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186

EXPENSIVE APPENDAGES.

him twice; and, indeed, latterly only one of them is frequently used for such purposes, in lieu of two or four, so their merits are properly appreciated at last. They are very properly and appropriately used by our Sovereigns when they go to express their royal and implicit confidence in what great men will do; and here they are emblematical! for you would suppose them equal to all obstacles and difficulties, but will probably fail when put to the test. They are equally appropriately used by the same august personages when they go to thank the great men for what they have done. Here they are quite in place, for they also get much praised and admired for doing very little. Their colour, at least the colour of those used on these two occasions, is somewhat emblematical also: we read of the cream of a joke; we also hear of the cream of the good things of life: surely the colour of these animals was not fixed upon to infer that all the cream of these good things goes to support a few, and the skim milk is left for the many! These Hanoverians are, however, very handsome (I mean the horses), but Germans cost a good deal in being supported.

Though I have stated my dislike to the genuine German- that is, Hanoverian-horse for English purposes, I am quite clear that a cross would turn out well if a good coloured, good-shaped sire was selected; for notwithstanding their high action, some of them are really fast (for short distances), and this is all that is wanted in show horses. They almost invariably themselves well for harness purposes. We value carry hunters and race-horses for their merits, but Hanoverians are far better for show and state purposes. For this reason I recommend a cross with such a sire, and am quite sure it would answer.

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If a man wishes to breed hacks, there are two sorts to breed-the blood-like galloping hack, and the trotting hack. By the first, I should say, a man must lose money, because there is seldom merit enough in them to command remunerating prices; for the really clever galloping hack seldom has high action, and most people (be it right or be it wrong) prefer those which have; consequently, the latter are the safest to breed for market. Good action in a hack will always sell him; and we certainly run a much greater chance of getting this if we breed from trotting stock, independent of sometimes getting something uncommon as to pace, when of course he will bring a very long figure, and is a trump card. We must also consider that if the trotting bred colt has good action, his pace is to be wonderfully improved by practice; and, provided we do not deteriorate that action, the more we increase his speed the more valuable he becomes. This is not the case with the galloping hack; if he goes smoothly, safely, and handsomely, we can make him no better: he is fast enough for a hack; and if by training we increased his speed, he would be worth no more, nineteen times in twenty not half so much; for we should spoil him as a hack, and as a hack only we want him. To breed hacks I should select a low compact very highly-bred mare, a trotter herself, and put her to a regular trotting sire; not that we insure a trotter by this, but we put ourselves in the way of it, and must then trust to our good luck; and I am quite clear that good luck and chance have much more to do with getting goers in any pace than is generally supposed: I am sure they have with race-horses; in proof of which how many scores are bred where every care and judgment has

188

TROTTING AN ARTIFICIAL PACE.

been used in choice of crosses and blood likely to tell, and how seldom anything extraordinary is produced! and when it is, it is often a produce from which the breeder expected the least. It is of course always wise to do that which is most likely to produce what we want, and to breed from going blood; but we all know how very general is the disappointment when all this is done. A horse must be thorough-bred of course to be anything like first-rate as a race-horse; but if he is thorough-bred, and the blood not radically bad, I still must say I consider chance is not to be despised as a friend, and is often found so.

I think trotting in a general way is more perpetuated in its breed than galloping; for in breeding from a certain strain on both sides we may pretty nearly insure a trotter more or less; and trotting being (at least I consider it so) a more artificial pace than galloping, if we get the action we can always increase the pace of the trotter in a greater degree than we can that of the race-horse. The speed of the latter I consider to be increased by training more in reference to speed as to a distance than for a few hundred yards. This arises from improvement in wind and condition. It is not impossible (though I am far from saying it is the case) that a two-year-old in fair state as to flesh might be able to go a quarter of a mile as fast before he went into training as he could afterwards, some perhaps faster; but even for that distance the speed of the trotter may to all but a certainty be very greatly increased; in proof of which all butchers' horses get faster than they were when they bought them, not only for a distance but for two hundred yards. A very fast thorough-bred hunter in fine hunting condition will be made somewhat

TROTTERS AGAINST GALLOPERS.

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faster by training; that is, he will be able to go a greater distance when quite extended than he could before; he will also go two miles somewhat quicker than he could before; but training will not increase his speed for a short distance in the same ratio as practice will that of a trotter. This induces me to call extraordinary speed in trotting more an artificial capability than that of speed in the gallop, where each have the natural gift of going in their different paces; for this reason I would with under-sized horses, which the hacks should always be, aim at getting a trotter by breeding from trotters. Should they not ride quite as we wish, they are worth long prices for harness: if the galloping sort do not ride well, they are worth literally nothing: the Penny Postboys would not like them, and they are fit for no one else.

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In breeding, I believe the fact is not absolutely yet proved as to whether the produce partakes most of the qualities of the sire or dam: I have ventured my opinion that the former predominates, if I may allowed to give my further impressions on the subject, I should say, I think looks, speed, manner of going, and temper are chiefly perpetuated through the sire; constitution, through the dam. Vice and peculiar habits and tricks I think we may generally trace to the former. Some mares take a dislike to a sire, why or wherefore they can best tell; but I have seen instances of it. However favourable I might think the cross, I would never permit such a connexion. I am quite sure in animals the mind or predilection in favour of or against the sire has its influence, and I am certain aversion has a very great one. I will mention one instance of predilection in the case of dogs.

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THE FLAG THAT BRAVED A THOUSAND YEARS.

I had a particularly good and very beautiful terrier bitch at a proper season I had her carefully locked up, wishing for a breed between her and a choice terrier in my neighbourhood. Unluckily she scratched her way out, and a progeny, for which I was indebted to a tailor's dog close by, was the consequence. This little beast was a kind of half-spaniel, half-turnspit nondescript, with a tail like a fox's brush turned over his back: the swarm was produced, some seven or eight in number, every one with the identical curling tail, and things like the fins of a turtle for legs. I need scarcely say they were all in a bucket immediately. On the next occasion I did secure everything so as to prevent the tailor again obliging me, and also secured the dog I wanted. There was no possibility of mistake here: in time, three, and three only, puppies were produced, one only the colour of the dog, the others precisely that of the tailor's, but one and all with the accursed curling tail. I condemned the lot for I would not have had the best dog in England with such a terminus. My groom, however, surreptitiously kept one, and put it out to nurse: he was rewarded by the veriest little cur that ever walked. I tried another dog; the result was better; the produce were like the sire, but the tail, like "the flag that braved a thousand years," waved triumphant still. I gave her away disgusted with her bad taste. If, therefore, mind or predilection had such influence. when in favour of a sire, I have no doubt it would have a bad one where aversion existed.

There is one description of thorough-bred sire that I certainly never would select except under very peculiar circumstances; this is, the regular mile-horse. If I found his produce were almost invariably horses

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