CHAPTER TWELVE 



HOW TO BUY A HORSE 



IT is far from my purpose to give any advice on 

 the purchasing of horses to professionals or to 

 amateurs who know the subject thoroughly. The 

 professional knows his business so well, or is apt 

 to think that he does, that my advice would be 

 almost an impertinence, while the amateur who 

 thinks he knows is incapable of learning. It is, by 

 the way, a most astonishing thing how few men 

 there are who are willing to confess ignorance as 

 to horses. A little experience makes them won- 

 drous wise. I once heard of a reader for a great 

 publishing house who "turned down" a treatise 

 on the horse because "the writer did not know 

 the subject sufficiently well." This reader, I 

 learned on inquiry, had studied the subject thor- 

 oughly, for one summer a friend lent him a polo 

 pony which was under his constant observation 



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