CHAPTER IX. 



BREEDING. 



Reason ichy Treated of in thii Work — Objection Urged Ac ainst 

 Breeding Hor-^es — Best MontJn for Foaling Horses J or 

 General Purposes — Advantages of Sunny, Genial Wfather 

 to Foals — Treatment for Constipation and Diarrhxa — 

 Feeding — Weaning — Treatment of Mare after Weaning — 

 Handling Foals — When to Commence Working Foals — 

 " Backing " — Exercising, Breaking, and Training the Colt — 

 Kindness the Royal Road to Success — Suggestions as to How 

 Army Remounts should be Supplied — Sdection of a Stallion 

 — Suitable Mares to Breed from. 



fT may be tliought hardly in consonance with the general 

 tenour of this book to even remotely touch upon the 

 subject of breeding ; but a few words to the man who 



has a suitable place to bring up a foal in, and likes to try the 

 experiment, may not be unwelcome. Plenty of people who 

 keep a mare or two might as well have a foal in the spring 

 as not, and it is really surprising what very little use one 

 loses of the dam during her time of pregnancy. Steady work, 

 I venture to assert, is much better for the mare than standing 

 idle, and there is no objection whatever to her being kept at 

 it till within a short time of her foaling. One of the great 

 objections always urged against breeding horses, is the time 

 one has to wait for the return of one's capital ; but it is not 

 necessary to attempt to meet that assertion here, as, in the 

 cases to which I am now intending these remarks to apply, 

 hardly any expenditure of capital is requisite. Granted that 

 you have a suitable mare, and that you can command the 

 services of a well-bred and sound stallion, somewhere tiose at 



