than on the blood bay 

 color, with black mane, tail, and legs. 



They are sound, hardy, active, powerful horses, with excellent capabili- 

 ties for draft, and good endurance, so long as they are not pushed beyond 

 their speed, which may be estimated at from six to eight miles an hour, 

 on a trot, or from ten to twelve — the latter quite the maximum — on a 

 gallop, under almost any weight." 



The large and more show}'^ of these animals, of the tallest and heaviest 

 type, were the favorite coach horses of their day ; the more springy and 

 lightly built, of equal height, were the hunters, in the days when the fox 

 was hunted by his drag, unkennelled, and run half a dozen hours or 

 more, before he was either earthed or worn out and worried to death. 

 Then the shorter, lower, and more closely ribbed up were the road 

 hackneys, a style of horse unhappily now almost extinct, and having 

 unequally substituted in its place a wretched, weedy, half-bred or three- 

 quarters-bred beast, fit neither to go the pace with a weight on its back, 

 nor to last the time. 



From these Cleveland Bays, however, though in their pure state nearly 

 extinct, a very superior animal has descended, which, after several steps 

 and gradations, has settled down into a family common throughout all* 

 Yorkshire and more or less all the mid-land counties, as the farm horse, 

 and riding or driving horse of the farmers, having about two crosses, 

 more or less, of blood on the original Cleveland stock. 



The first gradation, when pace became a desideratum with hounds, waa 

 the stinting of the best Cleveland Bay mares to good thorough-bred 

 horses, with a view to the progeny turning out hunters, troop horses, or, 

 in the last resort, stage-coach horses, or, as they were termed, machines. 

 The most promising of these well bred colts were kept as stallions ; and 

 mares of the same type, with their dams, stinted to them produced the 

 improved carriage horse of fifty years ago. 



The next step was putting the half-bred fillies, by thorough-breds out 

 af Cleveland Bay mares, a second time to thorough-bred stallions ; their 

 progeny to become the hunters, while themselves and their brothers wer« 

 lowered into the carriage horses ; and the half-bred stallions which had 

 been the getters of carriage horses were degraded into the sires of the 

 new, improved cart horse. 



v. The Light Harness Horse. 



In many cases, where the roads are superior, and the animal is used in 

 » vehicle of the lightest construction, to carry only one person, size 19 



