"quality" In French Horses

Speaking of the quality of the native French horses exhibited at the Paris ahow last spring, Mr. Burdette-Coutts, in London Live-Stock, Sports and Pastimes, says: "I have two general remarks to make. First, that up to 15.2, or possibly up to 15.3, hands our English horses, particularly now when the study and attention given to the Hackney breed has in fivo or six years produced such marked improvement, are immeasurably superior in every respect to any thing that is bred in Franco. For barouche horses from 10 to 17 hands high I reluctantly admit that the French broeder takes the brioche. The French havo a race of carrossiers - that is, by constantly crossing the Hackney stallion.with the big mares of Normandy, the latter probably enlarged by anearlier admixtui-e of Cleveland or Yorkshire coachhorso blood, they have created a ruco from which their barouohe horsea aro produced. I am by no means satisfled with them. Their bind acüon is indifferent, their shapes are vastty inferior to our best Yorkshire type, showing neither the lengthy and level quarter nor tho long, elegant top line of the latter. liut that whieh really shows a horse in harness, and which sclls him at a high price for that purpose, viz.: high action in front, is very muoh more marked throughout the French-bred buroucho horses than in our own. "It is not the best of action; it is of ton tip and down, 'floppety,' and 'dishing,' but thore is no doubt about it they do 'pop it up.' A pair of Yorkshire coach horses or of Cleveland bays - of that fine quality which my friend Mr. A. E. l'ease, M. P., does not appearto considcr eithcr a natural or valuable characteristic of the latter breed, but which I beHeve, by careful attention can easily be produced from it- if they had really high action in front, woold be worth, in the eyes of any one who knows a horso's tail from his head, doublé the money that any French-bred pair ought to fetch. But, as a rule, in our big horses of tliis type we have not got the action. There are one or two famous exceptions, and if these should succeed in reproducing their own action while preserving their flne shapes we shall havo solved the difticulty which to my mind should te a matter of grief and consternation to English horae-breedere - viz.: that wo can not or do not at the present time produce big carrfage horses suitable for the London state carriage. "It is a wé'll-known tact that most of the big bay horsea which wo seo in the Mali on a drawing-room day, whatevcr black blood niay be in their veins, are strangers in a strange land. I do not deny that Bome big horses with action are produccd in Oreat Britain, but for the most part they are 'carriagey' hunters trom Ireland or tbc produce of Hackney stallions and cart mares, and in neither case do they possess the curvilinear and Bweeping ferm whlcb, to a practiced eyc, is most bcautiful for a big harness horse. 1 have little doubt that some of the coarseness of shape, and particularly the low-set tail in the French carrossier, is due to the fact that many big so-called Hackney stullions have been imported into that country which get their size from a cross of carting blood. lt remainB to be seen whether in this country we can not produce an animal with the requisite action and shapo by crossing the Cleveland bay or the Yorkshire coach horse with a pure Hackney posscssed of extra size and qiiality. Without the lattcr we shall do nothing in this business. "Ono noticeable feature in French horses is that in all sizes they are bred ior speed in trottniL. The composition oL the ground in the l'alais del'Industrie is suited to this peculiarity, being hard and not cuvored with tan, as in the case of our shows. This is a point which we seem to have lost sight of in favor of. showaction. And yettrotting speed must be inherent in the breed that comes from the loins of Jlarshland Shales, who did his 17 miles in 56 minutes, carrying 13 st., or from Wroot's Pretender, who is credited with 16 miles to the hour, carrying 10 st., a3 well as in the stock of that Yorkshire coach horso, a brother to Wonderful, of whom wo find tbe almost incrediblo record of 18 miles in the hour, carrying IS st. In our competitions the pace Whieh will malee a horse raise his knee to tho highest point is the only ono sought after, but any one whohas visited one of the real old-fashioned Yorkshire breeders and seen these horses trotted without breaking on a long rein to a galloway, the latter galloping alongsida as fast as ho can lay heels to the ground, or any ono who remembers the larga part which old Bellfounder played in tho creation of the American trotting horse, will understand how easily the characteristic of speed could be resuscitated in these English breeds."-