188 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
of thoroughbred blood, and hardly that, could supply 
the requisite wind and limb. 
One of the best of those colored plates that illus- 
trate the road in coaching days shows both what kind 
of horse was used, and what was the effect upon him 
of the work. It is a picture of “The Night Team” 
putting to in the frosty moonlight at a roadside inn, 
while a few passengers, muffled to the eyes, shiver 
on top of the stage. Three of the four horses, the 
wheelers and the off leader, are bays, — broken down, 
but still powerful. The ribs clearly show through 
their short, nicely groomed coats; their fine, well-bred 
heads, topped by small, aristocratic ears, hang mourn- 
fully down; their knees are fearfully sprung; their 
hind legs are twisted and swollen. Altogether, they 
give the impression of having accomplished some 
tremendous feats, and of being still able to perform 
the like when well warmed to their work. The 
fourth horse, the nigh leader, is a gray, young and 
sound, but vicious. He wears a broad bandage over 
his eyes, to prevent shying at “objects,” and two or 
three hostlers are struggling to get him within the 
traces, while he plunges about with head and tail 
high in the air. The fast mail coaches broke down 
many good horses before their time; and if anybody 
had upon his hands an unmanageable brute, such as 
the English system of breaking was eminently fitted 
to produce, he doubtless put him into one of those 
horse-taming and horse-killing machines. 
During the past fifty years many of the best Cleve- 
land bays have been exported, —so many that the 
deficiency in the London market has been supplied in 
part by carriage horses brought over from Germany. 
