JUDGING HORSES 



173 



This is more in response to demands of buyers than to any real 

 depreciation in the serviceability of the horse. The average 

 horseman reckons the probable period of usefulness as the dif- 

 ference between the present age and the age to Avhich the average 

 horse lives ; but there are too many other influences which may 

 impair a horse's usefulness or terminate his existence altogether 

 to make this a sound line of reasoning. A horse that has with- 



FiG. 117. — This horse has a record of twenty-three years in the delivery service of a 

 large city department store. The reason is evident in the superior breeding and conforma- 

 tion which he manifests. 



stood ordinary wear so well that he is comparatively fresh and 

 sound at twelve years of age gives promise of having more years 

 of usefulness ahead of him than the average six-year-old just 

 from the country. Both city stables and the farai afford numer- 

 ous instances of horses that have been from sixteen to twenty 

 years on the job and still give little evidence of the infirmities 

 that are supposed to come Avith advancing years (Fig. 117). The 



