CARRIAGE HORSES 133 



though he greatly valued speed at the trot, he ex- 

 pressed his intention of continuing to breed to a 

 thoroughbred sire. The incident shows how 

 closely cherished was the old-fashioned but praise- 

 worthy ideal that a horse must be fine all over and 

 therefore as clean in head as in limb, and that his 

 style — his way of carrying himself — must be fully 

 commensurate with his high breeding. 



Personally, the handsomest horses I ever raised 

 were from strictly thoroughbred mares, bred to a 

 trotting-bred stallion. One pair of them, from a 

 daughter of Lexington, were strikingly beautiful 

 and would doubtless have brought a high price, 

 had I cared to sell them. But these horses, it 

 must be admitted, were not of the most approved 

 carriage type; they were hardly compact and 

 heavy enough and I mention them only as illustra- 

 tive of the potency of the thoroughbred cross in 

 producing " breedy," aristocratic looking horses. 



With the Denmark strain I am much less 

 familiar. But no one who has seen the superb 

 saddle horses that are bred in Kentucky, direct 

 descendants of Denmark, and who has observed 

 how often this blood appears in the pedigrees of 

 our handsomest carriage horses can doubt for a 

 moment its value. 



I wish now to say a few words about a race of 

 horses which have never had much direct part 



