110 THE HORSE. 



fourth year. But though Ugly Buck promised well as a two-year- 

 old, he failed in his subsequent career, and his example is not, there- 

 fore, to be considered as at all conclusive. Still, his is a most ex- 

 traordinary instance, and as such it should not be lost sight of. 

 There are many cases in which the first produce of a mare has been 

 her best; such as, in former times, Mark Anthony, Conductor, 

 Shuttle Pope, Filho da Puta, Sultan, Pericles, Oiseau, Doctor Syn- 

 tax, Manfred, and Pantaloon. Nevertheless, these may be con- 

 sidered to be exceptions, and a large majority of the brood mares 

 in the Stud-book are credited with their most successful produce 

 subsequently to their first. The rule generally adopted is to wait 

 till the mare is three years old before breeding from her, and then 

 to put her to a horse of at least full maturity that is to say, seven 

 or eight years old. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE SIRE AND DAM RESPECTIVELY. 



I HAVE ALREADY, at page 40, alluded to this question as relating 

 to the breeding of the Arab horse in his native country, and have 

 there shown that the opinions held by Abd-el-Kader, in modern 

 days, do not coincide with those which have long been supposed 

 to be general in Arabia. In the passage which I have there 

 quoted, this celebrated chief attempts to define the exact part which 

 each parent takes in producing the foal, but he goes still farther in 

 subsequent answers to the questions asked by General Daumas, in 

 relation to the value put by the Arabs on their stallions and mares 

 respectively. To these Abd-el-Kader replies as follows: "It is 

 true that Arabs prefer mares to horses, but only for the following 

 reasons : the first is that they look at the profit which may arise 

 from a mare as very considerable. Some Arabs have realized as 

 much as 20,000 dollars from the produce of one mare. They have 

 a proverb that 'the fountain-head of riches is a mare that produces 

 a mare.' This is corroborated by the prophet Mahomet, who says, 

 ' Let mares be preferred, their bellies are a treasure, their backs the 

 seat of honor/ The greatest blessing is an intelligent wife or a 

 mare that produces plenty of foals." These words are thus ex- 

 plained by commentators : Their bellies are a treasure because the 

 mare by her produce increases the riches of her master ; and their 

 backs are the seat of honor, because the pace of a mare is easier 

 than that of a horse ; and there be those that say it is sufficiently 

 so as in time to render a horseman effeminate. The second reason 

 is that a mare does not neigh in war, that she bears hunger, thirst, 

 and heat better than a horse, and that therefore she is more useful 

 to people whose riches consist in camels and sheep. Now all the 

 world knows that our camels and sheep thrive only in the desert, 

 where the soil is so arid that Arabs drinking chiefly milk find water 

 seldom oftener than every eight or ten days, in consequence of the 



