256 TALES OF THE TURF. 



once possessed a trotter that judged me as finely as human 

 eye or mind. When I happened to be of rather sour dis- 

 position the animal would fret as I neared him and show 

 a sympathy that at times took on a marvelous turn. If I 

 came near him feeling gay the horse would assume the 

 same disposition. His eye would light up, his head would 

 show its gratification, and so we were always in sympathy. 

 So I say, give me the trotter above all breeds and classes. 



The hackney is essentially an English family. It is 

 an established breed and really a perpetration of the Nor- 

 folk trotter. He has not been "fined up" by the introduc- 

 tion of thoroughbred blood and is at no point as fine as a 

 trotting horse. In conformation he is what is termed 

 pony built, is shorter in body, heavier boned, heavier 

 necked, but with fine, expressive head and ears. In action, 

 as I said before, the trotter resembles the hackney more 

 than the thoroughbred, the hackney having excessive knee 

 and hock action and a "trappy" way of handling his legs. 

 In fact, the hackney more closely resembles the original 

 progenitor of all these breeds, the Arab, than either the 

 trotter or the runner. 



We have really no type of the coach horse, but look 

 abroad for our best breeding animals in this class. The 

 coach horse is made on a larger scale than the other 

 breeds mentioned. He is the result of crossing the heavy 

 Norman and Belgian horses with the Arabian and 

 thoroughbred. The typical animal should be upward of 

 sixteen hands, solid color, good neck, eye, ear, good bone, 

 with plenty of substance, and yet with a certain degree of 

 finish. His action is much that of the trotting horse and 

 the tendency is now to breed a higher gait, much resem- 

 bling that of the hackneys. The English coach horse 

 proper is best represented by a family called the Cleveland 



