THE WAR HORSE

Southland Times, Issue 20791, 4 June 1929, Page 5

THE WAR HORSE

NECESSITY FOR MANY YEARS. VISCOUNT LASCELLES’ VIEW. Viscount Lascelles predicted recently that there was a future for the light horse, even in the mechanized army. "The mechanizing of our Army,” he said, "will not be able to be carried out to the exclusion of the light horse. Light horses of the hunter type will be a necessity for our Army, even though they may be fewer in number, for many years to come.” Presiding at the luncheon of the Hunters Improvement and National Light Horse Breeding Society, he said that hunting lived entirely on the funds derived from the devotees of the sport itself. _ It did not look for support from the outside public in any sense. It was in the direction of the light horse that publicity and support were wanted. “The light horse is a necessity in many walks of life,” said Lord Lascelles. "The Army, we are told, will be mechanized. We are told that light horses will become less and less necessary for its use. Last spring I happened to be in Egypt at a time when the War Office decided that one more cavalry regiment was to be mechanized, and its horses taken away.

“I had the opportunity of talking to a number of people not connected with the cavalry in any sense, but connected with affairs in Egypt. They were not at all unanimous in the opinion that the War Office was acting wisely in regard to that particular regiment, which was quartered at Cairo, or that motor-cars could do the work that the horses were then doing. The sands of the desert, the crossing of canals and various other obstacles, which you meet in such countries did not, in their idea, offer at all a good manoeuvring ground for tanks or other forms of motor transport. Horses, a great many of them believed, would be far more effective.” The National Light Horse Breeding Society existed to provide the services of stallions at fees which would enable farmers, smallholders, and others to raise riding horses for the Army or for the hunting field. It was comic, to-day, to realize that Derby winners could once be used for “a fiver” or “a tenner” as country stallions. Since the'modern Derby winner could secure fees at about 400gns., the society', tn conjunction with the War Office, had brought the services of high-class thoroughbred stallions within reach of the pocket of all farmers and others who were desirous of helping the country in the matter, of breeding riding stock. ______