Shire Horses and the Breeding of Hunters.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 196, 26 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Shire Horses and the Breeding of Hunters.

In view of the probability that before long New Zealand horse-breeders will recognise the advisability of engaging in the systematic breeding of horses for Indian Military remounts, the following extract from a very interesting article in the Sporting Life will be useful, and afford a welcome hint to ownera of breeding studs of Shire horses in this colony : - It may be thought that the immense impetue given to cart-horse breeding during late years will prove detrimental to the hunter-breeding statistics of the ■country, but with this I totally disagree, and consider that a big future is before the breeders of all classes, to be tiaced back in years to come, perhaps, to this very Shire horse movement. The mettle and pluck of the true English cart-horse must bo vcy apparent to anyone who has ever had anylining to do with them. There is nothing dull about them ; and to watch an experienced carter or ploughman managing a pair of young ones is suggestive thufc they require a good deal of skill and care in handling. It is supposed by some that this sort of light-heartedness is only associated with thorough-breds ; bub this a mistake, as high-bred cart-horses have it in the same proportion, and these are the ones that will do no harm to our thorough-bred Btock by infusing soft spots. I should be afraid of the Suffolk blood, as every half bred that I have ever seen built at all like a Suffolk has been soft It is notorious that all produce from the French heavy breeds are very soft for any sorb of fast or tiring work/ and for this reason I should Busp6ctall foreign breeds of having a tendency to softness, considering their weight ; also the Shire - bred horses move forward from the shoulders in an easier style, i.e., with less rcll than the Clydeidale or the Suffolk. It is tho roll or labour from the shoulder that tires, and if you get rid of that you get the big animal fit for fast work. I have known heavy-looking cart-horses to bo immensely deceiving excepting when judged from the shoulders. I saw one in a waggon once by tbt «jid« of ft rick, And he was to drrfw two

tons of hay to the nearest seaport, about four miles off. A whipper-in was present, during the operation of cutting the hay, and the chaff between this functionary and the carter turned upon jumping, the upshot of it being that a wager of a gallon of beer was laid that the carter would not ride his horse over a six- barred new gate bare-back. This waa no sooner ratified than the horse was taken out of the waggon, stripped of his harness, and with only a halter he was taken back a couple of hundred yards, put into a gallop, and ho flew certainly the biggest gate I have ever seen jumped without » touch. Standing still, this horse looked like a Shire-bred, bub stretched out he galloped like a hunter. I have seen some very heavy ones run in steeplechases in the West ot England, and although not quite cart-horses, it was very plain that they were not more than half way removed from Shire bred ones. Such first crosses would naturally be alow ; the steeple-chase performers I am alluding to were nob gifted with much pace, but they would pound along, jump banks with the greatest i safety, and, so long as they were not pressed too much, would stay for ever. There must have been a deal of intricate goodness on both sides to have made such carty-looking ones perform as I have seen them, and my impression U that it was the cross of the thorough-bred horse on the cart-mare, who was by chance of the true Slnre-bred, free from the influence of any soft infusion. Now if the Shire horse movement will in a few years give us hardly anything else for our agricultural and heavy work but these highly-bred carthorses, it is obvious that the mares will be exactly the sorb of cross with the thoroughbred, and maybe a generation nearer the blood one will be the Leicestershire hunter of the future. At any rate, what could be better for our 'bus work, artillery-remounts, and for heavy service generally, than an animal with the bulk of a cart-horse fit to draw two tons, and with activity enough to jump a six-barred gate ? The few that 1 have seen of this sort are certainly exceptional, but my idea is that the care now taken to confine the Shire-bred one to his real English origin will make them very plentiful.