TIO LIGHT HORSES: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



himself with as many misfits as he wants ; his aim should, 

 therefore, be to produce a horse of the highest class, and this, 

 in the hunting department, may be described as a horse up 

 to 15 stone with hounds, and with as much quality as pos- 

 sible. As often as a good sample of this sort of horse can 

 be bred, so often will a remunerative price be forthcoming 

 either for the raw material or when the horse shall have 

 become a finished performer over a country. In a certain 

 proportion of cases the breeder will be so far disappointed 

 that he will find he has a light weight horse instead of a 

 weight carrier; consequently there is no reason why he 

 should try to breed the latter unless he confine his attention 

 to thoroughbreds. 



The careful breeder will do well never to breed from a mare 

 of whose history he is ignorant. She may have been put to a 

 Hackney, Cleveland Bay, cart-horse, Arab, or half-bred sire ; 

 and it is a well established fact that a mare, like the female of 

 other animals, will frequently throw back to the male with 

 which she was, at some anterior time, mated. If, therefore, 

 a mare happens, unknown to her present owner, to have been 

 put to a cart-horse, she may, when mated with an eligible 

 thoroughbred, drop a colt with the quarters of a blood-horse 

 and the head and neck of a Dobbin ; and though this may 

 not affect the horse's performances, it will affect its appear- 

 ance, and what is more to the point, the price. The first 

 thing, then, is to ascertain the history of the mare from 

 which it is proposed to breed, and if this be impossible, it 

 will be best to leave her alone, or, at any rate, not to pin 

 one's hopes on anything she may breed. 



What kind of mare is most likely to help her owner to breed 

 a weight-carrying hunter is a question which it is practically 

 impossible to answer. A mare, which to outward appearance 

 is just what a hunter brood-mare should be, is necessarily 

 made up of several strains ; and her produce may take after 

 some of her ancestors just as they may favour some horse with 

 which she may have been mated, as mentioned above. If cart 



