AUSTRALIAN HORSES.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9289, 14 December 1895, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN HORSES.

Nat Gould in the Illustrated Sporting and .. Dramatic News. j't Australian horses, thoroughbreds and otherwise, are generally sound, und have excellent legs which stand an enormous amount of work on hard ground. Ninety per cent of the racehorses run without shoes or plates on, and this on going an English trainer would be afraid to gallop his horses on. If the pedigree of any good horseracehorse—in the colonies is traced back, i will be found to contain several of the best strains of thoroughbred English blood. Climate, has, however, much ro do with modifying horses, and even imported horses seem to change when they have bean in the colonies some years. There is a difference in . the appearance of Australian and English " racehorses, the system of training, no doubt, having much to do with it. As to the,, respective merits of English anil Colonial' racehorses it is a difficult matter to decide. I think India would be the best place for a trial test, as it is the "halfway house" bey* tween the two countries. Such horses a* Myall King and H/ighborn have held their own against all comers in India in the Viceroy s Cup, the former winning it thres times, and the latter twice. Myalf King'- was certainly not a first-class horse in Australia, and although on his be_t form Highborn could be placed in " the first class, he was not at the top of the tree in this class. The proportion of good racehorses to bad is. higher I think in Australia than in England, and their staying powers are more than equal to those of the " home " racers. Five-and-twenty to thirty horses do not often start for a mile and a half or two-mile race in England, and yet I have seen several such fields over these distances in Australia. Racehorses are kept in training all the year round ; and Marvel, for instance, must have been in constant training for between two and three years without a spell. A horse has to stand a terrible lot of hard work to win a Melbourne or Sydney Cup, both run over two miles. The variableness of the home climate has probably much to do with the frequent breakdown of horses from unsound legs. nwt-—■ It would surprise a stranger from the Ottr" Country, well versed in the management of ■ horses, to see how some of the up-country horses are ridden and driven in Australia. Most of the station horses are wondertul animals, and how they stand the work is a mystery, as they are generally grass-fed. At Winbar Station; Louth, near Bounce, in the Western district of New South Wales, they have some hardy horses, typical station nags. Winbaris one of the large.st stations in the colony. It comprises an area o: square miles, or, in other words, 582,WW acres. Mr E. Arnoll, one of the managers, is a friend of mine, and he is an enthusiastic . > lover of horses. During the shearing season. . at Winbar the mustering horses—that »»\ the horses used by. the men who muster the sheep, 130,000 of which were shorn mi the 1894 shearing—are changed fortnightly, so ' that for two weeks at a stretch they have to carry seldom less tiian twelve stone day after day a distance of from forty to fifty miles, over stony. - country and broken ground, frequently stumbling into rabbit-burrows ; and theystand this sort of work year after year. On Winbar Station they have horses eighteen and nineteen years old, as clean on the as ever they were, and as sure-footed as '& anyone could wish. I need hardly say ™ e, P' r is good blood in their veins ; most of them. are the progeny of Coxcomb, who was by y,; Yattehdon oat of Vanity. Some of horses have carried a thirteen-stone man m from Winbar to Burke, a distance of n"_ 9bv " miles, in a day of twelve hours. Ihese ._. horses have wonderful staying powers; and although some of them are not much to loy *?' at, they are very deceptive when taokleq,. Btigey horses are driven at a rate *»**-,. would astonish anyone accustomed to the rapid mode of going universally adopted. dozen miles at a fair gallop is a mere and the return journey is generally accom**-. plished in double quick lime; for endurance ,- and speed it would be a hard matter to beat these bush-bred horses. Cobs., hacks, and, carriage horses for town driving'aro betterthan they were ten years ago, but there i» room for improvement still. There is no*:, the style about them seen in English-brAd, horses of.this cla-ts. Some excellent horses:.are bred for the Indian market, and most ot - them have good blood either on their sires , or dam's side, or-on both. Tha majority M*/ breeders have discovered that 11 dash of the : thoroughbred is a decided improvement in the horses used for army mounts and general Indian work.