BUYING AND SELLING HORSES 185 



Small corky ponies dodge in and out of the 

 crowd. Everyone hopes to sell. The dealers, 

 with the cryptically reserved look without which 

 no dealer is complete, stroll up and closer look- 

 ing for good horses, or for bad ones which they 

 can make look good. It is quite a common thing 

 to see a horse sold on from dealer to dealer in 

 a fair going perhaps from sixty to a hundred 

 and twenty before he goes off to be sold on pri- 

 vately at another big profit. 



The amount of flat catchers which are bought 

 and sold makes one wonder where they go to. 

 The animal which had not touched macadam 

 from here to Foynes would not get far over Bruree 

 country. 



Limerick takes a big hunter and a well-bred 

 one, there are so many places where a horse must 

 stretch himself. Some little horses will do it, but 

 they are not, as a rule, much use here. Some 

 horses jump quite naturally. I bought one. Little 

 Barry, and understood it had been hunted, so 

 took him out. We had a fast hunt from Kilpeacon 

 in which he cheerfully ran away but fenced per- 

 fectly. I found out that he had never seen a 

 hound or worked out of a turnip cart until he 

 came to Limerick. 



The self-satisfied man who comes over here 

 believing that he knows exactly what will go across 

 a country often goes away sadly. " Little light 

 horses," I heard one soldier say, " only thing for 



