140 The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



exceptional except in pure bred hackneys — he is both 

 unsaleable and of very little use for farm work. He will 

 not make a hunter, and no one would care to ride him as a 

 hack who has been used to the springy smoothness of a 

 well-bred horse. He has not power to pull a cart, or a 

 plough, and often not pluck enough to go far, or for many 

 hours together. The well-bred horse would kill him in a 

 short time, if both had to do the same amount of work. 

 That there are good hackneys, exceptional animals, is quite 

 true, but then they are invariably well bred, and the 

 excellence is due to the thoroughbred blood in their veins 

 and not to the hackney strain. If, then, a hackney to be of 

 use must be well bred, why not go to the fountain-head at 

 once and use the thoroughbred himself. I am convinced 

 that a hackney cross will only spoil the magnificent breed 

 of Irish hunters, if it once obtains a footing in the island, 

 without any compensating advantages, and the Irish hunter 

 is too valuable an animal to run the risk of contamination. 

 A cross of Arab blood is ever valued where it has been 

 tried, but to get the best results it is necessary to have 

 patience and to put the daughters to a thoroughbred horse 

 again. Though the produce of the Arab are usually small 

 compared with English hunters, this is only the case for 

 that generation, and the very next one regains the size and 

 length that has been temporarily lost, together with an 

 amount of nervous energy and symmetry that makes them 

 exceedingly valuable. In 1883 one of the chief Irish 



dealers said to me, " Three or four years ago 



brought a little Arab horse into my part of the country, 

 and I said to him, ' you are going to poison the country 

 with that horse,' and now here's the winner of the hunter 

 class at the Dublin Show by that same horse. All my 



