TAIL
.—Upon the uniform shape and setting on of a horse's tail, his good or ill appearance greatly depends. When the spine is continued in a curvilinear direction beyond the rump, and the basis of the tail is formed too low in the quarters, the horse is termed "goose-rumped;" and no nicking, or setting, will ever give him the figure of a handsome horse behind. It has been a long-standing maxim, that "a good horse can't be of a bad colour;" and there may probably be some who think a good horse can't have a bad tail; but a little experience, in buying and selling, will convince them, that the difference between the two will be little less than ten or fifteen pounds in a horse of no more than fifty pounds value. Great losses are sometimes sustained for want of a little circumspection at the moment of making a purchase; and this may sometimes proceed from the horse's having some peculiar points of attraction, in the fascinating survey of which the defects are totally absorbed; hence arises the pecuniary deficiency when the subject becomes again to be sold, particularly if to a more prudent and less hasty purchaser. The old sportsman, when going to buy, looks at the horse as if it was really his own, and he was going to sell; in doing which, he estimates his saleable value with an eye of greater accuracy, makes a tolerably fair calculation what he ought with consistency to bid, that he may sustain no great loss, should he have future occasion to sell.