32 THE HORSE BOOK. 



In purchasing a stallion, as that transaction 

 is usually carried through in this country, see 

 to it that whatever promises or representations 

 the seller makes are made before the bargain 

 is struck and the consideration passes. Any- 

 thing said after the consideration has passed is 

 not binding on the vendor. If a guarantee of 

 anything is to go with the horse get it in good 

 set terms, the plainer and more definite the 

 better. Always secure the pedigree certificate 

 at the time of sale with a definite assurance that 

 the horse bought is actually the one named in 

 the certificate. ^' Mistakes ^^ have been known 

 to occur in this very particular. A guarantee 

 of the kind holds the seller either to make the 

 horse fit the certificate or the certificate fit the 

 horse and leaves him in a bad place if he can 

 do neither. 



A guarantee that a horse will prove an aver- 

 age foal-getter has come with the lapse of time 

 to be generally construed to mean that he will 

 beget 50 per cent of foals to mares covered. If 

 he does this the first season he will be doing 

 well enough. A stallion guarantee is usually 

 a jug-handled sort of an affair, compelling the 

 buyer to breed the horse only to regular breed- 

 ing mares, to keep a tally sheet showing proper 

 return of mares, to return the horse in as good 

 shape as when he was sold and to do yet other 

 things all within a stated time. In return the 

 guarantor agrees, in the event of the horse 



