Sec. 8.] 



HORSES— SIZE OF ROADSTERS. 



103 



TVe shall now give a few useful items for owners of horses of whatever 

 breed, mongrel or thorough-bred. 



138. Driving — The Start. — llie first mile is the most important of the jour- 

 ney. More horses are injured in the start than in the balance of the whole 

 day. You should carefully avoid rapid driving immediately after a horse 

 has been full fed. Many old travelers feed over-night all the grain they 

 intend the horse to cat in the twenty four hours. Others feed at night and 

 at noon, and then give time after the horse has eaten his mess before start- 

 ing, or else drive very slowly for an hour, making up time as night 

 approaches. In all cases when a horse has been fed and watered an hour or 

 two before starting upon a journey or drive of several miles, it is proper to 

 drive slowly for the first mile or two ; but when the feeding and watering 

 have been more recent, the propriety of going along at a jog or easy pace 

 is still more urgent. Colic, founder, broken wind, have all of them resulted 

 from too rapid driving when a horse was full. A friend of ours, a physi- 

 cian, who had occasion sometimes to violate this dictate of good manage- 

 ment in his haste to reach some case of great urgency, once informed us 

 that when he drove at a rapid rate immedialdy after feeding, his horse 

 would scour almost invariably, and seem to suffer considerably. 



Even in such cases where a horse must be driven upon a full stomach, it 

 is better to divide the distance into equal jiarts — say ten miles, which you 

 intend to drive in an hour, and give forty minutes to the first half, and do 

 the other five in twenty minutes. In that case be careful, when you stop, 

 not to leave the horse to cool suddenly. If the weather is hot, and you have 

 driven hard, don't mind trying to get your horse in a cool shade. The sun 

 won't hurt him. 



There is another great error in driving which has often been suggested to 

 us. It is that of constantly urging a horse to exert himself beyond what is 

 natural to him. For instance, if a horse is urged to perform in two hours 

 a distance that he would, at his natural pace, require three hours to do, it 

 will injure him more than four hours' driving at his regular pace; and if 

 this urging is continued all day, he will break down, just as a man would, if 

 urged to double his speed in walking. 



1.]!). Size of Roadsters. — A road horse sliould be about fifteen hands high 

 (a hand being four inches), measured from the top of the shoulder or withers 

 to the grouiul, when the horse stands naturally; his weigiit should be about 

 1,000 lbs. ; for such weight iu an animal fifteen hands high, in moderate 

 flesh, indicates compactness and ]iowcr somewhere. Experience has proved 

 that horses of this size carry their weight better on long journeys, injure 

 their feet less on the pavements and hard roads, and are apt to be more fleet 

 than those of a larger class ; for while greater length and hight will give an 

 increased stride, either running or trotting, the power to gather rajiidly, and 

 especially for long distances, requires much greater muscular exertion in 

 large than in small horses, from the greater weight to be propelled. Our 

 fastest trotters have generally been from this class. 



