iteport on the Horses Exhibited at WindsoVi 553 
Vans reached the Showyard ; how hunters laboured heavily in 
ground deeper almost than the Claydou Woods in a wet hunt- 
ing season ; how hacks could scarce show their action in the 
mire; and how the " feather" of the draught horses became a 
matted and tangled mass. But, as the sequel showed, there 
was no need for misgivings. The rings at Windsor were 
excellent going; and every horse, of whatever breed, was 
enabled to show himself to the best advantage. 
During the half-century which has elapsed since the Royal 
Agricultural Society held its first Show at Oxford, and when a 
company of well-nigh 2, GOO banqueted in the quadrangle of 
Queen's College, a vast change has come over horse shows ; and 
it may not be out of place to glance briefly at their history 
and progress. The horse show, as we see it now, is a com- 
paratively modern institution. In 1839 there were exhibited 
at Oxford no more than twenty-two horses, all told ; ten were 
agricultural stallions, seven were general utility sires, whose 
mission it was, in pre-specialist days, to beget hunters, harness 
horses, hacks, and carriage horses ; and there were five mares 
and foals. Surely, Rome itself had no smaller beginning ; and 
what Eutropius said of that city is true of the horse show, viz. 
that when it did increase there was nothing much bigger in 
the whole world. 
In 1841, however, when the Royal Show was held at 
Liverpool, the horses dwindled down to nineteen — only two 
in excess of the number of asses entered in 1889 — in conse- 
quence, probably, of omitting the class of hunting and coaching 
sires, which at the outset does not seem to have been a success. 
The premium for this class of horse, however, was subsequently 
reinstated, and in 1843 (at Derby) a new departure was taken, 
in the official repoi't, by giving the pedigree of the successful 
sire — " by ' Jerry ' — ' Beeswing's ' dam, bred by William Orde, of 
Nunnykirk." In the Shrewsbury year (1845), out of compli- 
ment, no doubt, to the neighbouring Principality, prizes were 
given for Welsh mountain ponies ; but the display was so poor 
that the discontinuance of the experiment was recommended. 
Luckily, however, for latter-day pony owTiers, the suggestion 
was not acted upon, as Welsh ponies figured in the catalogue 
• at Gloucester (1853) and five years later at Chester, where the 
" Pi'ince in Wales," as the late Sir Watkin Wynn was termed, 
gave a special prize for them. Pony stallions and mares had 
had a place intermittently at the Shows ; but by 1862, when the 
locus in quo was at Battersea, ponies for riding and driving 
were so far a feature of the exhibition that one was sold for 
150if. ; two found purchasers at 100?. each; two were sold at 
