io Among Men and Horses. 



ently used-up * crocks,' had such fire and bottom. * It's the 

 five or six years' corn they have in them that does it,' he 

 replied. This answer has been one of the most useful hints 

 about horses I have ever received ; for its application to 

 horses I have trained, has enabled me to win many races 

 I would otherwise have lost. Instead of ' throwing horses 

 by,' 'letting them down,' and allowing them to convert the 

 most of their muscle into fat, which would have to be subse- 

 quently worked off with probably disastrous effects to the 

 suspensory ligaments and back tendons, I tried as far as 

 possible to keep the corn in them. Without attempting any 

 physiological discussion, I may broadly say that different 

 kinds of food produce different qualities of tissue. Of this fact 

 I had a good practical proof on seeing the manner in which 

 bacon produced from pigs which had been fed principally on 

 horse flesh, conducted itself on being fried or boiled ; for the 

 fat all turned into grease, and the lean into sodden strings. 

 I may mention that these hogs had been kept in the yard of 

 a knacker who thought he might thus economically use the 

 stuff which was not good enough for the manufacture of 

 saveloys. If people knew how much horse offal is given to 

 pigs, they would be more chary than they are of the pro- 

 miscuous eating of pork, bacon, sausages and hams. 



In those days, as at the present time, people in Ireland 

 regarded horses almost entirely from a jumping point of view; 

 and horsemanship, as riding. In these two branches, they 

 had every reason to be proud of their animals and of them- 

 selves ; although in other and equally important points of 

 horse knowledge, they were singularly ignorant. They de- 

 spised driving, except when they were drunk and going at 

 full gallop down a hill as steep as the side of a house. If a 

 farmer had a young hunter for sale, and one asked, as an 

 Englishman would naturally do, if he went in harness, the 

 farmer would feel grossly insulted. Their shoeing was a 

 mutilation ; their veterinary practice, a relic of barbarism ; 

 their ideas on ' make and shape,' a contradiction based on 



