358 STABLE ECONOMY. 



seems unnecessary for me to enter into detail ; all that I could 

 say about racing would be of very little use to anybody. 



COACHING. The horses employed in stage-coaches, mails, 

 canal-boats, railways, and other public conveyances, are all 

 prepared for work in nearly the same way ; some difference, 

 nowever, must be made according to the pace and the horse's 

 condition. The proprietor usually allows a certain time to 

 feed and to exercise the horse. It is supposed by a great 

 many, that a new, an unseasoned horse, can not be in con- 

 dition for work till he has been fed for some days or weeks 

 upon hard food, oats, beans, and hay ; some exercise is given, 

 but, in general, I think not enough. They speak and act as 

 if the feeding were the most essential part of the preparation. 

 It is a great deal ; but the exercise is quite as important. 

 There is no kind nor quantity of food, that will, by itself, put 

 a horse into condition for fast work. Unless he have exercise, 

 gradually increasing in speed and distance as he can bear it, 

 and increased till it closely resemble the work, the work can 

 not be done easily nor safely. 



The ordinary length of a stage is eight miles ; but the 

 owner of a large stud should endeavor to have some four-mile 

 stages. At this short distance, unseasoned horses can easily 

 be prepared for the longer stages, and while under prepara- 

 tion they are earning their food. 



Some proprietors give physic and some bleed, but unless 

 the horse be lusty, or very large-bellied, or the weather very 

 hot, physic and blood-letting are not imperiously demanded. 



In Mr. Lyon's stud the preparation is short and simple. 

 Upon the first day the horse is tried in harness. If very fat, 

 he gets one dose of physic, but in general no medicine is giv- 

 en. The horse is put at once upon working diet; he gets 

 walking and trotting exercise for a week or ten days, and sub- 

 sequently he goes to the road. In the first fortnight the horse 

 may do only half work, going, perhaps, only half a journey 

 every time he is out, or a whole journey every second or third 

 day. By the end of four or five weeks, the horse is usually 

 ready for full work. 



Mr. Fraser, of the Eagle Inn, usually puts each new horse 

 through a course of physic, generally consisting of three 

 doses He believes that the physic renders the horse less 

 liable to inflammatory complaints ; and when he is fat, it cer 

 tainly does so. Some, however, do not need three doses, and 

 some do not get more than one or two. 



The work performed by coach-horses varies from fifty to 



