A NOBLE STUD!

North Otago Times, Volume VI, Issue 119, 31 May 1866, Page 3

A NOBLE STUD!

The Paris correspondent of the London "Daily j Telegraph," suffering, as he says, from a lack of political news, directs his attention to the stables of the Emperor of the French, nnd gives the following excellent description of this magnificent establishment : — The Imperial stables contain 350 horses and employ 280 regular men, besides helpers and the numerous blacksmiths employed at the forges attached to the stables. "When in Paris this vast stud — the larger portion, I should say, for it is never all here — is partly quartered at the stables built by the present Emperor in a new division of the Louvre, and partly at the Alma— a stable recently erected close to thd bridge of that name. I have just been revisiting this truly Imperial stud, which, under the charge of General Fleury and his aide-de-camp, Mr Gamble, is a sight which would alone repay your sporting readers for a visit to Paris. The stables of the, Louvrg, where the General and Mr Gamble both reside, occupy the ground-floor of two courts. They are so lofty and so vast that a sixteen-hand horse looks like a cob. The roofs are vaulted like the crypts of the old Milanese Churches. The floor is paved with granite — the only error, as hard iron on hard granite is, of course, false heraldry. The horses slipped about so that it was found necessary to engrave a sort of Arabesque on the pavement at a great expense, in order that there might be some hold for the horses' feet. The stalls and boxes are of oak, and the latter are about as big as a moderate sized dining-room. All that can be polished is polished till it shines again. The rack chains and pillar chains shine like silver ; the cocks of the water-taps. — which you find at every fourth stall — shine like gold ; the straw is plaited before the stalls in a way to shame even Mr "Sago," of Piccadilly; and an Imperial green wisp is woven to relieve the ordinary yellow. When a horse is being harnessed, ho is turned in his stall, and has a rug to stand upon to save this ornamental border. But this is all " luxury." " Le luxe efferne des chevaux ;" the essential is that the condition is perfect, and that may, I think, be much attributed to the regulation of the temperature. Mr Gamble is a disciple of the " plenty of clothing and cool stable " theory, and so has few coughs, and consequently few roarers. Of the hundred horses stabled in this Imperial pile I can only write a few lines ; if I were to praise every horse before, or rather behind, which we paused and said, " Now, that's just the horse I should like to find waiting for me at Barkby," or of which the ladies of the pai ty cried out, " What a love ! and ■what a pretty tail !" — ladies always seem to think thnt the edict about horses is, " by their tails ye shall know them " — I should exceed even my usual prolixity, and you would have to publish another supplement. Still I must glanco into one or two stalls — Porthos, for instance, a bay hack, which is fitted for better things ; " Stentor," a " superior hunter ;" these were two of the lot reserved for the Emperor's own riding. The requirements for an Imperial mount arc only tlieafl : he must be young and sound, 16 hands high, with the temper of a lamb and the action of a pony ; he mint be eo bold on the road that the proverbial " cart load of monkeys with their tails cut off " would not make him wink, and so calm with troops that even file-firing, the most annoying manoeuvre to the equine temperament, would pi oduce no more effect than the cries of costermongers on their " molces." Horses with all these qualifications hns General Fleury found in London for the Eniprror : of the price it is better, perhaps, not to speak. Such a horse is Buckingham, a chestnut, 16 hands high, as thoroughbred as Gladinteur, and as quiet as Somnus, bought of the late Mr Anderson, of Piccadilly. On the back of this same Buckingham the Emperor, who rides 12st, 71b., mounted one fine Italian summer mornintj at 6 30 and stopped on his back till nt 7.30 he saw that Magenta was won. But the horse of horses, and the old country may be proud of it, wns " Pen-ival," a brown horse bought at Wansford, in England, and christened after the cheery proprietor of that " hunter's home." As it happened, there were several of our party who knew that spot, and the shape and make of the grand hunter-looking horse brought up memories of good breakfasts eaten hastily and digested by a gallop to a place •• close by " — which was Wansford — for eighteen miles— nnd then a rattle over the grass. " I wish I had him there," was the general expression. " You would not be far wrong," said Mr Gamble, for wo have not a better in the stable." The Alma stables are to the Louvre what the shelljacket is to " full-diess" — more useful, less glittering. There arc about two hundred and fifty horses there, including the Empress's private stud, of which Phoebus, a magnificent chestnut, is the one remarkable animal, nnd the ponies of the Prince Imperial whose advance towards manhood is marked by a series of small animals which ho has outgrown. The lar f er part of the stable is filled by the posters, about 100 pair, chiefly those Perchcron and German mares with clubbed tails so familiar to us residents in Paris ; they stand without clothing, are in hard condition, do all tho work there is to do, and cost about L80 to L100 each ; they are as useful a lot as could be found.