Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/393

Rh "Australian horses are credited with remarkable endurance. A ride of a hundred miles between sunrise and sundown is not a wonderful performance. There is a story of a man who rode a pony a hundred miles in a day, and then carried it a hundred yards; but it is proper to add that the pony died from his rough usage. One horse carried his rider, a Mr. Lord, two hundred and sixty-three miles in three days, and suffered no ill effects from doing so. The distances made were eighty-eight miles the first day, eighty-three the second, and ninety-two on the third. Mr. Lord weighed one hundred and ninety-nine pounds, so that the horse had no feather-weight to carry.

"We were called away to breakfast before the men had finished their work with the horses, as some were to be reserved for the use of the strangers. Mr. Watson had given orders that the best horses were to be turned over to us; not the best from the stockman's point of view, but those of the kindest disposition and least addicted to tricks. A horse without any bad tricks is not easy to find on an Australian station; if what we were told about their breaking is true, it is no wonder.