In all the campaigns in which the Cape horse has been used the 

 size was the only complaint, his capability of endurance and all 

 other points have been such as to gain the praise of almost every 

 ofifieer in the army both in India, the Crimea and at home in the 

 several Kaffir wars. Yet these horses gaining such wonderful rep- 

 utation, often as ' ' condemned ' ' horses, were boycotted in every pos- 

 sible way and the remarks quoted above and taken from the writ- 

 ings of men of considerable experience will in some measure explain 

 one of the causes of the decline of horse breeding in South Africa. 



It is contended by numerous cavalry officers and other exper- 

 ienced men of that period that in spite of the harm done by the 

 speculator type of remount there are thousands of first class re 

 mounts in the Colony and especially in the neighboring indepencies 

 (the old republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal) and 

 if the proper methods were adopted there would have been less dis- 

 grace to the British arms in India and less deterioration of the breed 

 in South Africa. 



This contention is quite correct ; for the period when the aver- 

 age good remount was getting scarcer in the Colony, the other Prov- 

 inces were just opened up and were in the heyday of pastoral farm- 

 ing and troops were running about in an almost wild state. They 

 were descendents of the Cape stock which the farmers brought 

 along with them when they emigrated in thousands from the Cape 

 Colony in 1836-38. * * * * *the period when the breed of horses 

 in the Cape was considered to be in its zenith. Besides this, some 

 of the most famous stallions found their way to these studs when 

 the interest in horse breeding was on the wane in the old colony, 

 being undermined as we have seen by the importation of worthless 

 stallions and the mean dealings of the Indian Remounts Committee. 

 In searching for reasons for the decline of the industry we should 

 also bear in mind, as a certain writer in the India Sporting Eeview 

 rightly remarks, that "the Cape at that time was not peopled with 

 Anglo-Saxons teamingwith the inherent love of trade aswe find them 

 in the Australian colonies * * * * *a. boer, loves a bit of horse 

 dealing and can make a bargain with any man ; but he will run no 

 risks, nor trust his property out of sight until he fingers the quid 

 pro quo. ' ' Time and the working of an established agency under the 

 direction of men like Col. Apperley and Col. Bower would have de- 

 veloped any latent enterprise there might have existed among the 



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