92 THE DIFFERENT BREEDS OF ENGLISH HORSES. 



It may be laid down as a maxim in breeding, however general may be the 

 prejudice against it, that the value of the foal depends as much on the dam 

 as on the sire. The Arabs go farther than this, for no price will buy from 

 them a likely mare of the highest blood ; and they trace back the pedigree of 

 their horses, not through the sire, but the dam. The Greek sporting men held 

 the same opinion, long before the Arab horse was known. " What chance of win- 

 ning have I V inquired a youth whose horse was about to start on the Olympic 

 course. " Ask the dam of your horse," was the reply, founded on experience*. 



The farmer, however, too frequently thinks that any mare will do to breed 

 from. If he can find a great prancing stallion, with a high-sounding name, and 

 loaded with fat, he reckons on having a valuable colt ; and should he fail he 

 attributes the fault to the horse and not to his own want of judgment. Far 

 more depends on the mare than is dreamed of in his philosophy. 



If he has an undersized, or a blemished, or unsound mare, let him continue 

 to use her on his farm. She probably did not cost him much, and she will beat 

 any gelding ; but let him not think of breeding from her. A sound mare, with 

 some blood in her, and with most of the good points, will alone answer his 

 purpose. She may bear about her the marks of honest work (the fewer of 

 these, however, the better), but she must not have any disease. There is 

 scarcely a malady to which the horse is subject that is not hereditary. Con- 

 tracted feet, curb, spavin, roaring, thick wind, blindness, notoriously descend 

 from the sire or dam to the foal. Mr. Roberts, in " The Veterinarian," says : — 

 " Last summer I was asked my opinion of a horse. I approved of his formation 

 with the exception of the hocks, where there happened to be two curbs. I was 

 then told his sister was in the same stable : she also had two curbs. Knowing 

 the sire to be free from these defects, I inquired about the dam : she likewise 

 had two confirmed curbs. She was at this time running with a foal of hers, two 

 years old, by another horse, and he also had two curbs." 



The foal should be well taken care of for the first two years. It is bad policy 

 to stint or half-starve the growing colt. 



The colt, whether intended for a hunter or carriage-horse, may be early 

 handled, but should not be broken-in until three years old ; and then, the very 

 best breaking-in for the carriage-horse is to make him earn a little of his living. 

 Let him be put to harrow or light plough. Going over the rough ground will 

 teach him to lift his feet well, and give him that high and showy action, excus- 

 able in a carriage-horse, but not in any other. In the succeeding winter he will 

 be perfectly ready for the town or country market. 



THE CAVALRY HORSE. 



This is the proper place to speak of the Cavalry Horse. That noble animal 

 whose varieties we arc describing, and who is so admirably adapted to contri- 

 bute to our pleasure and our use, was, in the earliest period of which we have 

 any account of him, devoted to the destructive purposes of war ; and the cavalry 

 is, at the present day, an indispensable and a most effective branch of the service. 



The cavalry horses contain a different proportion of blood, according to the 

 nature of the service required or the caprice of the commanding officer. Those 

 of the household troops are from half to three-fourths bred. Some of the 



* Bishop Hall, who wrote in the time of James I., intimates that such was the opinion of 

 horsemen at that period. He asks, in one of his satires (Lib. iv.) 



" ■ dost thou prize 



Thy brute beasts' worth by their dams' qualities? 

 Say'st thou this colt Bhall prove a swift-pae'd steed 

 Onely because a Jennet did him breed ? 

 Or say'st thou this same horse shall win the prize, 

 Because his dam was swiftest Tranchcfice?" 



