242 SKIN, HAIR, AND COLOUR. 



unpopular colour. Apart from any feeling as regards the 

 colour itself, it is true that it gets fainter as the horse gets 

 older, and then unmistakably and perhaps unpleasantly 

 proclaims the fact that the animal has passed his first youth. 

 Besides this, a grey coat is difficult to keep clean, and is 

 liable to contract stains which are hard to remove. The 

 extra trouble thus entailed predisposes grooms to dislike grey 

 horses, a fact which may account for the small number of 

 crrey horses in England, compared with those met with in 

 the East, where stable duties are not so onerous as in this 

 country. I may mention that grey horses appear to be more 

 liable to melanosis than animals of other colours. Shire 

 horse fanciers do not like greys ; for the majority of foreign 

 buyers object to them. Some of their best horses, as 

 What's Wanted and Rokeby Fuchsia, for instance, were of 

 this hue. For my own part, I am very fond of dark iron or 

 dappled grey with dark mane and tail. Among the cleverest 

 jumpers I have seen, I must say that a comparatively large 

 proportion of them have been greys, a fact for which I can 

 offer no explanation. Blue and red roans, and dun with black 

 points, are supposed to be " hardy " colours. The most showy 

 colours for harness work, are bright chestnut and red roan with 

 more chestnut than grey hairs, and free from white patches. 

 When there is a large admixture of white with the red, the 

 colour may be called strawberry roan, which is an ugly hue, 

 particularly if the animal that wears it has a blaze and white 

 stockings. Both piebald and skewbald are suggestive of the 

 circus. The colours found among high-caste Arab horses are 

 practically limited to bay, brown, chestnut, and grey. The 

 same remark applies to our own thoroughbred stock, except 

 that we have a few roans, and a very small proportion of greys, 



