Odin was a horse of immense power and robustness, and great
masculinity of appearance. His bone and weight were his most salient
characteristics; but he was a vigorous and active mover, with strong
hock action, though not perfectly straight in his going. He was
disfigured by a head heavy even out of proportion to his general bulk
and weight. He was probably the most successful sire among Jack’s sons,
his male descendants being conspicuously better than the females.
Laird of Noss, also a son of Jack, was a black pony, 38 inches high,
with some white marks on his near side. He was a pony of somewhat
lighter build and more upstanding carriage than Odin, with a finer head
and less bone. He is best known as the sire of the famous horse Harold,
of Duncan, and of Hector; and it is through them that his strain is
perpetuated.
Jack’s other son, among the Londonderry sires, was Lord of the Isles,
a pony which, like his brothers, was black, but was two inches smaller
than they, his height being given as 36 inches. He was a thick and
compact pony, less used in the stud than Odin, who appears to have been
most approved by the stud management, as only sixty-three foals by
Lord of the Isles are recorded against a hundred and nineteen by Odin.
Lord of the Isles is chiefly interesting as the first instance of the
introduction into the blood of the Londonderry sires of the cross of
Prince of Thule, which has already been referred to. His dam Handy was
a daughter of Prince of Thule; and it may perhaps have been from this
source that his reduced size came, for Prince of Thule was himself only
36 inches high. It is significant, too, that Multum in Parvo, a brown
horse 37 inches high, sired by Lord of the Isles out of his own dam
Dandy, is described by those who knew Prince of Thule well as being
exceedingly like him.
[Illustration: MULTUM IN PARVO (28.)]
Multum in Parvo is probably the best-known son of Lord of the Isles,
whose blood is otherwise mainly transmitted through the descendants
of his daughters. He died in 1912 at the age of twenty-eight, having
been foaled in 1884. His crest had latterly fallen over; but he still
retained a singular air of distinction and a picturesque quality hardly
to be discerned in many of the more massive ponies. He must always
have lacked power and weight and strength of action; but his look of
breeding, his quality, and the magnificent abundance and straightness
of his curtain-like mane and forelock, attested an element in his
breeding which should not be lost sight of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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