102 HOW TO BUY A IIOKSE. 



taking to answer for this, we should advise a buyer always 

 to look to the points mentioned; as it is extreme age 

 which one seeks to avoid, with reason, not matuiity, or 

 even the commencement of decline. Except to a racing- 

 man, it matters little whether the horse he buys be fou]-, 

 six, eight or nine years old, provided that he be sound, 

 suitable in other respects, and free from the effects and 

 marks of hard labor and wear and tear; remembering 

 always that if the buyer requires a horse for immediate 

 hard use, he should not purchase one under six; and 

 if the animal be perfectly sound, and fresh and clean 

 in his legs, will be wiser to buy at eight or nine than 

 younger. 



We now come to the eyes, which of all the parts of the 

 horse are, except the legs, of the most vital importance, 

 and in which it is often the most difficult to detect imper- 

 fection. There are some species of blindness, which to a 

 common observer give no sign, and in many instances the 

 writer has known the eye of a horse nearly stone-blind to 

 be looked at casually by a purchaser, and passed as need- 

 ing no further scrutiny. 



'^ There is nothing," says Youatt, "which deserves so 

 much attention from the purchaser of a horse as the per- 

 fect transparency of the cornea (or glassy and transparent 

 portion of the eye), over the whole of its surface. The 

 eye should be examined for this purpose both in front, 

 and with the face of the examiner close to the cheek of 

 the horse, under and behind the eye. . The latter method 

 of looking through the cornea is the most satisfactory^, so 

 far as the t ran spare cv of that part of the eye is con- 

 cerned. During this examination the horse should not be 

 in the open air, but in the stable, standing in the doorway, 

 and a little within the door. If any small, faint, whitish 

 lines appear to cross the cornea, or any part of it, they 



