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Show Cavalry Horses. I General Lord Kitchener has discovered in South Africa that English provincialism M which assumes that everything in England is all right, and English obliviousness, which makes no note of whether or not England is I being left by an onsweeping world, are costly I features when a war is sprung with an alert I border-trained and brave people. I He has learned, too, that the beautiful, I great, highly-bred English horse is likewise I a failure in such a war. I The London Spectator says that the Gen- I eral telegraphs that the horses sent from .1 England are still too heavy, that the well- 'I bred weight-carrying polo ponies are the M ideal horses for all mounted troops, who I carry little on the saddle. "The Spectator thinks that for that open country the heavy horse and heavy rider are both out of place, that the cavalry soldier of the future must -jm be a "light man, armed with a rifle and Jjfl mounted on a hard, wiry and enduring cob." Commenting on this, a distinguished east- jjfl ern journal tells us that in this country we ha'-e known all that for a long time. The whole cowboy period of the West has been ' a practical illustration of the value of the II small horse, who is never sick, who eats -fl anything, who can travel steadily for days, 1H when a large horse would bq killed, who JH can carry men of any weight the wiry, fl ML wmmjmmmmmmmmmiammmmmmmammmamwmmaKt ffi well-bred Jbeast of the plains, the bronco, ff' the mustang. B" That is pretty good for a far eastern jour- B nal, but it is doubtful if the writer could ' B' i explain what he means by a "well-bred B 1 bronco." Horses are like men, they are B ; what they are trained to be. The beautiful B, ' English horses for 'several generations past Bj have been trained to do their utmost when called upon, but they have had no anxiety H! about their food supply; that has been gen- jH ! erously furnished until they have lost the H ; instinct to rustle for food. The American BB mustang has descended from the thorough- H r bred Arabian or Barb stock, turned out by H ' Cortez when his Mexican conquest was B completed. They have inbred and degen- H '' erated greatly in both brain and body, but B I they have learned to rustle for food and B J when they cannot get the best to take what Ithey can get. But feed a better blooded t animal and he will beat a mustang for one day to a hundred, as easily as a white man : can an Indian. m In South Africa the climate has had as B J much to do with the failure of the imported H horses as anything else. Bring a horse from l1 the east or west to this valley, and it takes B i him a year to become acclimated. In South Bif Africa the horses have been taken debil- B itated from the ships and rushed into ser- Hf vice and have broken down by thousands, Hu, just as the English volunteers have. : ' An English gentleman (we have forgotten 'g his name), long a resident of South Africa, Hi . warned his country and government, when B ; i( the war was first sprung, not to send Eng- B lish horses to Africa, but to get the hardy B ( native ponies of that southland for army . uses, but his advice was not heeded. v B : As to the best cavalry horse, we should B , say a cross between the blood-horse and the ;( cob would fill the bill for England. For M this country the cross should be thorough H bred and standard bred, to secure the cour- H j age, action, fibre, intelligence and endur- H v ance needed. H Then the food for the horse, as much as Hf for men, should be provided. |