Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1898-03-17
CARRIAGE HORSE.
An Expert Who Considers the French
Coach Horse the Best.

An Expert Who Considers the French
Coach Horse the Best.
In his address before the Ohio Draft
Horse and Coach Horse Breeders asso-
citation Mr.. J. B. Mclaughlin said:
A finely proportional horse in the
neighborhood of 16 hands in height,
1850 pounds weight, with a long neck,
sloping shoulders, straight back, round
ribbed, close coupling and long quar-
tiers, horse that standing still has a
magnificent appearance and when in &C
ton electrifes the beholders, one whose
action is high, but is of the feet, not OF
the body-his proportions must of neces-
sity be symmetrical; he is the sort that
makes people stop in the street to adj
mire; he is the horse that brings the
highest price in the market, the one
that buyers in this country are search
ing the hardest for and for which the
exporters are paying the most.
In my opinion the best is the French
coach horse. He has the size, the color,
the action and the quality to produce
from our native mares the best results,
and will attempt to tell you in few
words upon what base my belief.
In art, in the style of dress, in equi-
pages and horses the French lead the
world. In order to meet the demands OF
its people for horses, carriage horses es-
pecially, the French government has
taken an interest in their breeding that
has never been equaled by any other
nation.
In 1888, during the reign of Louis
Philippe, they established studbook
for coachers, and ever since that time
they have taken an interest in the i'm
provement of this class of horses. They
have established school for the educa-
ton of young men in horse breeding,
and these are the men who have charge
of the buying and choosing horses for
the government. Thus we can see how,
educated in the same school, they al
ways seek for the same form and the
same quality in the horse, and have thus
produced a breed whose qualities are
more certain and whose type is more
fixed than that of any other breed of
coach horses.
The French coacher has been brought
to his high state of perfection and pre-
potency by crossing the native mares of
Merlerault with thoroughbreds and
Arabs. In France there are only three
sorts of horses that are permitted to
stand for public service-frst. those
that belong to the government; second,
those that are approved and receive a
subsidy of from 800 to 1900 francs a
year; third, those that are simply ap-
proved. Thus we see that no horse is
permitted to stand for service in France
unless he is examined and approved by
the government.
These horses vary in height from 155l
to 1871 hands, in weight from / 400 to
1,400 pounds. Their usual color is bay
and brown, although there are some
chestnuts and blacks as well. The
French government annually purchases
about 200 of these coach stations and
stands most of them in the northwestern
corner of France, in Calvados, all of LIE
Manche and part of Orne. The main
stations are at st. Lo and Lepin. From
each IF these stations early in the win
ter the government scatters these horses
in districts few miles apart all over
that section of France.
These horses since about Is years ago
have been imported into this country
very sparingly. In the neighborhood of
1000 stations in all have been brought
to this country. When crossed with our
native mares that possess little trot-
ting or thoroughbred blood, they have
produced excellent results.
The greatest error that has been COM
mitted by our American horse breeders
is that they do not stick to one type of
horse. They will breed the same mare
to draft horse one year, the next year
to trotting horse, and the next year to
a coach horse, and thisRroduce has been
bred as indiseriminately as the mares
that produced it.
Now we cannot expect in one year to
offset the bad results of so years of in
discriminate and bad breeding, but
where the purchasers of French coach
stations have used good Judgment and
have bred reasonably good mares to
their horses they have had the best of
results The progeny of French coach
ers have uniformly brought the highest
prices in the markets of the large cities
of this country.
A short time ago Mr. Bryant of Iowa
shipped to New York a carload about
one-half of which were half blood
French coachers. One pair brought
$4,000, another $1,000, and, if l re-
member correctly, the average price of
his coachers not in pairs but singly was
about $780,