122 THE CHOICE OF A HORSE. 



opportunity of buying at a fair price ; in short, at something like his ordi- 

 nary value. I am now only alluding to road horses, for we will not suppose 

 any man insane enough to contemplate buying hunters unless he is a good 

 judge of them ; and, indeed, unless he is this, and a good horseman to 

 boot, he will have no occasion, or, I should think, inclination to possess 

 them. Mrs. Glass says, ' first catch your hare ' ; but she supposes you to 

 be already a cook, otherwise she would probably have said, ' first make 

 yourself a cook ' ; so I should say, first make yourself a horseman, then 

 get the hunters. 



" When I recommend the tyro among horses only to buy such as he 

 has seen doing in a satisfactory way the description of work for which he 

 wants them, I must give him another caution, and that is, to consider 

 whether he is judge enough to decide whether the horse has done this 

 work in a proper manner ; for a satisfactory way, as the term is here 

 applicable, renders it by no means a definite one ; as the question may 

 be put, ' satisfactory %vay^ to whom ? For if it is only satisfactory to a 

 person who does not know how work ought to be done, the buyer may 

 get possession of a brute that he will not find it very easy to get rid of 

 under considerable loss. Doing work as it ought to be done, and only doing 

 it somehow, just makes the difference, in two horses of similar age, sound- 

 ness, and appearance, of being worth a hundred and forty, or only forty " 

 (pounds). — The Pocket aiid Stud, pp. 24, 2j. 



" I conclude my first chapter (it might well be called the chapter of 

 accidents) by advising my reader before he starts upon a similar expedi- 

 tion to ask himself seriously the question, what sort of a horse he wants. 

 It is a curious though an undoubted truth, that not one man in fifty ever 

 thinks of taking this ordinary precaution. Of course, I do not include 

 professed sportsmen, whether in the field or on the turf ; they generally 

 'understand their business,' and set to work accordingly; but there are 

 some hundreds, perhaps thousands, who at the approach of summer must 

 needs buy a horse, and, like myself, consider it much the same thing as buy- 

 ing a bootjack." — Sir George Stephen, ''Adventures of a Gentleman in 

 Search of a Horse," p. g. 



A horse that has had some service and is sound is better 

 than a young untried animal. The chances for profitable 



