The Sporting Dictionary, and Rural Repository, Volume 1 (of 2) / Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field

by William Taplin

HOLD

—is a term of trifling import, yet, as it appertains to the important act of propagation between the HORSE and the MARE, its emphatic signification cannot be omitted. When a mare has taken the horse, that is, when copulation is completed, a doubt generally arises, whether the MARE will hold; that is, whether she sufficiently retains the male semen to constitute CONCEPTION. The mare being brought to the horse on the ninth day, from the first time of covering, if she again receives the horse, that alone is held a sufficient proof she did not hold before: she is, nevertheless, brought again to the horse at the end of another nine days, and when she has refused twice to take the horse, she is then said to be STINTED, and no doubt entertained of her being in FOAL.