The Working Horse - A Guide on Equestrian Knowledge with Information on Shire and Carriage Horses

By J. Prince-Sheldon

“The Working Horse” is a fantastic guide to the horses of the British Isles as used for sport and work, including a wealth of equestrian knowledge on such subjects as breeding, breaking, ailments, history, and much more. Profusely illustrated with photographs and diagrams, this timeless volume is not to be missed by horse lovers and owners alike, and it would make for a fantastic addition to collections of allied literature. Contents include: “Horse-Breeding in the British Isles”, “Heavy Draught-Horses: The Shire, The Clydesdale, and the Suffolk”, “Park Hacks and Carriage Horses”, “A Veterinary Vade-Mecum”, “The Conformation of the Horse”, “Principles of Shoeing”, “Diseases and Injuries of the Feet of the Horse”, “How to Tell a Horse’s Age”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on the care and maintenance of horses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Country Books
• Release date: Oct 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528767316

Book preview

–HORSES.

CHAPTER I.

HORSE-BREEDING IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS.*

What has been Done, and What Remains to be Done—Lessons of the War—Conditions of the Horse Supply in 1874—The Earl of Rosebery’s Committee—Its Results—Establishment of Horse-Breeding Societies—A Revival all along the Line—The Hunters’ Improvement Society and Premiums for Thoroughbred Stallions—Transfer of the Queen’s Plates—The Royal Commission on Horse-Breeding—Horse-Breeding in Ireland—Horses for the Army—Statistics as to Horse Supply—Importations.

DURING the last thirty years there has been a decided revival of interest in horse-breeding in the United Kingdom. In this country the improvement of breeds of live stock has been almost exclusively the result of private enterprise, the State support of the industry, which prevails on the Continent of Europe, having been absent. From time to time Parliament has passed measures intended to promote horse-breeding, mainly with a view to the production of remounts for the cavalry and other mounted branches of the army; but these have been of an inconclusive and intermittent description. Many of our monarchs have shown a liking for good horses, and some of them have rendered valuable aid by making importations of animals which have exercised a considerable influence in improving the breed. They have also given King’s and Queen’s Plates for racehorses, subsequently awarded as premiums for stallions. The Turf has been the leading agent in the improvement of the blood-horse, and in this there has been weakness as well as strength, especially since the distances of races have been made shorter and the weights lighter. The hunting field has also had an important influence, because this department of Sport has always commanded, at high prices, many of the best animals. The Agricultural and Horse Shows, too, have given a decided stimulus to the breeding of superior horses; and since the establishment of breed societies and Stud Books great progress has been made in many directions.

What has been Done.

But in spite of all this, much yet remains to be done as regards the breeding of high-class horses for riding and driving, because, especially with respect to valuable harness-horses, a large number of them are imported from European countries and from America, and the bulk of these should certainly be bred at home. Attention has recently been drawn by Sir Walter Gilbey to the fact that while the dominant influence with us is Sport, in other countries breeding operations are conducted more with a view to utility. This remark refers to the light horses and ponies, and not to the heavy breeds, in which commercial requirements are paramount. Without following the methods adopted abroad, where horse-breeding is under Government control and largely subsidised by grants of public money, it would be an advantage if the needs of the country, apart from Sport, were more closely studied. What takes place in several foreign countries is that the conduct of breeding operations is managed by the State, the object being to ensure a plentiful supply of horses for military purposes. The Army agents do not buy the larger animals, selecting those from 15 hands to 15 hands 2 inches high, while the bigger specimens are kept by the farmers until the dealers pay them a visit, and these fine handsome animals find their way in large numbers to the United Kingdom, where they are purchased at high prices for carriage work.

What Remains to be Done.

