488 
REMOUNT HORSES IN INDIA. 
olds that have been a month at sea, and are in many cases in wretched 
condition and much knocked about, you are very apt to overlook the 
real gun-wheelers and take animals, as such, that in twelve months 
will turn out too big and coarse for anything but Field Battery 
wagoners, and probably too heavy even for them, for the extent to 
which these horses will grow and thicken, even in six months, is almost 
incredible. 
I have now, in the battery I command, some six or eight horses I 
selected three months ago, at the selection of which, for wheelers, the 
Remount Agent himself was rather astonished, and they have, in that 
short period, almost realised my expectations. You must therefore 
look for limbs, not bodies, good backs, short cannons, and breadth 
between the hips; if they are as thin as rails at the time, never mind 
if they have good heads and eyes, and clean, not hairy, legs. Height, 
from 15 hands 1^ inches to 15 hands 3 inches. 
Gun-leaders and centre horses are easier to choose, but here again 
avoid very leggy ones with long shanks and pasterns. A pair of un¬ 
furnished five-year old wheelers will often make excellent centre horses 
for a season. I am, in my own battery at the present moment, work¬ 
ing two pairs of young horses as centre horses on short days, and at 
driving drills, which next season will have developed into grand 
wheelers, having been broken already as such; and I have, this season, 
put two pairs in the wheel permanently that were running in the centre 
last year. In Field Batteries, I hold, there should be no such thing as 
wliat is commonly called a centre horse; a gun team should be com¬ 
posed of a pair of leaders and two pairs of wheelers, not hairy-legged, 
coarse brutes with pendulous lips and overhung eyes, but short-legged, 
active, clean-limbed horses of the coach horse stamp. I carried this out 
in the Field Battery I commanded for four years at home, and constantly 
interchanged my wheel and centre horses. At Okehampton, in 1891, 
the horses of my battery were by far the smallest horses in the camp, 
but I fancy they moved as fast as any, and I am sure they looked as 
well as any ; they never knocked up, and after a march of 650 miles 
and three weeks in camp on Dartmoor, we marched into Newcastle 
with every horse in his proper place, never having left one on the way. 
All detachment and riding horses should be capable of going in the 
guns, and be broken to do so; no horse should be selected that is not 
fit for that purpose. Ting-tang, leggy horses, with long cannons and 
pasterns, are to be eschewed, and in my opinion no riding or detach¬ 
ment horses should be above 15 hands 3 inches. They are easier 
horses for the gunners to get on and off, and stouter horses than the 
leggy ones. 
Finally, in making your selection go for good limbs, backs and loins, 
never take a horse with a bad head if possible, or with long cannons 
and pasterns; you cannot of course get everything at the price, but 
above all go for blood. 
Treatment. 
The yearly batch of remounts will arrive about the beginning of 
the month of April; if you have not seen them before do not be dis- 
