In my stable were two Kentucky-bred saddlers of much more than average
quality, for they had strains of warm blood in their veins. There is no
question nowadays as to the value of warm blood in either riding or
driving horses. It gives ability, endurance, courage, and docility
beyond expectation. One-sixteenth thorough blood will, in many animals,
dominate the fifteen-sixteenths of cold blood, and prove its virtue by
unusual endurance, stamina, and wearing capacity.
The blue-grass region of Kentucky has furnished some of the finest
horses in the world, and I have owned several which gave grand service
until they were eighteen or twenty years old. An honest horseman at
Paris, Kentucky, has sold me a dozen or more, and I was willing to trust
his judgment for a saddler for Jane. My request to him was for a
light-built horse; weight, one thousand pounds; game and spirited, but
safe for a woman, and one broken to jump. Everything else, including
price, was left to him.
In good time Jane's horse came, and we were well pleased with it, as
indeed we ought to have been.
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