If a remunerative market could be secured for the smaller horses bred at home, similar results would be produced here. At the time of writing (1901) it is too early to say what may be the effect of the lessons learned during the great war in South Africa, and there is consequently some uncertainty as to the future requirements of the Army. Up to the time of Lord Roberts’s departure from South Africa in November, 1900, over 200,000 horses had been employed on the British side in the war, and very large additional numbers have since been used. The fact that the Boers were all mounted has necessitated this, but cavalry charges have been few, the mountainous character of the country preventing this kind of warfare. The horses found to be best adapted for the work in South Africa seem to have been comparatively small animals, thousands of cobs having been sent out from Europe and America. The modern rifle and smokeless powder have caused great changes of tactics in this war, and these at least will be permanent influences that must be provided for. To what extent the other experiences of the Boer war may influence the type of the military horse of the future remains uncertain, but there can be no doubt that a larger number of animals will be needed for the British Army, and if a remunerative price were paid, many of those required for the home establishment, at any rate, could be produced in this country, especially if they were bought at an earlier age. Such an immense demand as has arisen for horses during the South African campaign could not have been met at home; the world has been scoured for horses and mules, and, if many have been found not equal to the requirements, the average price has not been very high, and there has not hitherto been serious dislocation of business at home or an appreciable enhancement of values. None the less, however, it will be found that the horse stock of several countries has been to some extent shortened, and there should therefore be a fresh impetus given to the breeding of good specimens.

Lessons of the War.

Writing in the seventies on the condition of the horse supply at that time, Mr. S. Sidney pointed out that never had there been a period in the history of this country since books were written when there was not a cry, a lamentation, over the decline and proximate fall of the British horse. De Blundeville in the time of Queen Elizabeth; the Duke of Newcastle in the time of Charles II.; De Berenger in the early years of George III.; and since De Berenger, a host of publications have been devoted to essays on the same text. There is nothing extraordinary in this. The oldest man living cannot name the date when the Church was not in danger, when the two services were not going to the deuce, when the whole agricultural interest was not on the brink of total ruin, when all domestic servants and all young people of every class were not inferior to their predecessors at some remote unnamed period. We cannot be expected to take a more cheerful view of our position than the contemporaries of Homer, who inform us that Ajax threw a rock which not two men of our degenerate days could lift.

In the session of 1873 the Earl of Rosebery made himself the organ of the numerous parties who despaired of the future of the British horse, and obtained a Committee—from which much benefit was expected—which sat twelve days and examined thirty-nine witnesses. The Committee did not venture, except incidentally and by an aside, to investigate the condition of the British turf; perhaps wisely, because no evidence and no report of any committee would or could have exercised any influence over the proceedings of the master of the situation, the bookmaker.

Lord Rosebery’s Committee.

The Committee collected facts and figures never before brought together by authority, and recorded very contradictory theories.

It is true that every dealer examined complained in almost acrid tones of the persistent avidity with which that (in every country) detestable person, the foreigner, bought up the best English mares; just as the French, Belgian, and Dutch farmers complained of the 1,900 cart-horses we imported in 1862, swelled to 12,000 in 1872.

The cause of the temporary decline in the numbers of English and Irish horses was explained in the clearest manner in the evidence of some of the horse-dealer witnesses. Englishmen are very fond of horses, so are Irishmen, and Scotsmen too, although they are less given to field sports; but they are all more fond of profit. It takes four years to bring a half-bred hunter or carriage-horse to market after putting the mare to the horse, and to restore the diminution of numbers produced by a long series of unprofitable sales was simply a question of time.

Lord Rosebery’s Committee did good service by supplying facts and figures, thus helping to dissipate an unreasonable scare, and to put an end at once and for ever to the absurd idea of encouraging horse-breeding by forbidding exportation, and thus depriving our native breeders of their customers amongst the agents of foreign powers.

The returns of the number of horses charged to duty in Great Britain for every year from 1831 to 1872, published in the Appendix to Lord Rosebery’s Committee’s report, proved that "the popular notion that there has been a steady decline in the number of our horses in the course of the last century is entirely without foundation, although from time to time a temporary diminution of breeding and an increase of exportation have taken place. Thus, the returns of horses liable to duty show that, between 1831 and 1841, when breeders thought that railroads were going to make horses a drug, there was a decline from 459,000 to 415,000, or 44,000 horses. In 1854 this class of horses had increased to 475,000, in 1864 to 615,000, in 1872 to 860,000, or double the number paying duty in 1841.

It was certainly shown that horse-breeding fell off sensibly, or, rather, did not increase in proportion to the increase of the population between 1855 and 1868; that in 1870 came the Franco-German war, creating an unusually large exportation, and intensifying the home demand.

