320 STABLE ECONOMY. 



fat and other superfluities. The water should be tepid, for 

 when cold it increases the horse's desire for it, and enough to 

 make him feed is sufficient. 



It is usual to give the horse a short gallop after his sweat- 

 ing, and after he has been dried ; when he is able to take the 

 exertion and to suffer so much exhaustion in one day, the 

 practice is unobjectionable ; but sweating, whether with or 

 without exertion, does not render a gallop immediately after- 

 ward at all necessary. Some gentle exercise, however, is 

 often useful, to prevent perspiration from breaking out after 

 the horse is dressed. 



I think this mode of sweating, without exertion, is the best 

 for lusty horses, with defective legs. It is most necessary at 

 the commencement of training, and may be practised two or 

 three days after the first dose of physic sets. It removes so 

 much of the fat that the horse may afterward proceed to ex- 

 ertion, which would have endangered his legs, had it been 

 given before the sweating. This sweating merely removes 

 fat. It confers no energy upon the muscles, nor capacity 

 upon the lungs, beyond that they acquire from having greater 

 freedom of action. This kind of sweating is never necessary 

 for horses already low in flesh ; and it need never be repeated 

 while the legs can safely carry the body. 



Sweating with Exertion. It is only in racing and in hunt- 

 ing stables that horses are put through this process. When 

 the training-groom speaks of sweating, he means sweating 

 with exertion. The horse is put through his physic, and 

 prepared for sweating by several days or weeks of walking 

 exercise, varied by an occasional gallop. If the sweating and 

 exertion must go together, it is very necessary to prepare the 

 horse for the process by some gentler exertion, for it is a very 

 severe one. If the horse be very lusty, he goes daily to 

 walking exercise. After a time he is put to a short gallop, 

 varying in speed and distance according to his age. It should 

 at the first two or three trials not exceed half the distance he 

 is to go in his sweat ; if he suffer that, without distress, it is 

 gradually lengthened till he is able to go nearly, or quite as 

 far as the sweating distance. If the trial gallop distress him, 

 he returns for a few days to gentler exercise, and the pace 

 and distance are increased more gradually. 



Great eafers are muzzled for eight or ten hours before 

 they go to the sweating-ground ; some require to be muz- 

 zled twelve hours, some six, some not at all ; the stomach 

 should not be loaded In the morning, or when the weather 



