by the generations of experience that have taught their fellows of England and Ireland that blue blood is needed on both sides of the house, if they are to produce a tip-top article. There is plenty of material at hand here, especially in these days when thoroughbred stock has sunk enormously in value, from the time. when racing affairs were booming. The best results could not of course be expected at once, for time and care, and no little expense, would surely be needed to produce what is known in England as a Leicestershire horse, one up to carrying 224 pounds over a flying country. A well-known breeder and seller of hunters recently expressed himself as indifferent to the radical improvement of this class of stock, on the ground that he can find a ready market for horses that are now, merely from lack of competition, called good hunters. But this is all wrong, since the lack of progress means sure retrogression in this direction. With all the facilities for horse breeding that we have in this country, and the tremendous amount of thoroughbred stock to draw on, horses fit for the foreign market that can gallop, jump, carry weight and stay should be readily produced. One In saying this I do not mean to needlessly disparage the American hunter, but I am quite sure that any man who has seen the grandest of all sports, hunting, on both sides of the Atlantic will agree with me. horse that has been shown in New York for several years, always makes the vast majority of those that appear against him in the ring look the merest commoners. This is Merry Boy, a clean-bred, little, black gelding that looks like galloping and jumping all day. He might almost have stepped out of one of the old sporting prints that were a product of the days of our fox-hunting grandfathers. Take one of those old prints and compare the horses depicted with the lot that you will see in the average hunting class in Madison Square Garden, and you will have to confess that either the "limmers" of those days carried the ideal hunter in their heads, or else a most desirable breed has become very scarce. Each horse in the old pictures bears a family resemblance to his fellows, but every one looks the real sort, gallopers with plenty of size that promise to stay as long as a lady can stay in a bonnet shop. But to get to the breed which is going to create a great deal of talk this year-the French coach horse. The picture of Mr. Harry Hamlin's Cogent, which was taken last month especially THE SPORTSMAN'S MAGAZINE, shows that remarkable prize winner to be in such form that there is little doubt that he will repeat his success of last year. Before going further, and referring at any length to the family to which Cogent belongs on his dam's side, it is interesting to quote from a long letter on the subject of harness horses, written by Mr. Harry Hamlin, who, as everybody that is at all interested in the horse knows, is partner with his father in the famous Village Farm Stud. Mr. Hamlin writes: "I think that we can claim the distinction of breeding, developing and exhibiting the most perfect horse of this class (the American harness horse) ever shown. Cogent is sired by Mambrino King, rightly called the handsomest horse in the world. His dam, Coquette, was a chestnut mare, standing 16.2 hands, bred in France, and of excellent pedigree. We never put harness on her, but she could trot a three-minute gait in the paddocks and step all around. We sincerely believe that the thoroughbred blood in Mambrino King, whose pedigree, in tabulated form, shows five-eighths, and the same blood carried by Cogent's dam, accounts for the grand style, poise and carriage of our horse. His easy, powerful, machine-like action comes from blending the blood of the American "What is needed is an animal possessing conformation, style, size, substance and suitable all-around action-no pavement pounders nor 'in- and out-of- the-same- basket' steppers. Ability to pull weight at a good round pace is the most essential feature, insisted upon by our horse horse show judges and all intelligent buyers. I need scarcely add that the best of feet and legs are needed. "It seems to us that all the requirements, which are to-day fixed facts in the breeding and development of our harness race horses, and without which they are failures, can be and most assuredly must be applied when breeders attempt the production of the heavy harness horse, with the solitary exception of an extremely high rate of speed. In no family of horses has so much attention been paid to secure all the essentials as in the trotting bred speed horse. And it is equally true that many of our breeders in the past have sacrificed other essentials to the one idea of speed. The many sales that we see to-day closing out heavy investments in trotting stock, show where such fallacies have ended. "If the American breeder to-day would select his mares and mate them with the proper stallion, and develop the progeny in the suitable line, there is no doubt but that in a few years the American harness horse would lead the world as a type, just as we do to-day in almost all other families. "At Village Farm we are breeding to found a family. We are mating the highest type of French coach mares that we could find to Mambrino King and his sons, and also hackney mares and trotting-bred mares of size, substance and quality. In addition, we are breeding selected mares of trotting blood to selected French coach stallions. We believe that by blending the blood as outlined we shall succeed in the production of a new family, which we shall call the American harness horse. It is our intention to cross the fillies with the colts, bred either way, and to discard each foal for breeding purposes that does not possess, in the highest degree, the qualifications necessary, in our opinion, for breeding up and up all the time." To