DEVELOP SPEED IN HORSES. 



CHAPTER 11. 



SHOEING, FEEDING AND WATERING. 



The colt should be shod if worked on dirt roads, and if 

 snow or ice prevail shoe him all around sharp, so he can 

 stand up. Don't shoe him too heavy, a twelve or thirteen 

 ounce shoe in front and an eight ounce shoe behind is 

 heavy enough. If you don't know how to have him 

 shod, go to the best and most intelligent blacksmith you 

 know and tell him you want him shod just as well as he 

 would shoe a trotter, and pay him what he asks, if he is 

 a man of judgment and experience in this kind of shoe- 

 ing. I am not going to write a work on shoeing horses ; 

 there are too many of that kind of publications now, and 

 the more a man reads — the greater part of them — the 

 less he knows. 



In regard to feeding, which is a very important part of 

 our undertaking, I will say: A three-year-old ought to 

 have at least ten quarts of oats a day and what hay he 

 will eat up in an hour, say at night. If you are going to 

 make a practice of driving him early in the morning, give 

 him tw^o quarts of oats and a little water before you 

 hitch him up ; it will stay his stomach and he will feel 

 more like going out. But if you don't work him until 

 late in the forenoon, give him his full feed, four quarts, 

 about six o'clock in the morning, and a little hay. In 

 respect to feeding hay, or grain either, no man can lay 

 down any rule as to how much any horse should con- 

 sume in 24 hours. They want what they need to supply 

 the natural waste of the body and keep them in 

 strength and flesh and growing every day. Here is where 

 judgment comes in play. A colt doesn't want drawing so 

 as to make him look gaunt like an old campaigner, 

 neither do you want to stuff him. In aged horses hay at 

 night only will ordinarily suffice if the horse is a hearty 



