MANAGEMENT OF IN-FOAL MARES 215 



should not commence their stud career until they are four years old, 

 when growth is being completed, and when the organs of reproduction 

 have reached their full development, and the physiological energy of 

 the system is well-nigh disengaged from the task of building up the 

 frame, and can be more eftectually devoted to maturing the foetus. 



The great bane of the breeding-stud — hereditary disease — must be 

 jealously guarded against, and in this connection much assistance may be 

 derived from the careful study of family history. 



It should, however, be kept in mind that many ailments are acquired 

 as the result of accident, which in their outward form are indistinguishable 

 from those which are hereditary. 



Sprains, curbs, ring-bones, side-bones, roaring, whistling, string-halt, 

 shivering (fig. 533), specific ophthalmia, and cataract are the most 

 damaging of the many hereditary affections to which horses are liable, 

 and whenever they appear, heredity should be suspected, unless evidence 

 to the contrary is forthcoming. 



MANAGEMENT OF IN-FOAL MARES 



Feeding. — Not the least important branch of stud-management is that 

 which deals with the care and protection of mares during the period of 

 pregnancy, and it is not too much to say that a considerable percentage 

 of the sickness and mortality ordinarily prevailing in our breeding-studs 

 results from causes of a common and preventable character. Of these, 

 some are especially conspicuous, and perhaps none more so than the 

 prevailing and rapidly-extending system of undue feeding, fattening, and 

 pampering, to which mares of the heavy breed are subjected in the course 

 of their show career. 



This is an evil so obvious to anyone concerned in horse-breeding, and 

 so universally admitted by all, that neither evidence nor argument is 

 called for here. Were it otherwise, ample testimony would be found in 

 the stud-books of our heavy breeds. Here it is clearly shown that the 

 productiveness and breeding merit of our great champion mares stand 

 at an almost irreducible minimum, and the limited numl)er of successful 

 produce among their ofi'spring is such as to leave no doubt as to the 

 pernicious effects of the "getting up" and "letting down" to which 

 they are subjected, in the course of their show career. The obesity in 

 which the great bulk of our show mares are found during the exhibition 

 season is a state altogether inconsistent with the exercise of the full 

 measure of their productive powers. With every organ in the body 

 encumbered with fat and impeded in function to the verge of disease, 



