Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-11-18
WHAT IS THE BEST HoRsEe

The recent horse show in New Yorl
has given rise to some discussion as tC
the merits OF hunters and trotters, ant
which will make the best all-aroun(
horse. The Nation, of November 18th
has leader upon the subject and il
comes to the conclusion that the hunter
is the better horse for all purposes. Ex.
cellent as is the Nation and high as is its
authority, we cannot concur in its decis-
ion. If the trotter has a special purpose
so has the hunter, and neither would
excel in the particular field OF the other.
The trotter is par excellence as an Amer
ican production, and one of which Amer
lea may be proud. The Nation makes the
following objection to the trotter:
The effect of the cultivation of the trotter
on the American working horse has been
very like what the effect of racing two-year-
olds would have been in England had it not
been neutralized by the demand for hunters.
Our pleasure carriages all over the country,
when we leave the light wagon, are horsed
by animals not up to their weight, either in
size or bone-an evil which is aggravated
by the heayiness of the roads. Un-
til a very recent period nearly every Ameri-
can horse, sold for light draught at mod
crate price, was simply horse which had
failed to develop trotting speed: and as
trotting speed was very often found in very
unpromising frames, and sometimes without
any pedigree, breeding for points was very
little attended to by the farmers who raise
most of our horses.
There is something in this, but this
condition of things existed to much
greater extent some years ago, in the
neighborhood of fifteen, than now. The
trotting horse to-day is bred on entirely
different principles from those in vogue
fifteen years ago. Then, and long prior
thereto, the one great object was to get
speed, and to attain this everything else
was sacrificed. Not so to-day. To-day
the trotter is bred for size, style, beauty
and speed. Everything is considered in
his breeding that it is desirable to have
in horse. Points with the trotter are as
much considered as points with the run
ner. For general horse there must be
size, but for general horse there may be
too great size as well as too little size. A
general horse will have multifarious du-
ties to perform, but he must not be ex-
pected to excel in any particular one.
Which viii make this general
horse best, the trotter or the
hunter? The most desirable weight
for general horse is about eleven
hundred and fifty pounds to twelve hun
dred; any weight in excess of this units
him for many purposes to which the gen.
eral horse will be put. The hunter very
rarely reaches this weight, for he is
mostly thoroughbred. AS a general rule,
the weight and size OF the trotter will ex-
ceed that of the hunter. Any horse to
have any worth must be sound in limb
and wind, and he must have staying
qualities, no matter for what purpose he
is bred nor for what purpose he is to be
used. These qualities are essential to
the draft horse as we'll as to the trotter or
A good saddle horse will rarely
be good buggy Or carriage horse, and
0ice versa, and yet the general horse will
have to do duty in all these places. For /,
buggy and carriage purposes the trotter
is superior to the hunter, while for sad I
lie purposes the superiority is On the side
of the hunter; for purely farm purposes,
,he two kinds are about equal. Says the 4
Nation:
The excellence of the hunter consists in {
lis ability to Jump. gallop, and stay,'' or,
n other words, in great power of limb and
sreat endurance and courage. To breed
rood hunters is to breed these qualities. and q
hey are the ones that make the best horse p
or harness as well as for the saddle.
Breeders of trotters breed for "great t.
'ower of limb and great endurance and C
ourage," as well as breeds of the hunter q
r race horse; and they get these quail tt
les. While first-class hunter will out III
tay trotter when it comes to a run Il
cross country, put your hunter in harness OF
nd to buggy alongside of a trotter SO e.
and the trotter will out-stav d
our hunter Your Percheron or Norman In
Ill out-stay either at the slow, heavy W
ork of the plow or dray, and merely La
ecause he is bred for that particular pur- 81
ose. A general horse is jack of all ~
AIDES and master of none. 1t does not tn
etract in the least from the merits of the tn
inter that he cannot pull buggy fifty III
lles with the same ease and in the same cl
ne as trotter will, nor does it detract ci'
om the merits of the trotter that he can m
1t keep alongside the hunter in a run WI
ter the fox or hare, nor take the iumps all
make the leaps which the hunter does de
th ease. m:
The general horse will always be an en-
erage horse, never a superior horse, th
Id II owners of horses desire great ex- U1
Hence in their animals. they must Gig
eed them specially for the purposes for ha
lich they want them, the draft horse
the dray; the heavy plow horse for the me
m; the hunter for the chase: the thor ser
ghbred for the run; the trotter for the ha
ggy; the carriage horse for the car alo
ge, and SO on. Wanting horse for a alo
rtlcular purpose, the horse that is bred ma
that purpose is the best, and no horse vat
4 be the best which is bred for all con
rposes. '