The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-07-29
HOW TO UNDERSTAND HORSES.

As the cloud mounts and the air
grows thick and lifeless, she stops
grazing, turns her nose to the wind,
snorts, then falls again to feeding, but
onlv for a minute. Her snort was a
sort of bugle call. The rest answer it.
some with low whinnies. She whinnies
back, filings up her head and starts
off in a trot, looking over her shout
der TO see II she is followed. The rest
come streaming after-she breaks into
a sweeping run Round, round, faster,
faster always faster, the herd follows.
It is a race for blood, where the best
horse always wins. Generally 1t is not
the leader. She may even be distanced
in the second round or the third, Some
times the pastures circuit is made
twenty times before stopping. The
best horse gains sometimes a whole
round upon his mates. It is he who
ends the heat. When he has had
enough he Stacks up, turns sidewise,
lifts head and tail and whinnies shrill
triumph. But the triumph never goes
to his head After it he is submissive
as ever, coming or going, jumping out
or staying meekly at home, quite as
the lead mare Ordains.
Until fOals are a week old, they are
not safe in the company of grown up
horses Barren mares especially Will
attack the little creatures, biting. kick
ing and trampling them to death.
That is not infallibly the case but
there is always chance of it, hence
horse breeders are careful TO keep
brood mares away from other stock.
1t is most unusual for brood mares to
harm colts. either their own or their
neighhOrS'. But cases have been known
of mares still with fOal attempting TO
steal colts dropped in their pasture.
In size hardly any other domestic
animal is so diverse as the. horse. The
average weight of a standard Perch
erOn is near 1000 pounds: a Shetland,
on the other hand, may weigh less than
200 But animals cross bred between
the diverse races are true horses. not
hybrids. such as result from the inter
breeding of Asiatic and South African
asses. Thoroughbred stock all traces
back to Arabia, Percherons to the
barbS left behind by the MOorS whom
Charlema gne overthrow in battle. Only
the PercherOn bulk could have carried
the weight of knights in armOr- But
it is demonstrable that, weight for
weight, the thoroughbred is stronger,
both in bone and muscle, than his big,
handsome feather-legged cOmpeer.
A thoroughbred has bone something
between ivory and flint for hard, COM
pactness. Percheron bone is soft and
spongy. The big beasts pull great
loads over smooth roads, but in mud
soon become weary. A blood cross,
otherwise a thoroughbred one, gives
staying power-endurance- any sort
of stock. and very often symmetry as
well. Pure blood is e-pOtent-that
is TO say. it impresses itself consist
emily upon offspring BY thoroughbred
blood one means always running
blood. Trotters are in a class apart.
They have been developed by judi
ciOus admixture of running blood. with
common road stock, and fixed and per
petuated by careful breeding for
trOtting conformation from trotting
stock. with still more crosses of run
ming blood.
Phe young horse, kind and prankish,
is the very best playfellOw in the
world. AT least one solitary child
found it so. The child was a sad tom
boy. Her black nanny said indeed
she wouldn't nebber git mar ied-neb-
Der in dis WoFH-Widout she Took
STOPPED de boy-walk an boy-ways she
had" But the tom boy did not very
greatly mind anything so long as she