COLOUR. 215 



Colour. — The colour of a horse's coat, as a rule, does not 

 seem to be of much importance, as far as his useful qualities 

 are concerned ; although we cannot help being favourably- 

 impressed with those of rich and decided shades. Personally, 

 I admire most a dark chestnut, or a dark brown with a tinge 

 of rich claret-colour through it, as may be met with on rare 

 occasions. Dark, bright bays are also very pleasing to the 

 eye. Generally speaking, a horse looks best when his legs 

 below the knees and hocks, mane and tail are darker than 

 the rest of his coat. Bright chestnuts or bright bays, with 

 white stockings and blaze, like many of the Blair Athol 

 blood, form, perhaps, an exception to this, supposing, of 

 course, that there is not too much white about the face. I 

 cannot help sharing the general dislike to ** mealy" chestnuts, 

 and to bays and browns which are lighter on the insides of 

 the limbs and on the lower part of the belly than on other 

 portions of the body. The existence of this partial deficiency 

 of colouring matter in the skin seems to infer want of 

 nervous power ; for we must remember that the distribution 

 of pigment is greatly influenced by the nervous system. The 

 common belief that if one fore leg is dark and the other 

 white, the latter will be more apt to go wrong than the 

 former, holds good, I think, only as far as the skin and hoof 

 are concerned. Many persons consider black a *' soft '' 

 colour, except, indeed, in the case of cart-horses, which are 

 much admired when of that hue. The prejudice to which I 

 have just alluded is, probably, due to the fact of many animals 

 of this shade being '* foreigners." Grey is, undoubtedly, an 

 unpopular colour. Apart from any feeling as regards the 

 colour itself, it is true that It gets fainter as the horse grows 

 older, and then unmistakably and perhaps unpleasantly 

 proclaims the fact that the animal has passed his first youth 

 Besides this, a grey coat is difficult to keep clean, and is 

 liable to contract stains which are hard to remove. The 

 extra trouble thus entailed predisposes grooms to dislike grey 

 horses, a fact which may account for the small number of 

 grey horses in England, compared with those met with in 



