186 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
hour on a trot, or from ten to twelve — the latter 
quite the maximum —on a gallop, under almost any 
weight.” 
But the Cleveland bay did not long continue in his 
original form; there were more and greater infusions 
of thoroughbred blood, so that he became “finer,” 
more speedy, a little longer of limb, and in all re- 
spects a superior animal for the coach and the saddle. 
The country gentlemen were great breeders and users 
of Cleveland bays. “A squire,” it is said, “of two or 
three thousand a year, in the midland or northern 
counties, did not consider his stable furnished with- 
out five or six full-sized, well-bred coach horses”; 
and if he went a journey of fifty or seventy-five 
miles, he would be conveyed not only in his own 
carriage, but by his own steeds. Noblemen counted 
their carriage horses by the score; for in those 
days they travelled in some state. Six-in-hand for 
gala or ceremonious occasions, and four for every-day 
purposes, were the usual number. But times have 
changed. “The old duke always journeyed to Lon- 
don with six post chaises and four, attended by out- 
riders. The present man comes up in a first-class 
carriage with half a dozen bagmen, and sneaks away 
from the station in a brougham, smoking a cigar.” 
The reader will remember that even Sir Pitt Crawley, 
most penurious of men, was met by a coach and four 
at his park gates, where he and his companion Becky 
Sharp had been set down by the stage. 
County running races also contributed very largely, 
though indirectly, to the improvement of carriage 
norses. Local magnates liked to be represented at 
these races by horses of their own breeding, and con- 
