SELECTING.
In selecting an animal, the character of the work for which he is required should be taken into consideration. For example, in choosing a hack, you will consider whether he is for riding or for draught. In choosing a hunter, you must bear in mind the peculiar nature of the country he will have to contend with.
A horse should at all times have sufficient size and power for the weight he has to move. It is an act of cruelty to put a small horse, be his courage and breeding ever so good, to carry a heavy man or draw a heavy load. With regard to colour, some sportsmen say, and with truth, that “a good horse can’t be a bad colour, no matter what his shade.” Objection may, however, be reasonably made to pie-balls, skew-balls, or cream-colour, as being too conspicuous,—moreover, first-class animals of these shades are rare; nor are the roan or mouse-coloured ones as much prized as they should be.
Bay, brown, or dark chestnuts,[4] black or grey horses, are about the most successful competitors in the market, and may be preferred in the order in which they are here enumerated. Very light chestnut, bay, and white horses are said to be irritable in temper and delicate in constitution.[5]
Mares are objected to by some as being occasionally uncertain in temper and vigour, and at times unsafe in harness, from constitutional irritation. More importance is attached to these assumed drawbacks than they deserve; and though the price of the male is generally from one-fourth to one-sixth more than that of the female, the latter will be found to get through ordinary work quite as well as the former.
To judge of the Age by the Teeth.—The permanent nippers, or front teeth, in the lower jaw, are six. The two front teeth are cut and placed at from two to three years of age; the next pair, at each side of the middle ones, at from three and a half to four; and the corner pair between four and a half and five years of age, when the tusks in the male are also produced.
The marks or cavities in these nippers are effaced in the following order:—At six years old they are worn out in the two centre teeth, at seven in the next pair, and at eight in the corner ones, when the horse is described as “aged.”
After this, as age advances, these nippers appear to change gradually year by year from an oval to a more detached and triangular form, till at twenty their appearance is completely triangular. After six the tusks become each year more blunt, and the grooves, which at that age are visible inside, gradually wear out.
The Hack to Ride.—A horse with a small well-shaped head seldom proves to be a bad one; therefore such, with small fine ears, should be sought in the first instance.