SELECTING. 3 



Mares are objected to by some as being occasionally 

 uncertain in temper and vigour, and at times unsafe in 

 harness, from constitutional irritation. More import- 

 ance is attached to these assumed drawbacks than 

 they deserve ; and though the price of the male is 

 generally from one-fourth to one-sixth more than that 

 of the female, the latter will be found to get through 

 ordinary work quite as well as the former. 



To judge of the Age hy the Teeth. — The permanent 

 nippers, or front teeth, in the lower jaw^, are six. The 

 two front teeth are cut and placed at from two to three 

 years of age ; the next pair, at each side of the middle 

 ones, at from three and a half to four ; and the corner 

 pair between four and a half and five years of age, 

 when the tusks in the male are also produced. 



The marks or cavities in these nippers are effaced in 

 the following order : — At six years old they are worn 

 out in the two centre teeth, at seven in the next 

 pair, and at eight in the corner ones, when the horse is 

 described as "aged." 



After this, as age advances, these nippers appear to 

 change gradually year by year from an oval to a more 

 detached and triangular form, till at twenty their ap- 

 pearance is completely triangular. After six the tusks 

 become each year more blunt, and the grooves, w^hich 

 at that age are visible inside, gradually wear out. 



The Hack to Ride. — A horse with a small well-shaped 

 head seldom proves to be a bad one ; therefore such, with 

 small fine ears, should be sought in the first instance. 



It is particularly desirable that the shoulder of a 

 riding hack should be light and w^ell placed. A high- 



— that animals thus marked generally possess peculiar powers of en- 

 durance ; and rat-tailed ones, though ugly, prove very serviceable. 



