114 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL gouRNAL. [1 Fen., 1898. 
Horse-breeding. 
CROSS-BREEDING. 
By “ARAB.” 
Tart the Australian Colonies cannot supply horses suitable for military and 
other purposes in large numbers, reflects considerably on the past methods of 
horse-breeding throughout the colonies. Horse-breeding, instead of being a 
source of national wealth, has become the very opposite, owing to the poor 
styles raised ; the great bulk of our stock being simply grass-eating unsale- 
able misfits. ’ 
Two grave mistakes are mainly responsible for the horse stock of the 
colony being such as it is to-day: The too general use of the speedy, weedy, 
handicap racer on the one hand, and the too free use of the heavy draughty 
Shire horse on the other. Both those extreme types are worthless animals. 
The trial made in Australia to form a useful stock by crossing those two 
extreme types has produced a still more worthless type of horse, which, though 
fairly serviceable as a slave, is commercially worthless on the markets of the 
world. 
The handicap racer bred for speed has great obliquity of shoulders, pastern 
and hip bones, but the staying powers have been sacrificed to speed. In the 
draughty Shire the idea that “weight draws weight” has evidently blinded the 
breeders of this animal to the fact that there are other factors to strength in 
a horse besides mere bulk; and we find in him an animal whose straight 
formation of shoulder, pastern, and hip bones prevents him ina great measure 
from exerting his muscular strength. The straight formation has been 
imparted through the mistaken notion of many English authorities on the 
horse, that a straight shoulder was necessary for purposes of draught. 
The failure of those extreme types to “nick well” is but a repetition of 
what occurred in England some four centuries ago. A writer of that time 
describes how in England, when there was no further danger from Scottish 
invasion, they became careless of their horse stock, and allowed the different 
herds to run together on the commons. If he were writing Gris Australian 
experience, he could not have summed up the results better. e read that the 
horses in his time were no trotters, but ambled or paced. 
The crossing of the oblique formation of the racer with the straight 
formation of the Shire horse is responsible for the utter worthlessness of our 
horse stock as a line for profitable export on a large scale —as it was for the state 
of things described by this English writer on the horses of England in the 
sixteenth century. It is to-day responsible for the unlevel action of our 
horses, which compels many of them to amble or pace; this arises from fore 
and hind quarters being of different formation—the fore may be straight, the 
hind oblique. The oblique is capable of greater stretch, hence it overtravels 
the straight forequarter; the pace thus becomes broken—hence the ambler. 
To the same cause may be assigned the footlessness (stumbling) we find 
in so many of our horses; also the want of style and symmetry that charac- 
terises the great bulk of our unsaleable misfits, 
In Scotland they have never had such an experience as England and 
Australia have had in breeding misfits through crossing the oblique and 
straight formations. The improvement of the horse in Scotland dates from 
