THE HORSE. 3 



one, and the avaricious disposition of the other, thus 

 render it next to impossible to get good sound stock, 

 either to use or to breed from. 



Blood-horses are completely broken doTni with the 

 severity of their early training and racing ; or else, if 

 they continue to run on, and well, for three or four 

 years, they command such enoimous prices, that few 

 localities would remimerate the pm-chaser of a first- 

 class stallion, unless the breeders could be induced to 

 change their present opinions and practice. This, per- 

 haps, is the point at which reform shoidd commence ; 

 and I am inclined to think that those parties who keep 

 brood-mares would willingly incur a much greater ex- 

 pense than they do at present, if they were properly 

 alive to, and aware of, the importance of the matter. 

 In general, they have such ill-digested notions on the 

 subject, that they are better satisfied to pay a small sum 

 for the services of a wretched, weedy, useless animal, 

 than to give a remimerating retimi to the purchaser of a 

 first-rate, sound, and high-priced horse ; in fact, they 

 ^^now so little about the points of a horse, that they 

 generally choose the one whose deformities are hid by 

 a mountain of beef. " Such men," says the sensible 

 author of 'The Pocket and the Stud,' "breed from 

 any mare that wiR breed, get a common countiy forty- 

 shilling sire, or, if theii' aspuing thought carries them 

 so high, some thorough-bred one, whose shape, make, 

 blood, and performance, bring him to about the same 



