NOW THEY GO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 252, 23 October 1936, Page 7

NOW THEY GO.

AUCKLAND'S HORSES. PRIDE OF CITY STREETS. REPLACED BY MOTOR TRUCKS Life moves on. At a meeting yesterday the directors of the Northern Roller Milling Company decided to replace the twelve remaining horses of their team with nine new motor trucks. The transition will be completed by the end of the month —and then Chief and Bruce, Paddy and Prince, Noble and Nugget, Jack," Punch, Rowdy, Darkie, Jiminie and Barney will leave the city streets for ever. Their going marks the approaching end of a phase that began with the making of the first horseless buggy. Speed was wanted, and the horse, dependable and economical, could not give it, so one by one they disappeared. Sentiment held to them, but in the march of progress came concrete roads. The horses could not get a grip on the hills, and so again the field was. limited to the flat part of the city about the wharves and the railway station. And now lias come the 40-hour week —and for them the end. They wanted and needed work, and in the long week-end in the stables in the city the unnatural rest developed leg complaints. BacX to the Start. So they must go —back, perhaps, to the farms where they first saw the sun, and felt the grass of the fields about them. Their hooves, used so long to the hard roads of the' city, may feel again the softness of the earth, and they may puil the ploughs that turn the oarth. So they will fulfil the destiny that brought them to the world—as the companion and the help of man. No poetic Arab master has guided them on sweeping journeys over the sands, or will recite to them in the going, "My beautiful, my beautiful, that stands so meekly by, with proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye. . . But the pride is there, and the beauty; their poetry has been the poetry of commerce, the poetry of wheels and engines, of straining thews and sweat-besprinkled thighs. Daily through the years of their service they have worked the hours of men; eight and a half hours until just recently, pulling weights of five tons and more about the city, and willing and ready to take more if it could have been piled on the wagons they led. Horses of grand ancestry and tradition, they have shown their pride in the work they have done. During those years of work they have felt the field grass under them only when, each year, they were spelled for a while in the country, and their rest at night was taken in a stable in the heart of the city. Show Ring Triumphs. Grandest among the horseflesh of the Dominion, they have known the thrill of triumph when, with coats sparkling and with beribboned manes and tails, they have led parades thi-ougli city streets on Labour Days—and in the show ring at the agricultural show have carried the championship ribbons that marked them first or their class. The walls of their stables carry hundreds of red and blue tickets, marked first prize, second prize, third prize. But perhaps their greatest moments were when passing visitors bought them apples and sweets in admiration of their strength and beauty. This morning a reporter stood beside Mr. Tom Mann, who for 20 years has been a driver at the stable, and for the past seven stable-foreman. He looke.d at a photograph of one of them. It was on the wall of the stable beside another photograph—that of Phar Lap. It was remarked upon, and tne pride of these horses was in his reply: "Why not? They are of the same class; both champions." That was a photograph of Mick, once the pride of the stable and of Auckland. Year by year, driven by that grand old horseman, Mr. Tommy Green, who for 50 years was stable-foreman, Mick led the Labour Day procession with the pride of the working horse.\ No racehorse had a finer arched neck, a glossier mane, or a greater power in his restrained action; and no aristocrat of the stables had a more admiring gallery or a wider circle of friends. Mick won his last championship in 1917, but he worked for 19 years and died in harness, as did his old friend Mr. 'Green a few years ago. Years of Service. This morning Chief and Bruce, 18 hands high of beautiful horse flesh, stood waiting while their driver, Mr. Mann, told of the ways of horses, and of their passing. Once, he said, there were 20 horses in the stable of the Northern Roller Milling Company, and Mr. Green travelled New Zealand in the selection of them. Exceptional horses, he said, would give anything from 12 to 15 years of heavy service in the city, and then be ready for more in the country. The average city life now, however, was eight years. A lot, he said, depended on whether the horse was properly set in bone and body before he was put to work in the city. At four years old they were in perfect condition, but if they were put into harness on the streets at three or earlier their life might be shortened 300 per cent. Chief has ljeen a number of years on the road, and he is still the pride of the stable. He has won two championships, including the Royal Show award, and six first prizes. Jimmy, who, after winning three prizes at three years old, was spelled for a year and has now done 13 years of hard work. And he is still good for another ten years of farm work. For a week more at' the most these grand horses .will "pull their weight." and then, under the dispersing hammer of the auctioneer they will go their ways down the country roads to the twilight of peace and old age. They have done their major work, and it is fitting that the country, which gave them birth, should claim them in the end. The smell of burnt petrol has been about them too long, and too long have their shoes slipped on the grease-stained roads. The fields of the country will give them a calmer home. It is the city's loss.