Choice of Mare and Sire. 



551 



horse covering an ass, and has the mane, tail, hoofs, skin, and colour of a horse, the head sometimes 

 resembling tlie dam and sometimes the sire, but generally the sire. 



Mr. Orton came to the conclusion that in horses the sire gives the locomotive and the female 

 the vital organs, that is, the constitution. For this reason no stallion should ever be used that 

 has not good action for the purpose required ; the action that wins races not being the action 

 for a hunter, and the action of a hunter is not often the action of a park harness horse. 



As the readers of this book will most probably be breeders for amusement and not for 

 profit, it will be enough for them to be convinced that nothing satisfactory can be expected 

 from an unsound animal on either side, and that the mare especially should have room to 

 carry a foal, a deep chest, and, in fact, a good constitution. 



For breeding high-class riding and driving horses thoroughbred sires are to be preferred 

 to half-bred sires, not only because quality is essential, but because their pedigree can be 

 traced, and any palpable defect or unsoundness will be found recorded. The produce of 

 a line of American trotters have the same advantage, because the performances of their pro- 

 genitors, like those of our race-horses, have been reported in the periodicals devoted to sport. 

 An American trotter with an undoubted trotting pedigree is the animal to get horses with park 

 action. 



The form and action of the sire are of more importance than his height, if the mare is 

 of the right size. 



Where the breeder is anxious to produce a pair of horses of the same colour he must 

 rely on the sire as well as the dam, and therefore ascertain what have been the usual 

 colours of his produce. But the female generally gives the colour, and he must bear in mind 

 that female animals, since the days of Jacob, are liable to transmit to their offspring the 

 colours presented to their eyes during generation. The late Mr. M'Combie, a breeder of black 

 Aberdeenshire polled cattle, found it necessary to exclude all red-and-white o.xen from his 

 breeding farms, and had all his woodwork painted black. I have a well-authenticated case in 

 which a chestnut mare put to a chestnut thoroughbred horse, at Earl Spencer's seat, in the 

 presence of a piebald pony, produced a fac-simile of the pony's colour. The piebald twins 

 bred at Badminton, out of a thoroughbred Physalis mare, were no doubt the reflection 

 of the piebald team which the late Duke of Beaufort was in the habit of using in his 

 hunting carriage. 



The expenses of breeding half-bred horses may be considerably diminished by employing, 

 the mares in harness in the light labours of a farm. They may be so employed for at least 

 six months from the time they have taken the horse, not only without damage, but with 

 advantage to their health, as long as the weights they draw, in pairs or in line, are moved 

 without any straining or violent rushing into the collar. 



The best horses are bred on dry uplands and well-turfed hills, whilst rich pastures on 

 damp soil, like the Lincolnshire marshes, seem to produce large dray horses. 



Young mares are to be preferred to old ones. They can adapt themselves better to 

 change of food and temperature. In this climate the changes from heat to cold, combined 

 with a damp atmosphere, are so great, that moderately good living is indispensable for the 

 rnare's health. Most of the dangers during the process of foaling are due to the feeble action 

 of debilitated organs, not to mention a host of cutaneous diseases which may be traced to 

 the same causes. Nevertheless, at certain seasons of the year, when the grass is too luxuriant, 

 caution must be observed. Mares are apt (in the autumn when the foal has been weaned, and 

 the udder still secretes milk) to eat too much, fatten, and become subject to plethora and 



