If the horse is undersized the dealer will try to stand him with the hind feet low. In the stable or yard everything is prepared so that this may be easily done. Another plan is to put on abnormally thick shoes, or those having calkins; the animal’s head is kept lowered so that the withers will be correspondingly heightened. Opposite methods are practised when a horse is a trifle too high for show-yard requirements or mating, and such tricks have given buyers of horses for the army no end of trouble.
When a horse is to be measured stand him on a level floor and then see that the measuring is honestly done.
Secrets About Stallion Selling.
Palming Off a Grade Stallion on a Company.
The fact that several bogus pedigree registry associations are in existence, although they have not received the approval of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, makes it possible for dishonest stallion peddlers to obtain fraudulent registry certificates and, by using them, to fool the farmer. It would be well if no registry associations were allowed to engage in the interstate business of recording the pedigrees of breeding animals without first obtaining the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture.
A stallion whose sire was said by the owner to be “Middleton II” and out of a dam of part Morgan blood, was given a grade license certificate by the Department of Horse Breeding, of the College of Agriculture, of the University of Wisconsin. Some time later the horse changed hands and the buyer, who was an experienced organizer of stallion companies, had him recorded in a bogus stud book which issues a handsome, gold sealed registry certificate. On this the stallion was given an entirely new and wholly false pedigree, the sire being set forth as “Grove Revenue” and the dam as a well-bred Shire. On the strength of this attractive registry certificate of notable ancestry and the help of a few confederates, the stallion was sold to a company of hard-working farmers in one of the northern counties of the state for $1,800 in shares of $75 each. Some of the notes were discounted and the peddler disappeared, but now the matter is in the courts, as the Department of Horse Breeding discovered the swindle and put the company “wise.”
Another case has been discovered where a grade stallion was sold for a good price as pure-bred on the strength of a registry certificate from the stud book alluded to and “imported” according to the statement of the peddler. The owner in this case also learned too late that he had fallen a victim to sharpers, and will now seek redress in the courts.