Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/62

54 expulsion of the Spaniards from the Northern Provinces, the supply of Arabian stallions was cut off, and, since that time, in the Perche district of Normandy, their progeny has, doubtless, been bred in and in; hence the remarkable uniformity of the breed, and the disposition to impart their form to their progeny beyond any breed of domestic animals within my knowledge. Another circumstance which, I think, has tended to perpetuate the good qualities of these horses, is the fact of their males being kept entire; a gelding is, I believe, unknown among the rural horses of France. You may be startled at this notion of mine, but, if you reflect a moment, you must perceive that in such a state of things—so contrary to our practice and that of the English—the farmer will always breed from the best horse, and he will have an opportunity of judging, because the horse has been broken to harness, and his qualities known, before he could command business as a stallion." There can be no possible question that the writer is correct in this view of the advantage, so far as breeding is concerned, of preserving all horses entire and ungelded; as it must naturally and necessarily follow, where a great majority of the males of any breed are gelded when young colts, and a few only are selected to some extent by chance to serve as stallions, that many of the very best, and perhaps actually the best, of every year, are deprived of the means of perpetuating their excellence. This, undoubtedly, is one of the causes of the constant preservation, if not improvement, of the race-horse; that, inasmuch as thorough-bred colts are never, unless from some peculiar cause, such as indomitable vice, deprived of their virility, the breeder has all the males of the race from which to select a stallion at his pleasure, instead of having only a small number from which to select. Yet even in the thorough-breds the breeder sometimes has cause to regret the caprice or