6o THE HORSE 



demand for agricultural and other uses, and there is no 

 reason why the possession of three or four good brood 

 mares on a farm should not be made to pay their way. 

 It is the indiscriminate breeding from unsuitable mares 

 and sires which commonly causes failure in breeding 

 operations. A mare should not be bred from before she 

 has arrived at her fifth or sixth year, but mares at the 

 ages of twelve and fifteen years, or even more, are 

 specially suitable for breeding purposes. It is reasonable 

 to assume that a mare at eight or ten years old will 

 produce a more vigorous foal than one at eighteen or 

 twenty. The registration of brood mares by the various 

 horse societies has done a great deal of good in laying the 

 foundation stone towards the perpetuation of good stock 

 — stock which is sound and free from the so-called 

 hereditary afflictions. It has been and still is customary 

 to look upon certain equine troubles, such as roaring, 

 bone-spavin, ring bone, curb, splint, side-bone, stringhalt, 

 etc., as capable of being transmitted from either a sire or 

 a dam to their offspring. It is not thought that the 

 actual disease is transmitted, but " predisposition '* to 

 the development of any of the foregoing troubles directly 

 an exciting cause comes into operation. In all probabiHty 

 there is a good deal of truth in this, and practical demon- 

 strations are not w^anting in support of this theory. 

 Very few mares would be obtainable for breeding purposes, 

 especially of the heavier class, which were free from one 

 or other of the diseases enumerated. Remarks which 

 apply to the dam are equally applicable to the sire. A 

 great deal of rubbish has been written and spoken about 

 hereditary diseases in the horse, and an animal con- 

 sidered sound by one veterinary surgeon may be rejected 

 as unsound by another, therefore it is quite easy to 

 perpetuate many fallacious notions. The great thing in 

 selecting a mare for brood purposes, in addition to the 

 feature already referred to earlier on in this chapter, is 

 that of possessing good conformation and good action. 