There were two causes which combined for a short time to check the business of horse-breeding. In the first place, before the country was netted with railways, horses were bred on large tracts of land which are now occupied as stock farms; they consumed grass of little value at that time, and then carried themselves to market on their four legs. Secondly, for a long period, there was an average loss of twenty pounds on every nag-horse bred on land fit to carry cattle or sheep.

Mr. Edmund Tattersall, the head of the greatest horse auction mart in the world, produced before the Earl of Rosebery’s Committee a statement of the average price of the horses, leaving out thoroughbreds, sold in every year from 1863 to 1872. This statement was prepared by taking one day in every month in 1863 and the consecutive years, dividing the numbers sold on each day into two classes, one containing all the hunters and high-class horses, the other the miscellaneous lots, beginning at No. 1 in the catalogues. The price of each horse in each of the two classes being added together, and divided by the number of horses sold, an average was arrived at for every year.

The result showed that the average price of hunters and first-class horses, in 1863, was £40 19s., and of the second-class lots £121 11s. By gradual advances in 1867, the first-class had advanced to an average of £57 5s., and the second-class to £24 9s.; in 1870, first-class to £80 14s., second-class to £29 19s.; in 1872, the last year in which Mr. Tattersall struck an average, it was £90 for the first-class and £36 10s. for the second-class.

This evidence was confirmed by another witness—William Shaw. He handed to the Committee a book in which he had entered every fee that he had earned in his trade for every year since 1835.

This witness traced the variations in the trade of horse-breeding very clearly. He began to lead a stallion in 1836. At that time "the demand was for a big coach-horse got out of a Cleveland mare, and good colts at four years old would sell for £120 apiece; but the fashion of blood-horses came up, and we could not make £50 of them; that knocked on the head the Cleveland breed *; all the good mares were sold to foreigners. Then the railroads came up, and at every farmhouse the farmer used to say when I came round, ‘We have nothing at all for you this time; the railways will stop all trade’; and I only got one instead of five or six mares. Afterwards (1854), the Russian war came and helped us a bit, for the Government bought all our horses; but soon afterwards the trade went down, and we were selling for £15 horses that ought to have brought (to pay) £50 or £60."

The same witness said, in answer to a question from the Duke of Cambridge, Mares (brood) are not as good as they used to be, but I think if we continue as we have been going on we shall get them as good as ever. Not the old fashion (Cleveland bays); that fashion will not come up again, but a good class of hunting mares that have knocked off work.

The general conclusion of Lord Rosebery’s Committee’s report was that as nothing real could be done, it was better to do nothing, relying only on the certain laws of supply and demand of the nation. The question of the quality of stallions they did not touch. Ninety per cent. of the stallions used for getting half-bred horses of a high class are thoroughbred. These are supplied by the turf. To have entered into an inquiry on the effect of the modern racing system would have not only embarrassed the Committee much, but been useless.

To interfere with the turf, it was felt, would be hopeless. As Cromwell said to the lawyers, The sons of Zeruiah were too much for him, so the turf combinations of autocrats and democrats, backers of horses and bookmakers, can defy attempts at legislative reform which could mean nothing if they did not mean destruction.

The first question to be answered is whether Lord Rosebery’s Committee was right or wrong in reporting that high prices would stimulate horse-breeding.

Statistics show that the Committee were right.

It appears from the returns of tax-paying horses in 1873, that there was an increase in licensed horses and unbroken horses and mares of 24,000 over 1872, and 50,000 more than in 1870.

In 1874, the duty on this class of horse having been repealed, there was no return of their numbers, but the increase of unbroken horses and mares over 1873 was nearly 5,000; 1876 showed a further increase of 17,000, and the horse stock for 1877 was estimated at fully three and a half millions, with a steady increase, stimulated by a steady demand at double the prices of 1866. It must be noted that the increase of half a million in horses bred and imported did not materially diminish prices.

Lord Rosebery’s Committee.

Looking back from the position in which we now find ourselves, after a lapse of some thirty years, it may be remarked that the Rosebery Committee resulted in no direct action, but it was not therefore abortive. The information which it collected and the publicity which it gave to the subject exercised an educative influence which was stimulated by a