THE-:- HORSE 



well, but a good stake horse will not neces- 

 sarily play polo well. The reason for this is 

 that a stake race only involves one turn, and 

 a period of polo involves many turns and the 

 continual pulling and mauling of the animal's 

 mouth. Some horses will make one or two 

 quick turns and then lose sensitiveness in the 

 mouth. Such horses will be useless for polo. 



Sometimes a polo horse buyer is able to pur- 

 chase an animal for around a hundred dollars, 

 and after keeping him for a few months may 

 sell him for two or three thousand dollars. On 

 first thought this would seem to include a 

 profit beyond all reason, which would involve 

 "stealing" him in the first place and his sale at 

 an exorbitant figure a few months later. An 

 opportunity of this sort, however, occurs very 

 rarely. 



If we take into consideration the fact that 

 such a horse, for the purposes of his original 

 owner, could probably be duplicated for less 

 than a hundred dollars, and that the polo man 

 has bought from fifty to one hundred head of 

 horses that he has had to sell at a loss in 

 order to obtain a single really good one, the 

 profit will not seem so excessive. Also it must 

 be remembered that the polo buyer can never 

 be sure that he has secured a very fine polo 

 pony until it has actually played a month or 

 two. 



55 



