32 THE COMPLETE HORSEMAN 



ago. There are plenty of opportunities of ex- 

 amining a horse thoroughly at all the leading 

 Emporiums, and the conditions are fair to the 

 buyer who has plenty of opportunities of return- 

 ing an unsound horse or one that has been falsely 

 described, if he avails himself of them. But for 

 all that I would not advise the reader to pur- 

 chase at Horse Repositories unless he is a very 

 good judge and a very good horseman. And for 

 these reasons. In the first place if horses are 

 well known and have a good reputation they 

 bring much more than their value. Here is an 

 instance from my own experience. Some hunt 

 horses were going up for sale, and I took a great 

 fancy to one that had carried the huntsman. He 

 was a good-looking horse, fast and a fine per- 

 former, but he made a slight noise. I could not 

 get to the sale but commissioned a friend to buy 

 him for me at ninety guineas. He brought a 

 hundred and sixty ! 



Another reason is that unless a man is a fine 

 horseman he may buy a horse and find when he 

 gets him home that he is practically of no use to 

 him. This of course entails the necessity of 

 parting with the horse, most likely at a con- 

 siderable sacrifice, and at the same time there is 

 the mortification of being without a horse, very 

 probably at the very time that you are wanting 

 one most. 



There are some who hold that hunting men 

 should buy their horses direct from the farmer. 

 If the farmer has the horse that the hunting man 



