The morning call., 1892-08-14

| recognized as the standard color. Differ
| ence IN color in horses, as in people, seems
| to indicate temperamental differences. The
chestnut is usually nervous and high strung,
| Oh me noer and spirit, an equine aristOcrat
| nearly always. A leading veterinary gives
| 1t as his experience that chestnuts do not
| possess the fortitude under operations that
| pays, blaekS or grays exhibit. ChestnGts,
/ ne says, VIII jump and even scream under
the knife. where bay would scarcely moan.
lie advances no theory TO explain the cir
cumstanee, but 1t Is probably attributable
TO the more acute nervous organism of the
chestnut
Many hOrsemen object on general princi-
pies to black horses. owing to the idea pre-
Vslent IN some quarters that this color indi-
Gates common blood, and descent, however
remote, from the Norman draught animals
1t would seem as though more legitimate
reason would be the black horses usual
lack OF beauty, the magnificent coal-black
charger OF the poets and noveliSts seldom
appearing in real life. .
Ihe white and common gray horses must
De excellent individuals to find many ad-
mirerS. They have common appearance.
as rule, even when we'll bred, aud for
driving are q nuisance at the season of
shedding-of, keeping their drivers and
tnose who ride behind them covered with
their long, white hairs They are more
over, very difficult to keep clean, and look
very badly when neglected. The s0rrel,
a variation OF the chestnut has few friends.
lie Is unhandsome. said to possess less en-
durance than any Of the others. and is apt
to be uncertain and iTascble in disposition.
Ihe color is not particularly common, and
certainly not popular.
As regards markings black points" (mane
tail and legs below the knees and hacks)
are considered the most desirable. 1t is con-
TENDED DY some writer's that W hite markings
are bad indication. arousiDg in the mind
OF the thorough horSeman suspicion OF
common blood, and that white feet are a
particularly unfavOrable indication in a
racer. All our best horses, one writer goes
so lar as to claim, are distinguished by hav-
ing no white markings and the tendency of
nigh breeding Is to eradicate such. All this
may be quite true, but it is not wholly the
experience OF observers on this coast.
Elrctloneer's hind white feet were white.
Palo Alto had white foot, Amazon has one
white ankle, so has Electricity, and Adver-
tlSer, the most royalty bred horse ln the
State, has white hind feet and ankles.
Salvador, that great king Of the turf, is most
unhappliy marked, according to Jockeys,
with four white feet and ankles the objec-
tionable color reaching half way to the knees
and hooks. He has, moreover, a white
stripe. Flood. the great racing sire has one
fore foot and both hind legs of the despised
color. Sable Wilkes has white hind foot,
and in fact the list of our great record
breakers who are minus such markings
would show very poorly beside that OF the
bearers of blaze. star and stripe, or who
tIdN6l upon WDlle IeeJ ana ankles,
What was the original color of the horse?
Is question We sometimes see asked. 1t Is
hard to say. There is no way of knowing
what color eohippuS was as he skipped
about the rocks In the early eocene. OF the
five other notifications of the horse type at
present existing, some are found wholly in
wild state, and are distinguished by no
such variety in color as is the horse, who
has become what he is largely through the
intervention of man. The wild ass of
AbySSinia, the progenitor of the domestic
ass, is pure gray in color, with dark stripe
on the shoulders and along the spine to the
tail The Asiatc ass is more of a reddish
color with smaller ears. and minus the shoul-
der stripes, but having the dark d0rsal
stripe. The Quagga, a South African ami
NAL. closely related TO the true ass. has dark
stripes on brown ground. the stripes be-
ing confined to head. neck and shoulders,
while the dauw or BurchelPs zebra is white
with dark stripes covering the body and
upper parts of the legs. The mountain or
true zebra Is pure white with black
stripes extending quite down to the hoofs
beautiful creature as to col0r but less
graceful in outline than any of the Others
Our modern horses are not marked in any
such regular way as this. The nearest ap-
proach to it are the dappes that appear on
the Group In some horses, light spots sur
rounded by darker rings, which are some
times very pretty in a dark gray or q bay:
but we do occasionally find horses showing
shS N"h otiC"n tuC VI lilo
back, from shoulder to tail, and even dark
stripes on shoulders and legs. | saw, N.Y.
self, some months ago, clay -coIored pony,
some 13 hands high, the offspring of an Or
binary American horse and bay half
mustang mare, marked with dark
median dorsal stripe, and clearly
defined streak across the shoulders, the
exact representative Of the ''eross" on the
Spanish donkey, which primitive believers
claim has distinguished the beast ever since
that early day when the strength of Simon
falling the cross of the founder OF Chris
| tanity was loaded upon the back of one of
| those patient brutes. The tendency of
| horses descended from the d0mesticated
animals, but running wild, Is to revert to
duns and buckskins, Iintos and other ex-
| centricities of culor. and in the mustang of
| the plains. now rapidly disappearing, the
stripes were frequently 10 be found, these
variations and reyersinns indicating, accord
ing TO Darwin, "ihe probability OF the de-
scent Of all the existing races from single
dun-colored, more or less striped primitive
stock, to which our horses still occasionally
revert"
The much-despised pinto" or 'caico"