SHOEING COLTS. 53 



mare. The bad will almost always crop out in 

 preference to the good. If more attention were 

 paid to the conformation of both the sire and the 

 dam, we would not be obliged to cope with the 

 large number of misfit animals that are raced to- 

 day. It is not uncommon to hear some of our best 

 horsemen make the remark, that "such a colt has 

 license to be very fast, but he hits his knees, he 

 toes out with one foot," or some other malforma- 

 tion handicaps him from being a world beater. 

 After several years of training, during which time 

 the horse shoers and the boot makei-s derive 

 enough money out of him to buy a good animal, 

 the colt is given up as a bad racing prospect. If 

 a filly, she is retired to the broodmare ranks, to 

 produce more of the same type ; if a stallion, to do 

 stud service, to fill the country with more trouble 

 makers of the sort that drive prospective owners 

 Dut of the game. But this thing has been going on 

 for ages, and the chances are that it will continue 

 as long as the breeders insist on breeding their 

 "pets,!' regardless of conformation, expecting to 

 get perfectly developed animals, that -will do to 

 race and to fix a type of race horse. Many promi- 

 nent stallions, standing at high fees, have been 

 handicapped because wealthy horsemen would in- 

 sist on breeding their worn-out favorite road 

 mares to the stallion then in the lime-light-^Axtell 

 and Bingen are recalled as two examples and there 

 are many more. 



