Amador ledger., 1903-05-22
THE CAR SICK HORSE
NOW A RAILROAD JOURNEY AFFECT
ED A HIGH BRED HACKNEY.

Bonhre's Trip to the Horse show and
why 1t Ended So Disastrously-Ter-
rifyfng Ride In q wheeled Box
After n Hothouse Training.
The story Of what happened to q
high bred hackney when he was sent
by rail to the Madison Square Garden
horse show is told by Sewell Ford In
'Horses Nine" Bonfire was the hack
ney's name, but he did not look at all
fiery at the moment. The author says
of him:
In his stomach was queer feeling
which he did not at all understand. In
his head was a dizziness which made
him wish that the stall would not
move about so. Streaks of pain shot
along his backbone and slid down his
legs. dot and cold flashes swept over
his body, for Bonfire had a bad case
Of car sickness-a malady differing
from seasickness largely in name only
also a well developed cold compli-
Gated by nervous indigestion.
Tuned to the key, he had left the
home stables. Then they had led him
into that box on wheels, and the trou-
BILE had begun. Men shouted; bells
changed; whistles shrieked. Bonfire
felt the box start with a jerk and,
humping, rumbling, jolting, swaying.
move somewhere of into the night.
In an agony of apprehension-neck
stretched, eyes staring, ears pointed,
nostrils Quivering, legs stiffened-Bon-
fire waited for the end. But of end
there seemed to be none. Shock after
shock Bonfire withstood and still found
himself waiting. What it all meant he
could not guess. There were the other
horses that had been taken with him
into the box, some placidly munching
hay, others looking curiously about.
There were the familiar grooms who
talked soothingly in his ear and patted
his neck In vain. The terror of the
thing, this being whirled noisily away
In box, had struck deep into Bonfire's
brain, and he could not get 1t out. So
he stood for many hours, neither eat
Ing nor sleeping, listening to the
noises, feeling the motion and trem-
bling as one with ague.
OF course it was absurd for Bonfire
to go to pieces in that fashion. You
can ship Missouri Modoc around the
world. and he will finish almost as
sound as he started. But Bonfire had
blood and breeding and a pedigree
which went back to Lady Alice of Burn
Brae. Yorkshire.
His coltdom had been a sort of hot
house existence, for Lochlynne, you
know, is the toy of a Pennsylvania coal
baron who breeds hackneys not for
profit, but for the joy there is in 1t,
Just as other men grow orchids and
build cup defenders. At the Lochlynne
stables they turn on the steam heat in
November. On rainy days you are ex-
ercised in a glass rooted tan bark ring,
and hour after hour you are handled
over deep straw to improve your ac-
ton. You breathe outdoor air only in
high fenced grass paddocks, around
which you are driven in surcingle rig
by a cockney groom imported with the
pigskin saddles and British condition
powders. From the day your name is
written in the studbook until you
leave you have balanced feed, all wool
blankets, fly nettings and coddling that
never ceases. Yet this is the method
that rounds you into perfect hackney
form.
All this had been done for Bonfire
and with apparent success, but few
hours of railroad travel had left him
with set of nerves as tensely strung
as those of high school girl on grad
uation day. That is why a draft of
cold air had chilled him to the bone;
that is why, after reaching the Gar
at ball.