Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/30

22 The great point then to be aimed at is, the combining in the same animal the maximum of speed compatible with sufficient size, bone, strength, and solid power to carry heavy weights or draw large loads, and at the same time to secure the stock from the probability, if not certainty, of inheriting structural deformity or constitutional disease from either of the parents. The first point is only to be attained, first, by breeding as much as possible to pure blood of the right kind; and, second, by breeding what is technically called among sportsmen and breeders, up, not down: that is to say, by breeding the mare to a male of superior (not inferior) blood to herself,—except where it is desired to breed like to like, as Canadian to Canadian, or Norman to Norman, for the purpose of perpetuating a pure strain of any particular variety, which may be useful for the production of brood mares. By superior blood we mean that which approaches nearer to thorough blood. Thus, a half-bred mare should never be put to a half-bred stallion, as in that case the produce will, in nine cases out of ten, degenerate below the dam; whereas, if she be bred to a thorough-bred the produce will be superior, and will continually improve ad infinitum, by adhering to the same process of breeding up. In the second place, a reasonable probability of raising sound and healthy stock can only be attained by carefully selecting parents free from disease, which is either hereditary, or apt to become so. It is idle for persons at this time of the world, to sneer at the idea of disease or other qualities being hereditary, or transmissible in the blood: it is known, both medically and physiologically, that they are so. All diseases of the lungs and windpipe, known as the heaves, as broken wind, as roaring, whistling, thick wind, and the like, are,