CLIPPING, SINGEING, AND TRIMMING 279 



than are used in ordinary dressing are adopted. With some breeds and 

 individuals the winter coat is not very much longer and coarser than that of 

 the summer ; but all, save blind horses, show more or less difference in 

 favour of the summer coat. Curiously enough, horses which are totally 

 deprived of sight, have almost invariably a good winter's coat, often better 

 than that which they show at other seasons ; but why this is so no one has 

 ever been able to explain, though I have never known the fact disputed.^ 

 About the middle of October, or early in November, the summer coat is 

 thrown off; but some of the hair appears to remain as a sort of under-coat, 

 among which the long, coarse hairs of winter make their appearance. These 

 continue growing for six weeks or two months if they are clipped or singed, 

 and even after Christmas, if the weather is cold and the skin is much 

 exposed, there will be an evident increase in length of some of the hair. In 

 accordance with the growth of this on the body is that of the hair on the 

 legs, which become feathered all the way down below the knees in the fore- 

 legs, and half-way down the backs of the cannon-bones in the hind-legs. 

 Low-bred horses have more hair on these parts than thoroughbreds ; but 

 even these latter, if they are not stabled tolerably warmly, exhibit a great 

 deal of hair on their legs. Those who can see no possibility of improving 

 on Nature come to the conclusion that this long hair is a defence against 

 the cold, which ought not to be removed, and they argue that clipping and 

 singeing are on that account to be rejected altogether. But these gentlemen 

 forget that the horse in his native plains has always a short coat, and that 

 the winds and rains, which cause him here to throw out an extra protection, 

 are not natural to him. Moi'eover, if the animal is left to follow his own 

 impulses, even when turned out in this country, he will be all the better for 

 his long coat, for while it has the great advantage of protecting him from 

 the cold, it is not wetted by sweat, because he does not voluntarily gallop 

 long and fast enough to produce that secretion. The natural protection is 

 therefore undoubtedly good for the horse when left in a state of nature ; 

 but when man steps in and requires the use of the horse for such work as 

 will sweat him severely, he discovers that a long coat produces such great 

 exhaustion, both during work and after it, that it entirely forbids the 

 employment of the horse for hunting, or any fast work. I have myself 

 many times found it impossible to extend a horse for any distance on account 

 of his long coat, which distressed him so much as to make him blow directly, 

 whereas on removing it with the clipping scissors he could gallop as lightly 

 as a racehorse, and be able to go as fast and as far again as before. When 

 this happens in the course of the week following the previous failure, the 

 only change made being in the coat, there can be no mistake made, and a 

 constant repetition of the same result leaves no room for dispute as to the 

 beneficial effects of removing the hair. But, say the opponents of the plan, 

 " All this may be true, yet it is unsafe to expose the clipped horse after he 

 has been warmed, or indeed at any time." Experience tells a very different 

 tale, and informs us that so far from making the horse more liable to cold, 

 clipping and singeing render him far less so. Suppose one of ourselves to 

 be exposed to a cold wind, should we rather have on a thin dry coat or a 

 thick wet one ? Assuredly the former, and undoubtedly the wearer of it 



' It has since been " disputed " in the columns of The Field (1898). The editor is, how- 

 ever, aUe to confirm Stonehenge's statement from his own oljservations. 



