DRINKING ON A JOUENEY. 295 



owner, who has entrusted his horse to a man without 

 having ascertained that his subordinate knows any- 

 thing about the animal. 



So universal is this custom of keeping the horse 

 too long without food and then trying to make up 

 by over-feeding it, that even in high-class stables 

 there are few horses which have not more or less 

 suffered from it. A veterinary surgeon of long ex- 

 perience stated that he ' never dissected the carcase 

 of an aged animal without finding the capacity of the 

 stomach morbidly enlarged, and the walls of the 

 viscus rendered dangerously thin by repeated dis- 

 tension.' 



A groom who knows anything of the structure 

 of the horse will always bear in mind the all-important 

 maxim in feeding the horse^ i.e. LITTLE AND OFTEN. 



Then there comes the question of the amount of 

 WATER which a horse ought to have, and when it 

 ought to have it. The answer is simple enough. 

 Let the animal drink when it likes and as much as it 

 likes, and it will never damage its stomach by over- 

 drinking. 



In this country there still prevails an idea, or 

 rather a superstition, that if a horse be allowed to 

 drink freely before starting on a journey, he will 

 become broken-winded by the end of it. I say 

 especially ' in this country,' because in America no 



