Some Tips on Coach Driving - The Carriage-Horse

William Onslow

Description

This is a vintage guide to driving a horse-drawn coach, with information on carriage horses and their care and maintenance. It offers the reader interesting historical information coupled with illustrations and pictures, as well as practical instructions and tips related to coach-driving. Containing everything a coach-driver would need to know, “Some Tips on Coach-Driving the Carriage-Horse” is highly recommended for modern readers with a practical or educational interest in the subject. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on horses used for sports and utility.

Sujets

• Pets
• Horses
• Sport équestre
• Sports équestres
• Sports équestres
• Sports équestres

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 14 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781446549612
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SOME TIPS ON COACH-DRIVING
THE CARRIAGE-HORSE
BY
WILLIAM ONSLOW
Contents
THE CARRIAGE-HORSE.
THE CARRIAGE-HORSE.

W ITH regard to horses, as to most other things, tastes differ greatly. Many men have fancies of their own as to colour, shape, size, and so forth; but our book would be incomplete if we did not include a chapter on the carriage-horse, in the hope that it may be found useful to a certain class of readers; as, for instance, to those who may be meditating the establishment, for the first time, of a stable of their own. The difficulties and chicaneries of horse-dealing are notorious, but apart from this it is well that men should possess some knowledge of the animals that they own. The inexperienced buyer will desire to know what the horse which he proposes to purchase should look like; secondly, what price ought to be paid for it, and, lastly, how he should treat it, and what work he may expect it to do.
Many of the points and qualifications of a hunter are equally desirable in the carriage-horse; but, inasmuch as the latter is not called upon to take any weight upon his back, it obviously is not necessary that his bones should be as big and as strong as an animal which is expected to carry fourteen or fifteen stone across country. Many a horse with straight shoulders and weak points which would lead to its rejection as a hunter might prove a serviceable, and even pass as a good-looking, harness horse. The value of a carriage-horse, therefore, is considerably less than that of a hunter. Perfection is scarcely attainable, and any approach to it is, of course, enormously expensive; as a general rule, it may be said that the purchaser should seek rather for a horse with as few bad points as possible than for one with a great number of good points. Everything about a horse should be in proportion; for instance, an animal with a big frame on light legs is likely soon to wear out the means which nature has given him to carry himself. The head should be small, broad across the forehead, and well-cut, the nose not projecting or Roman. The eyes should be prominent, so as to give a wide range of sight, and should not show too much of the white, which is supposed to denote a tendency to vice; the neck should be light, not too long, and the head so set on that the horse can carry it slightly bent, but neither pointing his nose straight out in front of him nor up in the air. The shoulder is of less importance for a harness than for a riding horse, but both bones should be placed at their proper angle, and the point of the shoulder should be nearly in a line with the point of the toe. The chest should be both deep and broad, giving full room for the vital parts of the animal. The upper bone of the leg should be large and thick, and longer in proportion than the lower bone; muscular development should also be sought. The lower bone of the leg should be perfectly straight between the knee and the fetlock. The feet should be neither large nor small for the size of the animal; the fore hoofs should form an angle of about fifty degrees with the ground, the hind feet being slightly more upright. If the feet are too straight it may be found that they are contracted. The back should be straight and short, the loins large and muscular, the quarters long and well let down, not short, round, and drooping; the hock clean, well defined, and so placed as to come into the direct line through which the weight of the quarter is thrown. The hocks should be quite straight, neither turning outwards nor towards each other; the hind legs below the hock as straight as the fore-leg. The middle of the side of the fore-arm should be in a line with the back of the heel; and it should be possible to draw a line from the middle of the front of the forearm down the middle of the knee to the middle of the hoof.
Very few gentlemen now drive a cabriolet, and of those who do fewer still have a really perfect cab horse, an animal which was once eagerly sought for. In shape he was supposed to be nearly faultless, to stand not less than sixteen hands high, and to have action which could hardly be too extravagant. It was a purely ornamental possession, usefulness being left out of the question. A man who desired such a luxury did not care much what price he paid. It is the most expensive of single-harness horses.
The chariot-horse often stands sixteen and a half or seventeen hands high, and for colour bay or brown is usually preferred. The purchaser may expect to be told that they have been bred in Yorkshire, but a great number of them come from abroad. The London dealers obtain many of them from Mecklenburg, North Germany, Antwerp and its neighbourhood. These horses have much improved during the last few years, and it is now difficult to tell them from home-bred ones. Information as to them is very difficult to obtain; for it is, of course, to the dealers interests to keep their history as dark as possible-but they do not possess the stamina that distinguishes the English-bred horse.
A dealer would expect to realise from two hundred to three hundred guineas each for a pair of such horses. They may perhaps come out a few times in the season, and owing to their size, the necessity of their being of good shape and having high action, realise as high a price a