Like other domestic animals the horse has run into various breeds. The
most celebrated is the Arab horse. Great attention is given in America
to the breeding of horses, and American horses have won races both in
England and on the Continent.
While the increasing use of automobiles by farmers and others may have a
more or less depressing effect upon the demand for some classes of
horses, no machine can successfully supersede the horse in more than a
part of his many uses in business, sport and pleasure. There is a
prevailing tendency toward heavier horses for farm work, and draft work
in cities as well.
Of the draft breeds the Percherons, of French origin, are regarded with
high favor, while the Clydesdales, from Scotland, have a well merited if
not equal popularity. The English Shire and Belgian horses are also
excellent types of the drafters. Cleveland Bays, one of the oldest and
most popular of the English Coach breeds, are quite appropriately termed
“the general utility horse,” while the admirers of the German and French
Coachers, as yet comparatively few in numbers in the United States,
regard them as unexcelled for similar purposes. Hackneys are
pre-eminently adapted to drawing any sort of vehicle at a rapid pace on
the road, and French Coachers are in demand for large, stylish,
high-stepping carriage teams and single drivers.
Thoroughbreds are probably the oldest and best established of all the
breeds of Europe and America. They are distinctly of British production,
and especially noted for endurance and speed on the race course. The
term Thoroughbred, when applied to horses, is used to designate one
particular breed, the running or race horse. Standard bred classes
include the trotter and his immediate fellow, the pacer. They are
American productions of modern times, the outgrowth of the commercial
tendencies of Americans, coupled with their ardent love for tests of
speed, and fast, level-headed roadsters for light business and pleasure
driving, used single or in pairs. The chief families of trotters are
Hambletonians, the Mambrinos, the Clays, the Morgans, the Bashaws and
the Pilots, all, except the Morgans, more or less related, and tracing
their ancestry, directly or indirectly, to an imported English
Thoroughbred sire, foaled in 1780, and known as Messenger.
Other breeds of horses, but of extremely small numbers, in America are
the Suffolk Punch, for draft; Orloff trotters, and Shetland, Welsh and
Exmoor ponies.
Of the smaller breeds of horses, the Shetland Pony is best known. Only
seven or eight hands high (a hand equals four inches), they are as
docile as they are hardy. Their coats are shaggy, and in winter become
so matted as to protect the animals from the severe weather experienced
in their northern home. Notwithstanding their small size, they are
wonderfully strong, and are capable of exertion without fatigue.