486 
BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 
The true pack-horse is extinct, and has been ever since 
my horse-recollection—that is, for about the last twenty 
years. The animals then going, in 1840, called ^pack,’ 
were out of pack-mares, but their sires had crosses of blood 
or Yorkshire. Old Gainsborough, the thorough-bred of 
household notoriety in Devonshire, one who flourished 
somewhere about 1830, is generally credited with 7iever 
having got a had one, I attribute this to his being the first 
cross with the true old pack-mares; and 1 believe that any 
moderately good thorough-bred would have produced a 
similar result, could he have had a chance with the same sort 
of mares. The animals resulting from Gainsborough and 
these pack-mares—and I have several in my mind’s eye— 
were perfection in make, shape, and action, weight-carriers, 
everlasting, perhaps scarcely speedy enough for the present 
fashion of spurting across the grass countries, although safe 
to shine through a severe thing, and be in at the finish. 
This Gainsborough generation of riding horses has also gone, 
and no yonng Gainsborough cocktail stallion ever got a good horse. 
It is a public misfortune that the line of the old pack-horse 
has not been continued in a pure slock, both for his own 
excellent inherent qualities, and for the value of the first cross 
with the thorough-bred. The big half-bred mares of this 
cross put again to a good sound thorough-bred sire produced 
the animals to go the pace and carry the weight brilliantly 
in any country, and this is my pet process for a breeding 
line.^^ 
Of late years the West Country farmers appear to have 
been crossing and re-crossing out of all rhyme and reason, 
until they have nothing left but the horse of all work, which, 
as was amusingly demonstrated at Truro, they hardly knew 
how to class, either as a riding horse or a common draught 
horse. However, as my friend adds, every Devon farmer, 
as a rule, breeds or tries to breed riding stock, and, as a con¬ 
sequence, in some hole-and-corner holdings a stylish pro¬ 
mising nag colt is often dropped upon where a stranger 
W’ould think it about as likely to find an elephant.” 
So much for a fitting foundation. But let the thorough¬ 
bred stallion, under the countenance of the Hunt, be ever so 
well adapted for his purpose, and the mare really worthy of 
his caresses, the business of breeding is yet only in the be¬ 
ginning. Better-bred stock require better treatment, and 
pay better for it. Half a horse’s goodness, as it is said, goes 
in at his mouth; and it will be idle for farmers to attempt 
rearing riding-horses without they do them a deal better than, 
as a rule, they have hitherto done. A half-starved foal never 
