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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    the excess of their agony and terror, dart full against it, tear through it, or carry it away. After all, the prize is nothing more than an ornamental flag; but it is presented by the governor of Rome, and it is supposed to be a pledge of the speed and value of the horse which will descend as an heir-loom from generation to generation among the peasantry, to whom many of these horses belong. The decision of such a race, however, can have little to do with the speed or strength or value of the horses in any respect. The Italians, however, enter into the affair with all their characteristic eager- ness of feeling, and are guilty of every kind of extravagance. During the first six days of the carnival, the horses are fairly classed according to the age, height, degree of breeding, &c.; but on the last two days — the choice days — they run all together, and some in the manner that I have described, and thus increase the confusion, the riot, and the danger of the exhibition. The Corso is very nearly a mile, and it has occasionally been run in two minutes and twenty-one seconds : a very quick pace for small horses, many of them not more than fourteen hands high. Races of a similar character take place at Florence, of which Mrs. Piozzi gives the following description: — “ The street is covered with saw-dust, and made fast at botli ends. Near the starting-post are elegant booths, lined with red velvet, for the court and first nobility. At the other end a piece of tapestry is hung, to prevent the creatures from dashing their brains out when they reach the goal. Thousands and tens of thousands of people on foot fill the course, so that it is a great wonder to me still that numbers are not killed. The prizes are exhibited to view in quite the old classical style — a piece of crimson damask for the winner ; a small silver basin and ewer for the second ; and so on, leaving no performer unrewarded. “ At last come out the horses, without riders, but with a narrow leathern strap hung across their bodies, which has a lump of ivory fixed to the end of it, all set full of sharp spikes like a hedgehog, and this goads them along while galloping, worse than any spur could do, because the faster they run the more this odd machine keeps jumping up and down, and pricking their sides ridiculously enough ; and it makes one laugh to see that some of them are so tickled by it as not to run at all, but set about plunging in order to rid themselves of the inconvenience, instead of driving forward to divert the mob, who leap, and caper, and shout with delight, and lash the laggers along with great indignation indeed, and with the most comical gestures.” Before we quit the neighbourhood of Italy, we may perhaps notice another curious mode of horse-racing, practised in Malta. The horses here are indeed mounted, but they have neither saddle nor bridle. The riders sit on the bare back, and have nothing to guide or to spur on their horses, but a small pointed instrument, not unlike a cobbler’s awl. These horses are small barbs, well tempered, or they would resist this mode of management, and they certainly are not swift. By pricking the horse on one side or the other of the neck, the rider can guide him a little in the way he should go, and certainly he may urge him to his fullest speed; but still, although it affords a novel and amusing sight to the stranger, the horse and the spectators are degraded by such an exhibition. THE AUSTRIAN HORSE. The following account is given by the Duke of Ragusa.of the imperial establishment for the breeding of horses at Mesohagyes, near Carlsburg in Austria:—“ This is the finest establishment in the Austrian monarchy for the breeding and improvement of horses. It stands on 40,000 acres of
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