241 



lington, with various other noblernen and gentlemen, are also turf 

 breeders on a very extensive scale. 



The training of the Uace-horse consists of walking and galloppino- 

 exercise, including a gallop of four or five miles, every five, seven, or 

 ten days, according to the constitution of the Horse. These periodical 

 runs are styled sweats, their purpose being to sweat away the superfluous 

 and increasing flesh of the Horse, a load under which, he would be 

 unable to exert his utmost speed and continuance. Rising grounds, and 

 and a dry, or sound and elastic turf, are obviously the best adapted to 

 this exercise. Hard, stoney, and unyielding ground, as well as the wet, 

 poachy, and adhesive, it is equally obvious, are most improper; exer- 

 cise on the one species shakes, inflames, and stiftens the joints of 

 Horses, shortening their strides, and cramping their action ; upon the 

 other, fi'om the exertion which the Horses are obliged to use at every 

 stroke, to disengage their feet, they are apt to over-stretch or strain their 

 sinews, generally about the pastern joint, or main tendon, whence their 

 common lamenesses, so diflicult, or rather impossible thoroughly to re- 

 move. This shews the consequence of making a |)roper choice of 

 ground, whether for exercise or for the race. 



The Horses are generally exercised twice a day, in their hoods and bod}'- 

 clothes; in their sweats they are loaded with clothes, in order to produce 

 a copious discharge of perspiration. Having run their sweat, which 

 they perform at a considerable rate, with occasional bursts, they are, or 

 should be, taken into a stable or hovel, to be gradually stripped, and 

 scraped with that ancient implement, the wooden sword, which also 

 served to perform the same oflice for the high-bred coursers at the 

 Olympic games. 



Formerly, the exercise of the Race-horse, was far more toilsome and 

 severe than of late years. He was purged, as though the intent had 

 been to bring away entrails and all, as superfluous weight! Shut up 

 from the light of the sun, as if it would endanger his sight, and kept in 

 the atmosphere of a hot-house, as if in training for the climate of 

 Africa, or a hotter place. From this management, aided by the weight 

 of his clothes, which in his sweats was enormous, he was too commonly 

 in a feverish, faint, and debilitated state, unknown, indeed, because he 



2 I had 



