American Horse Show

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. While correct appointment in equipage has furnished food for endless argument and various opinions, has caused much ill feeling, and produced many extraordinary and inharmonious results, we have not, during the years which we have given attention to it, reached results genuinely satisfactory, or established fashions that are uniform. This does not apply to coaching, because The Coaching Club, some years since, issued a manual of park and road coach appointments, which is eminently satisfactory and authoritative. The Tandem Club of New York also set up a standard, but the universal decrease in tandem driving, and the fact that the tandem is, and was originally intended as, the most off-hand of turnouts has prevented the dicta of this club from receiving due recognition. All other specifications have been individual in character; an expression of personal taste and preference: really authoritative nothing, and worth consideration merely as opinions, bearing no weight beyond that, and ridiculed or approved according as the author of them was supposed to be competent or the reverse; a horseman or a dilettante: experienced or ignorant. The details here recommended are worthy this consideration, and this only, and are given merely as a general guide to such matters, and along lines approved by the majority of the gentlemen who have officiated in the show rings throughout the country, or who actually own, and possibly exhibit, high-class establishments.<br><br>It is said that several of the exhibitions to be held in 1903 will specifically describe in their prize lists and catalogues the appointments required for each and every class, and if this is done a practical standard will instantly be reached. Should this be originated by one of the leading shows, the National, for instance, the matter will be settled off-hand for good and all.<br><br>In vehicles the standards are already so excellent that the provisions of the first-class carriage maker may