242 The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



horse that has fresh legs and is nearly as old as Old 

 Parr, in an hour is brought out as a seven-year- old and 

 sold as such. Old horses are generally sunk in the eyes, 

 but after the coper has bishoped his animal he is quite 

 up to the mark to make the horse have a younger ap- 

 pearance, so he proceeds to another trick known as 

 " puffing the glims." This is pricking the hollow above 

 the eyes with a needle to cause local inflammation and 

 swelling of the part. The swelling" rills up the cavity 

 above the eye, and gives the horse a younger appear- 

 ance, but this only lasts for a day or two, and often ends 

 in ophthalmia, from the inflammation affecting the optic 

 nerve. Other dealers who have young horses wish to 

 pass them off as older than they are for the extra profit 

 they obtain, and many three-year-old horses are sold as 

 four-year-olds, and the writer has known them passed 

 off as five-year-olds. This is done by punching out their 

 sucking teeth and lancing their gums above the tusk; 

 when the suckers are punched out the cutters soon 

 make their appearance, and by lancing the gum it falls 

 back, and in a few weeks the tusk has made its way 

 through, so that the mouth of a three-year-old has 

 much the appearance of a four-year-old colt ; and many 

 persons not well up with the mouth of a horse are 

 imposed upon in this manner. This trick is known in 

 the trade as " yorking the horse." In purchasing a 

 horse the physical signs of age must be also looked 

 to, because a young horse may have been too early 

 put to hard work, and to that extent that it is to all 

 intents and purposes an old horse in strength and action ; 

 when heated by being trotted or galloped all his infirmi- 



