118 THE HOESE BOOK. 



ing to put up with makeshifts if they can not 

 find just what they want. 



Cobs properly speaking do not stand over 14.2 

 or 14.3 hands at most, though horses standing 

 15.1 hands — sometimes even more — are often 

 miscalled cobs in the trade. Cobs are the con- 

 necting link between the ponies and the horses. 

 They are large-bodied, pudgy, chunky beasts, 

 not horse, not pony, but half way between, short 

 of leg and properly with high action. Ponies 

 run in all sizes from 14.2 hands down, the va- 

 rious common sorts being described in the sub- 

 sequent chapter devoted to them. 



Saddle horses include, as the market classifies 

 them, the five-gaited or Kentucky horse, the 

 three-gaited or walk-trot-and-canter horse and 

 the hunter. Special reference to them will be 

 found further along. 



By continuous effort the Stock Yards Com- 

 pany has made Chicago the greatest point of 

 concentration and distribution of horses in the 

 West. Therefore Chicago substantially domi- 

 nates values of horses for most of the country. 

 Its market gets the best horses in the region 

 tributary to it and all the largest and best buy- 

 ers in the eastern and southern cities are contin- 

 ually represented at the ringside in the Dexter 

 Park Pavilion, commonly known as the ^^ bull- 

 pen." A sharp man is he who can hold his own 

 in any horse market and to get to understand all 

 of the trade terms is no mean trick of itself. 



