STAYING POWER. 235 



Staying Power. — The ability to '' stay a distance/' 

 granting the possession of health and condition, depends 

 (i) on the breathing power being good; (2) on the muscles 

 working to advantage, and on the conformation being of the 

 required kind ; and (3) on the action. 



With respect to the first condition, we require the barrel 

 to be deep and rounded behind the girths (p. 163), and 

 the flanks to be well ribbed-up. 



The second condition will be best fulfilled, from the point 

 of view of speed, when the muscles over the loins are power- 

 ful, and when the fore hand is light ; that is to say, when the 

 shoulders and pasterns are oblique, and the head, neck and 

 shoulders light, in which case the fore legs will not be 

 wide apart (p. 169). As thick muscles are unsuited to 

 bear the strain of continued quick work, we usually find 

 that genuine stayers at fast paces are not heavily built horses. 

 Any excess of height over the croup, as compared to that 

 at the withers, will add to the weight on the fore hand 

 (p. 40). The fact of the neck (p. 154) being abnormally 

 short in comparison to the limbs, will naturally detract 

 from the staying power. The same remark applies to the 

 possession of ^^sickle-hocks ^^' (p. 51). In heavy draught, 

 the mechanical advantage will be on the side of a heavy 

 fore hand. 



There is an important difference between staying power 

 (using the term in its racing sense), and ability to endure 

 fatigue. For instance, East Indian ponies, though often 

 very fast for a short distance, are notoriously bad stayers ; 

 and yet they are wonderfully good animals on a long journey. 

 Thus, many of them which are incapable of *' getting " 

 beyond three furlongs in a race would, if harnessed to an 

 eckd (a native two-wheeled trap), do, comfortably, 70 or 

 80 miles from sunrise to sunset, with the thermometer at 

 noon up to 110° F. or more, in the shade. Here the lack of 

 staying power would be due to the organs of breathing being 

 unable to continue work under high pressure. As might be 

 expected, these ** country-bred*' ponies (Fig. 2>n) ^^^> ^^ ^ 



