THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 35 



and fibres have lost much of their proper tone and 

 vigour. 



Before I proceed any further on this subject, I do 

 not wish the reader to suppose that I am averse to 

 hunters being turned out, as I before observed, " under 

 favourable circumstances," the nature of which I shall 

 explain hereafter. All that I condemn is the practice 

 of throwing a horse out of his condition by a long run 

 at grass. I am aware that the dews of the evening 

 may be favourable to the feet of horses ; but I also 

 contend that they can, by proper management, receive 

 all those advantages in a loose house during the 

 summer months. As I have set out by promising 

 to assert nothing but what I have experienced the 

 truth of, I shall state the case of a horse of my own 

 which was in my stable for fifteen years, with the 

 exception of one winter's run. He was a thorough- 

 bred horse, and had run several times at Newmarket 

 and other places. He had a chronic cough on him 

 when I first became possessed of him, which affected 

 him after his water, and when he got foul in his body. 

 His feet, as is too often the case with thorough-bred 

 ones, were disposed to contract. He was also a hard- 

 feeding, gorging horse, and took ten drachms of aloes, 

 generally aided by calomel, to stir his bowels. Now, 

 as it was not tried, I cannot presume to say what would 

 have been the result of the experiment ; but I have 

 every reason to believe that had that horse been turned 

 out to grass for half those fifteen summers he would 

 have been broken-winded. When I shot him, at 

 twenty-one years old, he was in beautiful condition ; 



