112 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



fourteen years of age after an interval of wear and tear. It need scarcely be 

 said that there must be very solid reasons for the casting of horses, and if 

 those reasons were good two or three years ago they become doubly so as time 

 goes on and the question of replacement does not become easier. The Army 

 Veterinary Service is the chief caslmg authority, for the simple and all-sufficient 

 reason that its officers are the professional experts of disease and unsoundness. 

 If they say a horse will always be lame or can never be healthy and strong 

 again,"^then it is the obvious thing to give the animal its discharge so that it 

 may no longer remain an expense to the public in the sense that it would never 



Branding cast horses with a " C " on the near shoulder. 



again be able to do any work to justify its keep and general maintenance. 

 It follows that " casters " therefore must come from the veterinary hospitals 

 in greater numbers than from the Remount Depots. 



A Remount casting authority may exercise his powers in the case of an 

 animal which he does not consider is fatted to do any sort of job in the Army, 

 either in draught, saddle, or pack. It is singular how you may come across 

 the occasional " misfit " even where the work is so varied as in the Army. The 

 Remount officer may also cast on the ground of vice, though there is a reluctant 

 disinclination to act. No officer likes to consider himself beaten bv a vicious 



