CHAPTER VII 
THE SIRE 
EXPERIENCE leads me to believe that every farmer 
who is the owner of a mare, whether she be good, 
bad, or indifferent, considers nearly every merit of 
her offspring to be derived from the dam, and 
certainly every fault from the sire. If it is a ques- 
tion of colour, the mare may have a white face, 
a white leg, and a white heel; the irate owner then 
spreads the news from market to market that so- 
and-so’s Cleveland stallion marks his stock with 
white, and the rumour travels round that Mr. Caff’s 
foal by Brilliant Bay has a white foot—and Brilliant 
Bay’s season is spoiled. I know of one curby- 
hocked mare that has had many curby-hocked foals 
by various sires, but I never heard the owner admit 
that anything but the horse was to blame on the 
few occasions when he would acknowledge that there 
was anything there at all; he knows better, but the 
horse is debited with the fault. A library of 
jeremiads might be written by those who have 
travelled stallions in rural districts. The owner of 
the best of horses has to bear the weight of all the 
faults of all his sires’ sons and daughters, and often 
but few of the honours. He hears fictions and false- 
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