Vol. LXVII. No. 3043. 
NEW YORK, MAY 23, 1908. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
HORSES IN NEW YORK CITY. 
Breezy Notes From a Western Visitor. 
It is not likely that readers of The R. N.-Y. will 
find anything new or useful in this, but I have been 
looking around New York City a little, and am go¬ 
ing to give my impressions. Being mostly a western 
man, I was interested to know how the western horse 
was regarded here, and I find that he is in good 
demand if he has the “shape” and flesh. If he is a 
buzzard-head or rough looker he must be extra well 
broken and gentle to all purposes. The brand does 
not turn a horse down if he has the quality, and a 
certain degree of wildness will be tolerated if he is 
shapely and has style. The horse dealers tell me 
they couldn’t do business if it was not for the farm¬ 
ers. In the Fall of the year there is a large trade 
in sore-footed stock that have quittors (fistula of the 
coronet or upper hoof), or 
have their feet burned up on 
the hot asphalt. Large num¬ 
bers of delivery wagon horses 
and heavier grades are turned 
over to the dealers at low 
prices. They ultimately go to 
the farmers at $75 to $100 or 
thereabouts, and it is fair to 
judge that in most cases they 
are worth the money. With 
us in Illinois a 1300 to 1400 
pound horse of the type in 
Fig. 193, if sound and young 
would draw $200 or $225 from 
the buyer. It is probable that 
one would have to dig up from 
$300 to $400 to claim him from 
the dealers on 24th St. The 
same horse minus a hundred 
pounds of flesh and plus a 
burned foot or two, Fig. 194, 
can be had for about $85 from 
the dealers. 
The farmers of Long Island 
and other nearby sections 
appear to profit well by this 
condition. They buy the lame 
ones, turn them out awhile, 
tinker up their feet and do 
their work with them the com¬ 
ing season. About the only 
farmers who buy sound ones, 
I am told, are the market gar¬ 
deners, who make long drives 
to market every day. They 
demand strong, active horses 
and pay big prices to get them. 
One of the impressions I have 
got here is that it would pay either a farmer or 
dealer from a distance to buy a bunch of these two- 
leggers and ship back. A grassy pasture will do a 
lot for sore feet, and a quittor is not usually a thing 
to condemn a horse. 
As I expected, I find the big money in the high 
class drivers and saddlers. The people who buy 
these, as a rule, don't care for the price if they find 
the horse they want. Hundreds of them are ridden 
in the parks every day, and they are certainly a feast 
for a horseman’s eyes, or would be if it were not 
foi the ultra-school style of riding, in which the rider 
seems to do most of the work. Occasionally I see a 
man forked on to his horse as if he belonged there, 
hut generally the horses are docked and ridden Eng¬ 
lish style, which is a crime. The trot is the 
stylish gait apparently, and the jumping jacks on the 
saddles do the rising act until you can see the Pali¬ 
sades between them and the horse. Well, Nature 
squares things up they say. These people are prob¬ 
ably in need of exercise, and they must certainly get 
it. They seem to be working hard, and I should say 
that it is a form of physical culture which ought to 
reduce surplus flesh, stimulate the liver and cause 
the blood to circulate freely through all the veins. 
But they are missing the fun there is to be had with 
a “real thing” saddle horse, although they have ex¬ 
amples enough before their eyes, for I have seen 
some superb single-footers in the Park. If it wasn’t 
for the god of style some old cow-puncher could make 
his fortune gaiting saddle horses for these people 
when once they had learned the poetry there is in a 
singlefoot canter or slow lope. But these horses are 
a feast for the eye, nevertheless. The highly sung 
beauty of the female form is a mere hay bag com¬ 
pared with the strength and grace of equine lines, 
the most artistically perfect combination of curves 
that were ever thrown together in a living creature. 
I was saying this to myself yesterday as I sized up 
a particularly fine sorrel, until my eye got to the 
little 10-inch tail offending nature at the stern, and I 
won’t tell you how my speech ended. See Fig. 195. 
To make it worse, the mare was a “silver-trimmed” 
animal, and anybody knows that there is nothing 
quite so captivating in a deep sorrel or chestnut as a 
silver white mane and tail. And here some criminal 
had outraged nature by robbing this graceful creature 
of her chief adornment. We have borrowed some 
fool customs from the English, but of all the asinine 
and inexcusable practices that ever tortured a help¬ 
less slave and outraged decency the docking habit 
takes all the ribbons. They used to hang a man in 
the West for stealing a horse, but to my mind dock¬ 
ing is the worst of the two. Circumstances might 
sometimes partly excuse a get-away with a horse, but 
there can be no possible reason for docking. 
But it is a pleasure to note the many perfect speci¬ 
mens of saddlers and drivers that retain all the beauty 
that nature gave them, and a graceful flowing tail 
leaves nothing to be desired as they speed by. The 
prices these horses bring tempts a man to fit up a few 
good ones, but when he notes where many of them 
go to when they are handed down for one cause or 
another he hesitates out of feeling for the horse. 
There is a section of Oregon called “Horse Heaven.” 
Any big city is the other place for the horse, and 
pretty near the lowest pit I should say would be 
some old crippled thoroughbred pulling a junk wagon. 
His pride and strength are gone, but his iron nerve 
keeps him on his feet until the last cord breaks, and 
he drops in the harness, another victim of human 
folly and greed. 
As a study of horse sense it is interesting to watch 
the delivery wagons. In one case the driver will dis¬ 
appear in the building where 
his orders havd called him, 
leaving his wagon at the curb. 
After a minute the horse will 
get restless, step along and 
show signs of nervousness. 
When the driver appears he 
will start off at a fidgetty trot. 
The driver says whoa, but 
the horse keeps on, and he is 
compelled to mount the wagon 
on the roll. When he reaches 
his seat he picks up his whip 
and gives the horse a cut or 
two—just what the beast was 
looking for and the reason 
why he wouldn’t stand. An¬ 
other wagon appears, pulls up 
at the curb and the driver 
jumps out with his packages 
of groceries, baker’s goods or 
tray full of bottled milk as the 
case may be. While he is 
gone his horse stands quietly, 
his nerves at rest, and appears 
to be enjoying a moment of 
respite. When his driver ap¬ 
pears and runs down the 
street a few doors to another 
number the horse keeps his 
eye on him and moseys down 
to the door where he saw him 
go in. He stops there and 
doesn’t move until his driver 
appears again. Then he will 
follow him to the next call 
and the next as may be; 20 
men may have come out of 
that apartment building in the 
meantime and gone down the street, but he doesn’t 
care if it’s a hundred or a bunch of marines; he 
stays right there till he sees his driver, and I’ll ven¬ 
ture to say in half the cases he doesn’t have to have 
his attention called by word or whistle. He has 
learned his business through intelligence and kind 
treatment. When the driver mounts the seat he will 
stand until he is in the wagon and then go freely 
without looking back for the whip with a nervous 
tension that kinks his tail the wrong way. The 
chances are this horse’s driver doesn’t carry a whip 
at all, and the driver of the other wagon might get 
a profitable pointer there. If he carried less gad his 
horse would carry more flesh and give him better ser¬ 
vice all around. Of course we all know there is a 
difference in horses, but all things being equal, the man 
who helps his horse to understand his job gets better 
results than the man who hammers his horse into it. 
A HORSE WRANGLER. 
