Hundreds of pairs of carriage and coach horses have 

 been sold every year in London at from ;!{^200 to ;^5oo a 

 pair, the purchasers being quite unaware of their foreign 

 origin. At recent sales brown and bay upstanding coach- 

 horses from coaches running during the summer out of London 

 have sold at from loo to 200 guineas ; a pair purchased by a 

 friend cost 350 guineas. There can be no doubt whatever 

 where these animals were bred ; if anyone took the trouble to 

 trace their pedigree it would be found that they came either 

 from the Oldenbourg province of Germany or from the horse- 

 breeding districts of Normandy in France ; there can be no 

 mistaking the breeds. 



When the Royal Commission on Irish Horse-Breeding 

 was appointed in the year 1897, much evidence in support of 

 the above statement was given by two of the largest job- 

 masters in London. Mr. Wimbush stated that he began to buy 

 horses in Normandy about the year 1887, and he continued 

 to obtain them from that country because they were just the 

 stamp of animal required for carriage work. 



In his own words, these Norman horses are " not very 

 large — 15.3 or 15.2, and occasionally up to 16 hands — but they 

 are horses of beautiful appearance, very handsome and splendid 

 goers ; they not only step well, but go most excellently on 

 their hind legs.'' 



Formerly, the London dealers used to buy carriage horses 

 in America. Mr. Henry Withers informed the Commissioners 

 that for four or five years his firm maintained one buyer in 

 Lexington and another in New York. The scarcity of good 

 carriage horses in England and Ireland obliged him to do this, 

 though American horses were very dear. In course of time 

 the Lexington and New York agencies were abandoned, not 

 because carriage horses of the required stamp could be found 

 in Great Britain, but because they could be procured more 

 cheaply in France, Germany and Belgium than in the United 

 States. 



