“One cannot go to buy a horse with a tape-measure, but certain proportions are well enough to keep in mind. The length of the head of a well-proportioned horse is almost equal to the distance; (1) from the top of the withers to the point of the shoulder; (2) from the lowest point of the back to the abdomen; (3) from the point of the stifle to the point of the hock; (4) from the point of the hock to the lower level of the hoof; (5) from the shoulder blades to the point of the haunch. Two and a half times the length of the head gives: (1) the height of the withers and the height of the croup above the ground, and (2) very nearly the length from the point of the shoulder to the extreme of the buttock.” The tape-measure test is all very well, but if a man does not have an eye for a horse he will never be able to select a good one by mathematics. And an eye for a horse is a singular endowment. I have known men of proved intellectuality quite incapable of learning about horses. Also I have known men who, in the ordinary affairs of life were very fools but who knew good horses by a kind of instinct. The man with an eye for a horse takes the whole animal in at a glance; his minute examination, in nine cases out of ten only confirms his instant judgment. When I am buying a horse I do not need to hesitate very long. I have inspected and bought as many as twenty in a day, giving not more than fifteen or twenty minutes to each horse. Yet these purchases in the main have been satisfactory. No one of them, however, was my ideal. In a general way, all horses should have certain points. Therefore general rules apply in all the types, from the Pony to the Percheron. Every horse should have (1) a bony head and small ears; (2) medium-sized eyes, neither protruding nor sunken, and without an excess of white in the pupil; (3) the forehead should be broad; (4) the face should be straight and neither concave nor convex; (5) the neck should be small and lean, its length regulated by the size of the head and the weight of the shoulders, the head being so joined to the neck that the neck seems to control the head instead of the reverse; (6) the shoulders should be oblique or sloping; (7) the back should be short; (8) the ribs should be well rounded, definitely separated and full of length; (9) the legs should be flat and lean, with knees wide from side to side and flat in front, the upper bone of the leg being long and muscular in proportion to the lower or the common bone; (10) the feet should be moderately large; (11) the pasterns should be long rather than short, but, better still, neither long nor short; (12) the hair should be short and fine. I might have added another point, making thirteen in all, but for luck I stop at the dozen, feeling sure that if any of my readers gets a horse with the good points noted he will have a treasure beyond the lot of most men and maybe far beyond his deserts.