243 



such high weights, as in any part of the business of the Race-horse ; and 

 that injudicious training, and particularly the treating all Horses alike, 

 however dissimilar their constitutions, is tl)e chief malady of those 

 Horses, which are seldom well to run. It is here a very apt question, 

 from what cause are derived those injuries to the back sinews, to use the 

 language of the stable, with which all running Horses, and indeed, all 

 hacks and hunters, are more or less afflicted ? Not, assuredl}^ from want 

 of exercise. Perhaps a judicious sportsman might obtain more sound 

 and successful racing from less exercise. It is a speculation which well 

 merits attention, not indeed, from the mere practical groom, who m orks 

 by rule and line, and curry-comb and scrajier, but from the sportsman, 

 who has some running in his head, to tally with that which he finds in 

 his Horse. 



With respect to the hardy Horse, who thrives in his exercise, and 

 maugre the laudable diligence of the training groom, still appears too 

 fat to run, I conceive there is a more certain rule of judgment than by 

 the eye. If such a Horse is ready and active with his legs, if, in his 

 sweats and brushing gallops, his bellows work clear and unembarrassed, 

 his apparently superfluous flesh will never make him a pound the worse, 

 whether in one mile or four, although I am convinced, the common 

 attempts to get it off, invariably do. 



In lameness and the treatment of the legs and feet of Horses, I 

 have always acknowledged, and it is an undoubted fact, that racing- 

 grooms are far superior to all others ; still it is a case in wliich a supe- 

 rior skill is required, and it Avould be too much to expect, that our 

 grooms should be also sound phisiologists. There is nothing more dif- 

 ficult to determine, than the existence or extent of the injuries affecting 

 those fibres or threads, by which that wonderful piece of work the ani- 

 mal machine is sewn together. A Horse is suddenly let down in the 

 sinews, but the injury may have been of gradual access, increasing ne 

 cessarily with his excercise. At first, perhaps, a few muscular fibres 

 were strained, that is, stretched beyond their natural limit of exten- 

 sion, or ruptured; the parts affected become, in consecjuence, more 

 liable, and repetitions of the accident ensue, until the joints and tendons 

 are disabled. It requires a practised hand and eye, and critical ^kill, to 



2 I 2 detect 



