mount to shoot off or a good ride for a lady, where can you equal the 

 old Cape Horse T'^" 



The gait of the Cape Horse under the saddle has been influ- 

 enced much by the nature of his duties. "In order to hold a rifle 

 comfortably or even ranch up cattle at not too hard a pace all the 

 horses are taught to amble or "tripple" as the pace is called in 

 Dutch."" Captain Hayes is not quite correct here, a good "trip- 

 pier" is very rare, the most common pace is called "pass" which is 

 a fast shuffling walk, which is as often called " strijkstap. " The 

 canter with several variations is the next common gait. The ' ' three 

 beat" canter can be kept up for hours. To quote Dr. Wegner: 

 "men and women are continually seen riding their horses — Boer 

 ponies or Thoroughbreds at a 'three beat' canter (Dreischlag)."^^ 



Horses are very seldom trotted under the saddle, in fact it is 

 looked upon as an unnatural gait in riding horses. The canter 

 varied with the shuffling walk is the usual gait and with an average 

 good horse forty miles per day can be covered with ease on indiffer- 

 ent feed and be kept up for months without being knocked up. 

 This is the testimony of every horseman who has used a Cape Horse 

 either at home or in those parts of the world where he was imported 

 as a remount or pleasure and sport mount. 



(b) RACING CAPABILITIES. 



The Cape Horse being a light type of horse lent itself to the 

 royal sport of racing very readily. 



Racing might have been indulged in by the great horse-breeder 

 before the 19th Century but we have no reliable records of it. This 

 sport came with the second and more general importation ,of Thor 

 oughbreds in 1811 and afterwards. Since then, the sport has lived 

 through various vicissitudes — falling into disgrace through one 

 decade it comes forward once more as that sport and test of quality 

 which places its principles so much higher than any other based 

 upon individual opinion of one or more judges. There the win- 

 ning post with blind absolute justice is the judge and its decree is 

 irrefutable ; neither fashion nor fancy, neither favor nor hatred, 



(10) Agricultural Journal of Cape of Good Hope Vol. XXVIII 26. 



(11) Captain M. H. Hayes F. E. C. V. S. "Among Horses in Soutli Africa." 



1900. 



(12) Dr. 0. Wegner " Zur Kenntniss der Siidafrikanische Landwirtschaft 1906. 



89 



