72 



AGE. 



To be able to ascertain the age of a hors,e, with 

 tolerable certainty, from three to nine years old, is a 

 subject of considerable importance to every person 

 who may have occasion to purchase. Unless we pos- 

 sess this information, we are subject to the imposition 

 and to become the sport of every jockey, whose vice 

 and depravity frequently surpass those of the most 

 untractable horse. Some judges undertake to tell 

 the age until a horse is fifteen or twenty years old, 

 which in my opinion is impossible ; they merely make 

 a guess, without any rule by widen they are governed, 

 and four times out of five they labour under a mistake. 

 If I am enabled to describe such marks and appear- 

 ances as will make any person a judge of a horse's 

 age, from three to nine's years old, I shall conceive I 

 have performed a useful task, and shall be the means 

 of preventing many impositions. Horses that have 

 not arrived at three years of age, are unfit for use, 

 and those that are more than nine, decrease in value 

 with great rapidity. All that are particularly fond of 

 horses, will always be filled with regret on viewing an 

 elegant horse worn out with old age, yet possessing 

 strong marks of beauty, and even former fine and 

 graceful actions. It is to be much lamented that so 

 beautiful an animal should so soon feel decay and be no 

 longer useful. I shall proceed to lay down such rules 

 for ascertaining the age of a horse, as will enable any 

 man to speak with tolerable certainty on that subject. 

 Every horse has six teeth above and below ; befoie he 

 arrives at the age of three he sheds his two middle 

 tooth, by the young teeth rising and shoving the old 



