74 THE HORSE 



Docking and Hogging. 



Mercifully the silly practice of docking hunters seems 

 going out of fashion ; it was a dealer's dodge to make the 

 quarters appear broader than they naturally are, and 

 unthinking sportsmen tumbled into the trap, and were led 

 to believe it looked smart. When it is urged that " it does 

 no harm," the answer is, "Look at horses who have been 

 docked, after a sharp gallop, and compare their appearance 

 with those untouched with the docking knife." If only an 

 inch or two are taken off the bone of the tail no injury 

 may be done, but all horses with short docks will show 

 by the excessive shaking of the stumps that the nerves of 

 the part have been seriously affected. Now that the tails 

 are left long another absurd practice has come into vogue 

 amongst grooms, who must be ever meddling with Nature, 

 which is far more clever than they are, and they pull out 

 all the upper hairs till they make the tail look little more 

 than a rope. A full tail has a beauty of its own, and 

 swings with a charming swagger to the stride of a well-bred 

 horse, but the thing that is now the cherished object of the 

 groom has neither meaning nor beauty. Still the poor 

 horse may be thankful that for the nonce he is not deprived 

 of his tail, and that he has some switch left to defend 

 himself with from the attacks of the flies, when he is 

 allowed the luxury of a run at grass. It is a pitiful sight 

 to watch a horse deprived of his tail tormented with flies 

 in the heat of summer, and obliged to stamp incessantly 

 to obtain the briefest respite from the worrying pests. 

 There is no rest for him, and the constant concussion has 

 a bad effect upon his legs, which is attributed by the groom 

 to the being at grass, and not traced to the real cause, that 

 he has been deprived of his natural weapon and means of 

 defence. When a mare comes to fulfil the first law of 

 nature, and goes to the stud, how much unnecessary misery 

 is she not caused, if she has been docked short in the days 

 of her youth. Besides its office as a defence against flies, 

 the tail is intended to protect very delicate parts from the 

 vicissitudes of weather, and it may easily be observed that 



