BUYING PRIVATELY. 71 



the season opens, for dealers must necessarily pass 

 horses on as quickly as possible, and many horses 

 which come out of dealers' yards are far too fat, and 

 quite devoid of condition. Some, indeed, bought quite 

 early in the autumn are not fit to hunt before Christmas, 

 and others, having been fattened up on soft food, go all 

 wrong for a time when put on to hard food and on a 

 system of regular work. At most dealers' establish- 

 ments a would-be purchaser has the option of a trial, 

 and can, if he so desires, jump the horse he tries over a 

 variety of fences, while he can always gallop him, and 

 ascertain for himself whether the horse has comfortable 

 action. But the man who is quite new at buying horses 

 should always take an expert with him, and, if the expert 

 approves of a certain horse which the novice also Hkes, 

 there is little more to be done beyond the veterinary 

 examination, and in this I have very little faith. If 

 a horse is galloped for his wind, and it is ascertained 

 that he is clear in his pipes, the matter of limb sound- 

 ness must be more or less a question of observation, 

 unless the horse has some very palpable fault. If a 

 horse is sound in all his paces it is, in my opinion, 

 little use suggesting that this formation suggests side 

 bones, and that formation suggests spavin or curbs, 

 for these suggestions are almost invariably made, 

 and yet so often come to nothing. At the moment 

 I know of two valuable weight-carrying hunters, on 

 which a well-known sportsman hunts hounds every 

 week, and one was rejected by several veterinaries for 

 incipient side bones five years ago, whilst two veterin- 

 aries pronounced the other a roarer when he was five 

 years old. The last-named horse has done eight seasons 



