Gandara's Horses Were Strangely Coloured By Nature Aided
By Artificial Selection, And I Remember That As A Boy I Thought Them
Very Beautiful.
Sometimes it was a black- or brown- or bay-and-white,
or a chestnut- or silver-grey- or strawberry-red-and-white, but the
main point was the pleasing arrangement and shading of the dark
colour.
Some of his best selected specimens were iron- or blue-grey-
and-white; others, finer still, fawn-and-white and dun-and-white, and
the best of all, perhaps, white and a metallic tawny yellow, the
colour the natives call bronze or brassy, which I never see in
England. Horses of this colour have the ears edged and tipped with
black, the muzzle, fetlocks, mane, and tail also black. I do not know
if he ever succeeded in breeding a tortoiseshell.
Gandara's pride in the horses he rode himself - the rare blooms
selected from his equine garden - showed itself in the way in which he
decorated them with silver headstalls and bit and the whole gear
sparkling with silver, while he was careless of his own dress, going
about in an old rusty hat, unpolished boots, and a frayed old Indian
poncho or cloak over his gaucho garments. Probably the most glorious
moment of his life was when he rode to a race-meeting or cattle-
marking or other gathering of the gaucho population of the district,
when all eyes would be turned to him on his arrival. Dismounting, he
would hobble his horse, tie the glittering reins to the back of the
saddle, and leave him proudly champing his big native bit and tossing
his decorated head, while the people gathered round to admire the
strangely-coloured animal as if it had been a Pegasus just alighted
from the skies to stand for a while exhibiting itself among the horses
of the earth.
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