An ordinary gig horse will go at the rate of ten miles an hour, and maintain the speed for an hour and a half. Butcher-boys’ horses are wonderful at a spurt; but they could not maintain the pace for any distance. The stately carriage-horses—too highly fed, dressed, and cared for, to go at very high speed—can get over the ground at the rate of ten miles an hour; but they could not continue for any time at that speed. The ordinary carriage-horse, of less breed and mettle, will draw a heavier load, and can get over his nine miles an hour without distress. The large horses in the “unicorns”—the vans of Pickford’s and the other great establishments of the same character—being a cross between the cart and the carriage horse, can draw a less load than a cart horse, but at a speed that averages fully five miles an hour; whereas the cart horse, whilst easily drawing a load of upwards of a ton in weight, could not go any distance, without breaking down, at a higher rate than from three and a half to four miles an hour. From the foregoing, it will be seen that there is a difference between the ordinary pace of the cart horse and the pace that the race horse can go for a short distance, of twenty-seven miles an hour—that is, the latter can go nearly eight times as fast as the former; but the difference of weight is more striking. A completely exact comparison is not possible, because in one case it is weight carried, in the other weight drawn—say eight stone against one ton and a quarter; one to twenty-five. We believe that the highest speed at which an English horse can draw a vehicle—but then it must be feather-weight and very high wheels—is at the rate of about seventeen miles an hour. The late Mr. Osbaldiston, of sporting memory, had a horse that slightly exceeded it. The American trotting horses of greatest celebrity trot nearly eighteen miles in an hour, and they never break into a gallop. “They are,” said a sporting friend of ours, “taught only to trot; they don’t know how to gallop.”