128 COMPARATIVE SHAPE OF HORSES. 



equally well marked. The intermediate classes, in this respect, 

 partake, as a rule, of the characteristics of the respective 

 types to which they are most nearly allied. Thus, if we take 

 Ormonde (Frontispiece) as the highest type of the race-horse, 

 we shall find that the distance from the top of his withers to 

 his brisket, if applied down his fore leg, will reach from his 

 brisket only to the bottom of his fetlock. In the high-class 

 Leicestershire hunter (Fig. 329) it will come down to the 

 middle of the pastern , in the heavy-weight hunter, to the 

 coronet , in the Artillery '* wheeler " or light cart-horse, to the 

 ground ; and in a Cheadle Jumbo, it will be four inches more 

 in length. Hence we may conclude that the term, '' short on 

 the leg," is one to denote the possession of strength rather 

 than of speed. The reckless manner in which it is used 

 with respect to race-horses is as incorrect as it is ridiculous. 

 I may add, that with age, good feeding and want of exercise, 

 a horse usually lengthens, deepens, and thickens somewhat as 

 regards his height. Mr W. F. Shaw, F.R.C.V.S., who has 

 charge of the horses belonging to the London Streets Tram- 

 way Company, tells me that he has frequently observed that 

 comparatively light, well-bred horses, when put to tramway 

 work at about five years of age, thicken and get coarse after 

 a few months, to a far greater extent than if they had been 

 used at fast paces. I need hardly say that labour between 

 the rails is slow ; and the feeding (eighteen pounds of corn 

 and twelve pounds of hay) ample for these not very large 

 animals. We may accept the fact that both muscled and bones 

 accommodate themselves in time to the nature of the work to 

 which they are put ; the difference being one of thickness, 

 and not of length. I have often noticed among thoroughbreds 

 that, to a certain extent, they became coarse and lost their 

 appearance of blood if kept under rough conditions and used 

 for ordinary hack work. 



I may mention that St. Gatien, the celebrated son of The 

 Rover and St. Editha, who ran a dead heat with Harvester 

 for the Derby of 1884, won the gold cup at Ascot and the 

 Cesarewitch (carrying the unprecedented weight of eight 



