BUYING HORSES 29 



of money to buy a high-class hunter and vice 

 versa, and Markham's advice to buy what you 

 want and keep him to his proper vocation is 

 sound. 



In order however for a man to form a sound 

 idea of what he does want he should thoroughly 

 appreciate his own horsemanship at its proper 

 value. We all know of the man who '' after dinner 

 once took a forty feet brook" ; and I think it is 

 Sir Walter Scott who said there were many men 

 who would rather have aspersions cast on their 

 moral character than on their horsemanship. 

 But when a man goes to buy a horse there must 

 be no self-deception on this score, if he would 

 avoid disappointment. 



Then comes the question of price. It will be 

 found cheapest in the long run to buy the very 

 best you can afford, which of course does not 

 mean that you are to give what anyone chooses 

 to ask you for a horse that takes your fancy. 

 Above all don't go out with the idea of buying 

 a hundred pounds' horse for forty ; if you do you 

 will surely come to grief. 



The Horse market in these days is very different 

 from what it was in the last century. For more 

 than thirty years, at any rate, the fairs, which at 

 one time were the principal horse markets, have 

 been rapidly deteriorating and none of them 

 now have the importance which they once pos- 

 sessed. Indeed very few good horses now find 

 their way to a horse fair, and if one should find 

 his way there it is quite by accident. 



