79 
whence it would seem that no fewer than 
1,500 horses were used by the coach pro- 
prietors on that route alone; probably more, 
as competition was keen and the speed 
maintained was hard upon horseflesh. 
The average working lite of a horse in 
a fast road coach was about four years, 
according to Nimrod. Hence the coach 
proprietor found it necessary to renew one 
fourth of his stud at a cost of from £25 to 
445 per head every year. Mr. Chaplin, 
who owned five “yards” in London in the 
thirties, had upwards of 1,300 horses at 
work in various coaches on various roads, 
and would therefore have been obliged to 
purchase about 411,375 worth of horses 
every year. 
When the railway banished the coach 
from the highroad, which it did with con- 
siderable rapidity, these great coaching 
studs were necessarily given up, and a 
market for horses of the most useful stamp 
disappeared. An eminent proprietor gave 
the qualities required in a road coach-horse 
for fast work as follows: ‘First requisite, 
action; second, sound legs and feet, with 
power and breeding equal to the nature 
and length of the ground he will work 
upon ; third, good wind, without which the 
