HORSE-KEKPIHG for AmATEURS. 



CHAPTER I. 



A FEW HINTS ON BUYING. 



Horse-dealing a Temptatioji to Roguery — Where and How to 

 Obtain a Horse—Colour a Non-essential Point — Trying a 

 Horse— Feel of the Mouth— Professional Assistance in 

 Buying— Examining the Fore Legs: Bony Enlargements, 

 Splints, ^c— Straining of the Back Sinews— Windgalls— 

 A Golden Rule in Buying —Trying Hunters— Trying 

 Harness Horses: Shying and Kicking; Bad Mouths. 



j^^^EEHAPS the most difficult thing to buy in the world ia 

 -i^^ a horse. Nothing lends itself, however unwillingly, to 

 ^-^^ ^raud and chicanery so readily; and a great writer 

 once observed, "There's something about horse-dealing that 

 makes a man a blackguard, in spite of himself." Without 

 entirely subscribing to this theory, the fact remains, that men 

 otherwise _'' straight " in their business and social transactions,' 

 will occasionally be found straining a point in order to sell 

 some worthless brute as a good horse. Certes, the temptation 

 to "get out" of a bad one id great. What can be more 

 distressing than to find oneself with a horse that is never well 

 two days running, a confirmed jibber, or, if you are a hunting 

 man, a wretch that will never face his fences, and whose heart 

 dwindles down to mouse-like proportions on seeing a sheep 

 hurdle? To avoid the temptation of "letting in" some 

 hapless fellow-creature for such a beast, Ist us, then, exercise 



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