THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



99 



enous races of Asia, and especially to qualify 

 them for cavalry service. 



Every now and then one sees a thorough- 

 bred horse with a relatively high fore-hand, 

 good crest, ample as well as deep chest, short- 

 ish legs, and a body well ribbed home and not 

 too long, with general rotundity of form and 

 good action ; but in that case he is not apt to 

 be of great speed on the turf. Such a horse 

 the English ladies prefer to ride. After a long 

 protracted search among blood horses, who are 

 by no means all beauties, Wyatt found in Re- 

 covery one he deemed a fit model for the Wel- 

 lington equestrian statue. The Duke's favo- 

 rite charger was a thorough-bred. A perfect 

 Park Hack for a gentleman is usually of the 

 same general style as a lady's riding horse of 

 modern days, Palfreys being extinct, but of 

 a rather larger size, which is commonly attained 

 by a slight admixture of races. A Hunter is 

 a large Hack, with less symmetry than a Hack 

 often, provided he has the qualities sought, and 

 from his size and therefore strength is fully up 

 to the weight he has to carry on a long as well 

 as a fast run. A Charger, in reference to natu- 

 ral gifts, is in fact a hunter. I think carriage 

 horses, certainly Lord Foley's dark bays, ap- 

 proaching light browns, (the most celebrated 

 in England, for one of which I was told he had 

 paid or refused £600) may well be defined to 

 be large, or as Youatt says, " over-sized," Hun- 

 ters. Most, of these varieties of horses in 

 England are by blood stallions, out of part- 

 bred mares, as I have before observed, except 

 a majority of the horses for the larger car- 

 riages; and they are more generally new 

 Olevelands on both sides, and, of course, have 

 an infusion, more or less remote, of blood. 

 This, with a view to uniformity of results in 

 breeding, it is expedient should not be so re- 

 cent in the stallions as materially to affect the 

 fixity of their type,— keeping in mind the theo- 

 ry of Malingie Nouel and Huzard fils,* that 

 generally the parent of the longer established 

 race, or of the purer descent, exercises a pre- 

 dominant influence on the character of the 

 offspring. 



Mr. Dickenson f and Mr. Gray, the two 

 great "job-masters "J of London, told me that 

 they bought all their horses in Yorkshire, 

 " raw," at two and three years old, at from £80 



*Des Haras Domestiques. 



t Mentioned by Caird as a celebrated grower of 

 Italian rye grass. 



^"Job-masters" let carriage horses to hire to 

 persons who wish to avoid the risks and trouble 

 incident to ownership. The Queen's mother "jobs " 

 her horses. 



to £110, kept them on a farm until lit, for use, 

 and then brought them to London, and edu- 

 cated them in their brakes, for which they 

 have accomplished drivers, with no other occu- 

 pation. Mr. Gray spoke of "William Burton's 

 horses, and said " they are my sort." 



The forty-five Hunters of Lord Fitzhar- 

 dinge, at Berkeley Castle, are exceedingly 

 strong and heavy-limbed horses, from fifteen 

 hands three inches to sixteen hands high ; and 

 I understood from his huntsman that thorough- 

 bred and very high bred horses could not live 

 through a hard day's run, in that heavy coun- 

 try. Nevertheless all foals from his strongest 

 Hunter mares, no longer used in the field, are 

 by thorough-bred stallions. A lighter style of 

 Hunter is preferred at Melton Mowbray — the 

 metropolis of the fox-hunting world, as it is 

 termed — in Leicestershire, where the lands are 

 mostly in old grass. Some of the Hunters 

 there, for light weights, are doubtless thorough- 

 bred. In Hunters a fair stride, to gallop, to 

 fence, and to leap well, is required, and for 

 that it. is obviously necessary to have tall and 

 elongated, and not squat and punchy, horses. 

 The strength and size of Hunters vary accord- 

 ing to the nature of the country, and in pro- 

 portion to the weight they are to carry - and 

 hence the common phrase, " weight-carriers." 

 The English believe that in well-formed ani- 

 mals, within reasonable limits, size stands to 

 strength as cause and effect, and that if a hea- 

 vy rider does not bear a just relation to the 

 dimensions of his horse, he can never be well- 

 mounted, and much less appear 



t: Incorps'd and derni-natur'd 

 With the brave beast." 



Nor do they ever deem a " vehicular establish- 

 ment" well "got up " if the "cattle" are dis- 

 proportionally small. In this country, and in 

 the New England states more especially, there 

 is evidence of a growing appreciation of the 

 importance of size in horses for all useful pur- 

 poses. Even on the turf there is a maxim, as 

 quoted by the accomplished President of the 

 New York Jockey Club, that "a good big 

 horse always beats a good little one." 



I expressed to you orally the opinion that 

 the modern Hack — the saddle horse of the no- 

 bility and gentry — is fully as high bred as the 

 Hunter, and often higher bred, from a general 

 comparison of the two classes, and the fact 

 that the male parentage of both is for the most 

 part thorough-bred. Nimrod, as well as Harry 

 Hieover, frequently speaks of " thorough-bred 

 Hacks." The Hacks of the Queen for the 

 use of her attendants are strong horses, and 

 are certainly not thorough-bred. As throwing 



