The horse : with a treatise on draught / by William Youatt.

  • William Youatt
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The horse : with a treatise on draught / by William Youatt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    New South Wales, the eastern coast of Australia, were derived from the Cape of Good Hope and from India. Very little judgment was employed in the selection, and indeed very few horses of good quality could have been procured from either place. The consequence was, that a writer so late as 1824 says of them, that “ they are principally of the nag kind, and bred without much care. They are not very sightly in appearance, being narrow-chested and sharp-backed, and sadly deficient in the quarters. They have an incurable habit of shying, and they are not very sure- footed.” The New South Wales horses are seldom stabled, but are sup- posed to be healthier, and better able to endure fatigue, when kept in the open air. This, however, is probably only an excuse for neglect. The sheep, however, prospering so well, and the cattle rapidly increas- ing and improving, the colonist began to be a little ashamed of his horses. Several of a better kind, cart and blood, were consequently imported from the mother-country — an Arabian was procured from India — and the Australian horse soon began to be a very different sort of animal. A writer of a few years’ later date says : “We have few thorough-bred cart-horses, almost all of them having a spice of blood about them, which makes them unsteady at draught, restive, and given to jibbing when put to a hard pull.” This was a very erroneous charge, and the writer seems to be aware of it, for he adds, “ this may arise in a great measure from their being badly broken in.” It was the faulty management and education of the horse, and not the portion of pure blood which he had acquired, that produced vices like these. The writer proceeds: “ We have many fine gig, carriage, and saddle horses, and even some that have pretensions to rank in the list of racers.” In fact, races were instituted at Sydney. A turf-club was formed, and horses of no despicable qualities entered the lists. An excellent stallion, named Bay Cameron, was imported from England, and the owner netted by him, for the first season or two, more than £600 per annum. Horses generally rose more than fifteen per cent, in value. Even at Sydney, £200 and more were given for a horse of extraordinary figure and powers ; and no good saddle, gig, or cart horse could be pur- chased for less than £40. These horses were found to be remarkably hardy, and could undergo considerable fatigue. The greatest fault was a heaviness of the head, with a considerable degree of obstinacy and sulkiness — as much, however, the fault of education as of natural disposition. A still later writer says, “ that the breed is rapidly improving, and par- ticularly the draught horses, from the importation of some of the Cleve- land breed from England.” The true dray-horse, however, was yet to bo found, and could not be procured from any of the native horses, not even with the assistance of the Cleveland. The mixture of English blood has not lessened the endurance of the native breed ; for at the hottest time of the year, with the thermometer at times as high as ninety-six degrees in the shade, the writer says that he has ridden the same animal fifty miles a day for three successive days. They will all go through a vast deal of work, but they would have more endurance, if they were not broken in for the saddle and for harness so young. It is no unusual thing to ride them sixty miles in less than seven hours, and immediately turn them out, to pick up what scanty herbage they can find. The number of good horses was so rapidly increased, that their price had materially diminished, and*scarcely more than £35 could be got for the best of them. The traveller adds, that there are some diseases to which the horse is subject in England, which are as yet unknown in New South Wales. Glanders has never made its appearance there. Greasy heels, the almost peculiar disease of Britain, have not been seen there. Strangles, however, D
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