SADDLE HORSES. 173 
over the ground at a rate which few larger: horses 
can equal for a long distance. As a rule, they are 
not, of course, fast trotters, but I know of one, a 
half-bred roan pony, with a beautiful blood-like head 
and sloping rump, that has the big, wide gait of a 
true trotter. This pony, I have no doubt, could trot a 
mile in three minutes or better, and he is also a fast 
runner and a good jumper. Occasionally, one finds 
among these half-bred ponies one with a longer back, 
lower-carried head, ana longer neck than are common, 
looking exactly like a diminutive race horse. I have 
ridden one such, a chestnut mare, extremely nervous, 
thin-waisted, long and low, a sort of toy thorough- 
bred, highly intelligent and capable of being tamed 
and taught like a pet dog. But this pony is nearly 
clean bred. 
A writer in the recent Badminton volume on Rid- 
ing states that in selecting a polo pony the object 
should be to get one resembling as closely as possible 
a race horse in petto. It is dangerous to differ in 
any degree from so high an authority, but I should 
have thought that the ideal polo pony, though in 
other respects resembling a thoroughbred race horse, 
is shorter in the back. Certainly the work is so dif- 
ferent that some difference in construction might be 
presumed to exist. The polo pony must be a weight- 
carrier. It is notable, also, that the portraits of su- 
perior polo ponies given in the Badminton volume 
represent, most commonly, short-backed animals ; and, 
finally, such is the shape of the Arab and of the Barb, 
— both of which breeds furnish excellent polo ponies. 
The training of saddle horses is a matter with 
which I shall not attempt to deal, inasmuch as it has 
