THE BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 19o 



of no value beyond the T.Y.C., and hereditary infirmities 

 of all kinds. Bad eyes, bad wind, bad hocks, and suspi- 

 cious ring-bone -looking- fetlocks are all very bad things in 

 a stallion, the more especially if you can trace them. A 

 horse may be blind from accident or ill-treatment, and one 

 of our most eminent veterinarians has assured me that he 

 did not think there were half-a-dozen stallions in England 

 that were not roarers. The injudicious manner, however, 

 in which many stud-horses are kept, what with high feed- 

 ing, hot stabling, and little exercise, might account alike 

 for diseases of the eye and the respiratory organ?. Still 

 beyond what you may deduce from actual appearances, it 

 is always as well to look back a little into the genealogy 

 of the thorough-bred horse. Some lines, for instance, are 

 notorious for the noise they make in the world. Hum- 

 phrey Clinker, the sire of the famous Melbourne, was a 

 bad roarer, as was Melbourne himself, and as are many of 

 his sons and grandsons. Another celebrated Newmarket 

 horse was known to get all his stock with a tendency 

 to ringbone ; and weak hocks give way so soon as you try 

 them. There are clearl3'-admitted exceptions : a stone- 

 blind stallion will get animals remarkable for good eyes, 

 and a thick-winded horse may not reproduce this in his 

 progeny j but as a maxim, wind, eyes, and hocks should 

 be three essentials of anything soimd enough to breed 

 from, be it either sire or dam. I would not so much 

 declare for a big horse as a fair-sized one ; and the 

 saying of a good big- horse being better than a good little 

 one is not quite such a truism as it sounds to be. Fifteen 

 two or fifteen three, with bone and substance, is big- 

 enough for anything ; and when we come to bear in mind 

 the sort of mares such a horse is to be put on, it is per- 

 haps preferable to anything higher. For my own part, I 



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