SADDLE HORSES. 147 
this shape, never allowing him to gallop, but often 
urging him to a fast trot; and yet in all that time 
only once did he strike the long, rapid gait of which 
he was capable, and which he would invariably show 
when harnessed to a light vehicle. This motion, 
the extended trot of a really fast horse, is very 
peculiar, and usually not very comfortable to the 
rider, the hind legs being well brought up under the 
animal at every stride, and also, in many cases, going 
wider than the fore feet, so that the man in the 
saddle feels as if he might be thrown over his horse’s 
head. And yet some trotters step so smoothly that 
they can be sat close at a 2.30 gait. 
If your object in riding is mainly that of exercise, 
almost any sound, active horse that does not stumble 
will answer the purpose. If his trot be hard, the 
more exercise you will get, and the better practice 
you will have. The worst horses to ride are those 
cold-blooded, nerveless animals, which, tiring after 
a few miles, let themselves go, and actually tumble 
down, unless kept up to the mark, rather than take 
the trouble to remain on their legs. Many coarse- 
bred cobs are of this character. They wear a decep- 
tive appearance of strength, have stout limbs and 
broad chests, but lack nervous energy and courage. 
I remember taking a faint-hearted cob, the property 
of another, from the town in which I lived to the city 
where he was to be sold at auction on the following 
day, a distance of fifteen or twenty miles. Before we 
had accomplished one quarter of the journey, while 
cantering down a very slight decline, the cob fell. It 
is no joke to break the knees of a friend’s horse, and 
the sympathetic reader will easily imagine —as I shall 
