144 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



subtle forces which make life virile; and, for one, I 

 never allow the matter of size to affect my judgment 

 in the least, as I hold that it cannot affect the result. I 

 would not breed a mare that weighed less than nine 

 hundred, or one that weighed more than eleven hundred 

 pounds. From nine hundred and fifty to a thousand and 

 fifty is what I regard as the best weight. Nor does the 

 shape affect me much, provided that it be such as makes 

 her good for service. The old breeders thought — and 

 many breeders think to-day — that a drooping rump is 

 the best form for a brood-mare. They argued, from such a 

 formation of the structure, an easy delivery of the foal ; 

 whereas they conceived that a mare with a flat or 

 straight rump formation could not deliver the foal 

 easily. But my experience and observation disprove 

 this. The mare that delivers the foal more easily than 

 any other in my stables is one of nine hundred and 

 thirty pounds' weight, with a slim round barrel rather 

 "picked up," narrow between the hips, and her back- 

 bone running out nearly straight to the root of the tail ; 

 and yet her colts are invariably strong, and she herself 

 so little exercised in the delivery, that her pulse is never 

 feverish, her appetite not in the least disturbed, nor her 

 digestion affected. We have never even given her a 

 warm mash ; and she has brought three large-sized colts 

 into the world. Other instances by the dozen I might 

 give, if it were necessary. I pay no attention, therefore, 

 to the talk about *' large, roomy mares for breeders," 

 but hold that size alone neither improves the foal, nor 



