336 THE HORSE 



mouth lest the others should hear : " Shure the dhrink is 

 dying away within me! " 



On such occasions a horse would require about a small 

 tumblerful of spirit, added to a little water, or very thin 

 gruel, given about a quarter of an hour before going to 

 the post. On one occasion in the writer's experience, 

 a horse had left Plymouth for Landrake Eaces at seven 

 o'clock in the morning, and had sixteen miles to traverse 

 before reaching the course. The rider, however, lost his 

 way and wandered about the country lanes in Cornwall, till 

 at last he reached the race-course about half-past two, the 

 race in which he was engaged being at 3 p.m. Under 

 the circumstances it was thought better to give him some- 

 thing in the shape of a drink, as he must have been very 

 thirsty, so a large bottle of beer was procured, which he 

 greedily drank to the last drop. It freshened him up in a 

 wonderful degree, so that he was quite perky when he 

 cantered down the course, and he won his race from a large 

 field by several lengths. In these days such a drench would 

 have been illegal ! 



A stimulant is also most efficacious when a horse is 

 overtired from any cause, or weakened to an extreme degree 

 from severe or prolonged illness, and the pulse is then the 

 indicator of what is required. That must at all costs be 

 kept going, for if that mighty muscle, the heart, once stops 

 nothing can set it going again — unlike a watch, which only 

 requires winding up to be as efficacious as ever. Theory is 

 apt to be allowed to prevail too much sometimes, both 

 in human and equine illness. Many a man has been saved 

 by his comrades in India and the Colonies, who have used 

 their common sense and administered such a dose of alcohol 

 when the collapse occurs after even typhoid fever and 

 cholera, that the heart has been kept going when the 

 patient would have slipped through the fingers of a medical 

 man, who, relying too much on the teaching of books, and 

 fearing after-effects, administers so small a stimulant that it 

 has not sufficient result to be of use. The consequences 

 that might possibly have ensued do not matter, if in the 

 meantime the sufferer has died. 



