STABLE MANAGEMENT. 91 



166. Damp stables. 



The horse in his best and highest form is the native of a dry, warm, 

 sunny country. He loves both warmth and dryness. In damp stables 

 he loses all life and spirit ; and debility, generally followed by disease, 

 soon supervenes. 



New stables should be thoroughly aired and dried before horses are 

 put into them. 



167. Change of stables. 



Horses rarely suffer in health from a change even suddenly from warm 

 to cold stables, provided they are dry ; but a change from cold to warm 

 stables generally produces coughs and colds. 



In like manner horses turned out to grass from warm stables seldom 

 catch cold, whilst those brought into warm stables from the open almost 

 invariably suffer. 



168. Horses brought from grass into stables. 



When horses, which have been lying out at grass or in open yards, are 

 brought into stables, every door and window should for many days be 

 left wide open, and the temperature should only slowly and gradually be 

 increased, and during this transitional period any symptoms of disease 

 should be carefully watched for. 



168a. Horses from the country. 



It is the practice among dealers in large towns, especially with horses 

 fresh from the country, to turn them round for some hours on the side 

 reins or pillar chains in inclement or foggy weather. This changes the 

 atmosphere they breathe, which is never so stagnant in the passages or 

 gangways as at their mangers. 



169. Horses to be cleaned immediately after exercise. 



No one point in stable management should be more strongly insisted 

 on, than that the horse be not allowed after exercise, and especially after 

 fast exercise, to stand without being at once rubbed and cleaned. The 

 reasons for this were given in the latter part of Chapter 6, on Grooming. 



In private stables, when horses are exercised in the morning, it is the 

 common but injurious practice for servants on their return to tie them up 

 and leave their legs wet, whilst they have their breakfasts. An hour or 

 more is often let slip in this way. 



As morning is the most convenient time for exercise, and as servants 

 require breakfast, the evil perhaps cannot be altogether avoided; but it 

 may be much reduced by the master insisting that the legs are dried or 

 bandaged and the horses clothed before the servants leave, and that not 

 more than half an hour is spent at breakfast. 



