COLOURS OF PRIZE HORSES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1315, 13 May 1897, Page 5

COLOURS OF PRIZE HORSES.

The Live Stock Journal makes some interesting observations on the colours of prize-winning animals at the recent Liondon Hackney Show. “It may be observed,” it says, “ that chestnuts were all in the ascendant, as will be seen from the statements made below. Nine firsts—namely, 3 in stallions and 6 in mares—were awarded to animals of this colour, 6 seconds in stallions, and 5 seconds in mares, 4 thirds in stallions and 2 thirds in mares, 3 fourths in stallions and two in mares, 2 fifths in stallions and two in mares. In bays the prizes'went as follow :—Two firsts in stallions, 1 second in stallions and 1 in mares, 2 thirds in stallions, 3 fourths in stallions and 1 fourth in mares, 1 fifth in stallions. Browns took 1 first in stallions, 1 third in stallions and 2 thirds in mares, and 2 fifths in stallions. Blacks had 1 first in stallions and 1 second in mares ; and roans 2 thirds and 1 fourth in mares. The above facts may, perhaps, not be particularly pleasant reading to the believers in the old-fashioned browns and blacks; but they can surprise nobody, as the advance of the triumphant chestnut has been during the past six or seven years. Indeed, this colour, in on or other of its numerous shades, promises to obliterate all others, and it may be mentioned that the champion stallion and the reserve horse were both chestnuts, as were the champion and reserve mares and the winner of the young stallion cup and his reserve animal, the winner of the young mare cup and her runnerup being also chestnuts; the colour thus making a clean sweep of the boai’d so far as trophies went. The above remarks, however, do not apply to either the selling stallion, the pony, or the riding and driving classes, being entirely confined to the stock sections of the show.