In fact, horse-dealing cuts both ways; the purchasers often expect to buy too cheaply, and the seller is disappointed if he turns out a good, sound horse at a price too low to reap any benefit out of the risk of buying, or breeding, and the chances of disease or accident whilst in his possession.

As a rule probably harness-horses-especially well-matched pairs-pay better than hunters. But the motor-car industry has somewhat hurt the sale of carriage horses, but has not affected the price of really good hunters well known with first-rate packs. Rich men will continue to keep motors and hunters, and the reason for this statement is verified by the big prices which hunters make at Warner, Shepherd, & Wade's Horse Repository, Leicester, and also at Tattersall's.

With horses, use this golden rule, and know yourself what you want to do. Is it a racer? Then your object presumably is to win races. Is it a steeplechaser? Then your object is to win steeplechases. And in both cases see that it is well trained, ridden, and entered in such events that it will perform as you desire, and win-for we are only discussing straight people. Is your horse a mere commercial speculation? If so, treat it as such, and reckon every penny you spend on this business enterprise; for horsedealing requires that no money should be fooled away before you have found a customer who will write a big cheque that will be honoured. Above all, know what object you have in view with a horse. If you fancy you have an equine

treasure you are keeping for your own comfort, treat him as such; and never take a few pounds profit for an animal that suits you, if you can afford to keep it. It will never pay you; as if suited, you cannot replace the horse you have just sold so easily as you imagine.

With horses have a fixed object in view, and strive to attain it, and recollect that most horses can be greatly improved if properly cared for and ridden or driven well. Most half-bred horses are bred on careless lines, and therefore turn out in an unsatisfactory manner-breeders paying a good deal of attention about the sire and too little over the dam. You must breed from sound dams and sound sires if you wish to breed sound stock. And you must break a hunter in the manner in which a hunter should be broken if you wish to make a decent price. Yet these obvious truisms are rarely observed. Are they? Ask anybody who has made a life study of equine matters, and the answer will be, "Very rarely."

MATING THOROUGHBREDS

It is impossible to be sure of obtaining a good result from mating a valuable sire horse with a first-rate mare. As an instance of this, the case of Simon Magus is worth quoting-a horse bred at Welbeck by the present Duke of Portland. The sire of Simon Magus was the renowned St. Simon; the dam was Wheel of Fortune, a mare which, during her racing career, the late Fred Archer declared to be the best he ever rode.

This photograph of a celebrated blood-mare at the Welbeck Stud is published by the kind permission of her breeder and owner
His Grace the Duke of Portland. This portrait should be compared with those of Ormonde' and of 'Donovan,

and the contrast between being in' and 'out' of 'training' will be rendered obvious.

Yet, though so advantageously bred from a racing point of view, Simon Magus proved a failure on the Turf, and never repaid his cost of breeding. The same owner-the Duke of Portland also could number amongst his numerous triumphs the best heavy-weight horse in the world. It is true that he did not breed this prodigy of the hunting-field-an enormous horse, almost ideally shaped, with perfect manners, an enormous weight character, good tempered, and as agile as a polo-pony. Yet how was it bred? The answer shows the lottery of breeding. Its sire was a good horse, its dam a useful mare; and though they produced several othersbesides the valuable hunter just described-none of them proved to be much above mediocrity.

There is no doubt whatsoever that jumping runs in certain families, of which Ascetic, the sire of many steeple-chase winners, is an excellent example. Yet Ascetic was not a flyer on the flat.

The truth of the matter about breeding horses seems to lie halfway between certain laws which have been laid down in books, and also between judges of soundness and suitability in mating. To prove this theory we may take breeders who, having a natural eye for a "blood 'un," start a stud on cheap lines, and purchase a mare who is well shaped, or has a first-rate pedigree, or maybe both, and, by judiciously mating her to a horse which rectifies her faults, produces a yearling which makes money, and another which makes still more, until at length that breeder has gained