Horse-breeding in England and India - and army horses abroad (1906) (14763623991)
Summary
Identifier: horsebreedingi00gilb (find matches)
Title: Horse-breeding in England and India : and army horses abroad
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Gilbey, Walter, Sir, 1st Bart., 1831-1914 Fairman Rogers Collection (University of Pennsylvania) PU
Subjects: Horses Horses CHR 1906 PRO Pearson, Leonard (bookplate) (donor)
Publisher: London : Vinton & Co.
Contributing Library: University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation
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for business purposes which receivethe meed of attention their importance deserves are the heavydraught-horses —the Shire, Suffolk and Clydesdale. We are far ahead of any other nation as breeders ofrace-horses, hunters and polo-ponies—horses used in sport—we spare neither money nor pains to breed the best, but inaiming at production of these we either hit the mark or missit altogether. We prefer a Thoroughbred sire, not because he has bone,substance and soundness, but because he is a Thoroughbred.The owner of a mare does not inquire concerning the makeand shape of the stallion ; he asks, How is he bred ? anda fashionable pedigree is the strongest—nay, the only^recommendation he will accept. This was not always the case; between the years 1800and 1850, broadly speaking. Hunter sires were used to begetHunter stock. It is true that breeders of Hunters did notconfine themselves exclusively to the use of such sires, for theincreased speed of hounds obliged them to produce faster 4
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horses ; but such animals as Cognac, whose portrait is heregiven, were very hirgely used, to the great benefit of theHunter. Cognac belonged, in the words of a writer inthe Sporting Magazine of the year 1836, to a race of Huntersnearly extinct, and justly celebrated for their high courage,honesty and stoutness. The famous writer, Mr. Cornelius Tongue, best known asCecil, writing in the Sporting Magazine of May, 1851, saysthat it was a prevailing opinion with hunting men untilwithin the last twenty years that Thoroughbreds werenot calculated for hunting. It would appear, therefore, thatduring the twenty years i83i-i(S3i mentioned, hunting menchanged their opinions with regard to Thoroughbreds, andcame to consider them suitable for riding across country. Having discovered that the Hunter mare threw a good foalto the stout Thoroughbred sire, some hunting men, at least,evidently adopted the practice of riding the Thoroughbredhorse as a Hunter instead of using him only as a sire to begetHu