thoroughly understand what is being attempted at Village Farm, it is necessary to correct, in some degree, the general impression that has been conceived of the French coach horse. Largely owing to the fact that in former years he was consigned to oblivion in a nondescript class, this has been an unjustly abused animal. What his particular points of excellence were, and how he achieved them, has not been recognized even by men who have been called upon to pass judgment on his merits. In actual fact the Carrosier, which is the technical name for the breed, is the product of centuries, let alone generations. The best known stallion of the family in this country is Indre, the property of Mr. M. W. Dunham, the proprietor of the Oaklawn Stud in Illinois. This famous stallion made his bow to the American public at the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893, where he carried all before him. This horse is full of thoroughbred blood and traces back to such famous individuals as Muley Moloch, Priam, Jereed, Idle Boy, etc. It is well known that the French government has subsidized horse breeding for A. J. CASSATT'S IMP. CADET, A COMING HACKNEY CHAMPION. The point involved is that the excellence of the stock can be directly traced back to the thoroughbred, and that the maintenance of its superiority, especially in new developments, can only be accomplished by intermixing it with stock which itself possesses a large share of blue blood. France has developed a breed of trotters under saddle, which, though they do not approach the excessive speed of the American trotter and pacer, outdo them in half. Small wonder, then, that clever men like the Hamlins have turned to the breed as likely to aid them in the formation of a new family. It will be noted that Mr. Hamlinwhile, with the traditions that have surrounded him all his life, he naturally has a preference for the trotting blood-puts in a good word. for the hackney. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the hackney, so far as this country is concerned, has been almost killed by kindness. There is such a thing as being too popular. The hackney makes a splendid show horse. Ever since old Fashion won the hearts of New York audiences with his dandy ways, the hackney has monopolized more than a fair share of attention at the horse shows. It was all right for a year or two while we were relying on imported blood. alone, but there has been a decided tendency to reaction since it was seen that the native-bred products of the imported blood fell far below the quality of their parents. The huge amount of money that the imported hackney represents in this country has, it is true, so far produced notably poor results. But it may be justly doubted whether the horse himself can be blamed for this. They In the first place, it must be remembered that the buyers of English hackneys were in comparatively few instances experienced in the mating of individuals of this blood, even if they had scored success as breeders of thoroughbreds or trotters. They relied very largely on the practical advice of their stud grooms, and it is more than doubtful whether these men, as a rule, were entitled to the consideration that they received. There are good men among the stud grooms that have charge of large collections of hackneys in this country, but the English breeder who, on visiting this country, expressed his surprise that men who would pay enormous sums for horses, cared to employ grooms who could not get first-class positions in the old country, was thoroughly justified. In the racing world we are seeing, at the present time, the bad results of wholesale and promiscuous breed ing of thoroughbreds without due. consideration of blood lines and individual conformation. The same may be said of the hackney. In this country he has been bred largely at random, with little consideration of type or family, but it need not be supposed that the money spent on Mr. him will be ultimately wasted. Hamlin's letter gives the right clue in this direction. While good results have been achieved, and will be again and again in the future, in the practical use of the pure-blooded hackney, it is in its out-crosses that this old-fashioned breed will be principally of benefit to the horse lovers of America. One of the most absurd things that was ever attempted was the pitting of the hackney against the American trotter. It is very probable that, now that they have had time to digest the subject, writers on trotting matters feel shamefaced when they recollect that they tried to heap scorn on the hackney as an utterly incompetent rival of the trotter. This the hackney never pretended to be. It is true that he was known as the old English trotting horse, and in his own limited sphere has achieved fine results, but a rival in speed of the trotter he never pretended to be. The hack ney is a general utility horse, especially adapted to harness purposes from his natural all-around, showy action, while the trotter, as he has been bred for the most part of recent years, is a harness race-horse pure and simple. As a harness race-horse, the trotter is unbeatable, and there is no more possibility of rivalry between him and the hackney, than there is between him and the French coach horse. As in the case of the thoroughbred, the trotter has a dual purpose to fill. As a race-horse he must be maintained up to his present standard of excellence, or, if possible, raised above it. The race-course furnishes the only possible test of quality to provide for the survival of the fittest, whether the contestants be runners, trotters or pacers. Yet, as Mr. Hamlin suggests in his letter, the necessity of size and substance must never be lost sight of in the desire to attain speed. Without the muscular formation that comes with plenty of size and bone, speed will surely diminish in the |