CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

 THE STABLE AND ITS MANAGEMENT 



BADLY-CONSTRUCTED, badly-kept, and badly- 

 managed stables are the contributing causes to 

 most of the illnesses that horses suffer from. As 

 nine stables out of ten in America are bad in all 

 these three regards, I am confirmed in the belief 

 that horses are very hardy animals instead of the 

 delicate creatures that we sometimes think they 

 are. That so many of them should be equal to 

 hard and continuous work considering the condi- 

 tions that surround them when they are at home 

 is really quite remarkable. Even on breeding 

 farms, where it is the business of the proprietors 

 to rear fine animals for sale, the stables more fre- 

 quently than not are wretched barns not fit even 

 for the lodgement of mules. This is the case in 

 Kentucky, even in the Blue Grass region. In 



many of the stables there I have seen tons of 



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