22 NOTES FOR HUNTING-MEN 



You will, of course, when young at the game of 

 buying horses, call in a veterinary surgeon to give 

 veterinar- ^^^ advice as to the animal's soundness, 

 advice J ^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^Yi times the most satisfactory 

 course to pursue, both for seller and buyer ; but in 

 early days it is folly to purchase relying on your 

 own judgment on this all-important point. You 

 must not of course expect to get a theoretically 

 sound horse who has done any work, and personally 

 I should rather distrust an aged hunter who could 

 show an absolutely clean sheet. He can hardly 

 have done much hunting. Employ, if possible, a 

 veterinary surgeon who hunts or who has hunted 

 regularly. He will be able to give an opinion of 

 the animal's practical soundness much better than 

 a theorist or vet. without practical experience of a 

 hunter's accidents and ailments. Another thing, 

 in future years, when you begin to use j^our own 

 judgment a little, you must bear in mind that even 

 the best and cleverest practitioners have their little 

 fads sometimes, which you must make allowances 

 for. One of the best I know will very rarely pass 

 a horse sound. His fad (if I must call it so) is 

 feet, which he measures most carefully with 

 callipers, and if he finds one-hundredth part of an 

 inch difference in the size of a pair of feet a black 

 mark is put against the horse. I now always use 

 my own judgment on this point, and if the feet are 



