136 THE HUNTING FIELD 



are about, or what he is expected to do. Instead of 

 the quick, self-containing, energetic stride that he 

 takes in the excitement of hunting, he blobs and 

 flounders about, drops his legs and rolls like a bullock 

 till the senseless brute on his back either tires himself 

 or feels the horse failing under him. In sweating, as 

 in ordinary exercising, the compression system the 

 putting an hour's work into half-an-hour is often 

 the fatal fault. We all know that we can sweat a 

 horse by common road riding ; what then is to prevent 

 the necessary reduction of flesh being made quietly 

 under clothing? Nothing, but that it requires more 

 time. Galloping does it quicker, and lads like gallop- 

 ing best. Then the way they saw and haul, and hang 

 on by the mouth is truly awful. 



We remember in the days of our adolescence, fold- 

 ing a shilling in a nice clean crisp " Henry Hase," 

 with the i mark figuring like a raspberry tart at the 

 corner, for the purpose of giving it to the first Groom 

 we met riding on the snaffle, and feeling his horse's 

 mouth as he went. Well, we carried that "Henry 

 Hase " for weeks and months until the shilling wore 

 itself through, and we daresay we might have carried 

 it till now, without meeting with such a rarity in 

 London, as a Groom riding on the snaffle. They all 

 hang on by the curb. 



If a Groom can give a ball and bleed a horse, we 

 would compound for all the other knowledge in favour 

 of that first of all essentials, good "elbow grease" and 

 exercise. "Giving a ball," indeed, is about the extent 

 of some of their ability in the physicing line, the 

 proper preparation of a horse for it being much beyond 

 the march of their intellect. If a horse is difficult to 

 move, instead of lengthening the period of his pre- 

 paration, they increase the quantity of aloes, until we 

 hav6 seen a poor beggar with near a dozen drachms 

 in his guts. In these cases Grooms always swear the 

 aloes are bad, or the bran is bad, or the water is bad, 



