It is far from my purpose to give any advice on the purchasing of horses to professionals or to amateurs who know the subject thoroughly. The professional knows his business so well, or is apt to think that he does, that my advice would be almost an impertinence, while the amateur who thinks he knows is incapable of learning. It is, by the way, a most astonishing thing how few men there are who are willing to confess ignorance as to horses. A little experience makes them wondrous wise. I once heard of a reader for a great publishing house who “turned down” a treatise on the horse because “the writer did not know the subject sufficiently well.” This reader, I learned on inquiry, had studied the subject thoroughly, for one summer a friend lent him a polo pony which was under his constant observation for nearly three months. This conceit that we have in our knowledge of horses whets our appetite for gambling on horse-races, and makes the opportunity of the bookmakers to undo us much greater and surer. It also induces us to make unwise purchases and then conclude that horses are delusions and snares while dealers are rogues of deepest dye. Only a few days before this page was written, I heard of a college professor who bought a pair of horses at a fancy price and without an examination from a veterinary, only to find after reaching his country place that one of the horses was blind. So, while I am sure that advice is needed, I am not at all certain that it is in demand. We all recall the doggerel rule: “One white leg, inspect him; Two white legs, reject him; Three white legs, sell him to your foes; Four white legs, feed him to the crows!” That is advice to which no attention should be paid at all, unless the markings be such that a person looking for a horse positively dislikes. And that is about the only rule I advise a person not to consider in buying a horse. Everything else should be looked over carefully, for pretty nearly everything about a horse has more or less importance, usually more than less.