SELECTION 593 



sudden, however, fashion thrusts to the front some absurd 

 requirement, and insists that it be met, or the stock will remain 

 unsold. The breeder is in business not for amusement, but for 

 gain, as well as for satisfaction. He must sell his product, or 

 very soon go out of business. He cannot afford to go on pro- 

 ducing what nobody will buy, and he is often brought face to 

 face with the alternative, financial ruin, or the destruction of 

 the herd from the standpoint of the best breeding. 



For example, a few years ago all really good horsemen were 

 amazed at the demands of the market for exceedingly high 

 knee and hock action. It was a gait not only awkward to look 

 upon (except to men who were not horsemen), but it was exceed- 

 ingly hard on the horse, and entirely impractical except for 

 park purposes. Yet this was the demand, for the time, on the 

 part of the buyers who spent their money freely, and it was 

 met by the breeders, for such demands are powerful influences 

 in setting standards. 



Yet no one knew better than these same breeders that the 

 fashion was a passing one. To what extent, then, should studs 

 be disturbed, and standards regarding free, easy, and useful 

 action be upset by a passing whim ? Requirements of fashion 

 such as these and they are many and frequent in the breed- 

 ing business call for all the judgment of the breeder, and all 

 his knowledge and skill in meeting issues and in freeing himself 

 and his herd or stud quickly from the evil consequences of ill- 

 advised standards. 



The whole situation presents a case of steering between diffi- 

 culties and accepting the least of two evils, injury to the 

 breeding stock upon the one hand and loss of sales upon the 

 other, and it rivals international diplomacy in the fineness of 

 distinctions to be observed. 



There are two ways of meeting situations of this kind with a 

 minimum of danger. One is to meet the demand as far as pos- 

 sible by training instead of breeding ; l the other is to introduce 

 whatever is to be introduced at once in the person of the sire, 



1 This plan was actually used to its limits in the days of high gaits, when by 

 proper shoeing, driving over rough ground, etc., much was " trained into " the 

 roadster being fitted for market. 



