LETTER V 



HOT AND COLD STABLES — TREATMENT AFTER A SEVERE 

 DAY — CLOTHING — HAY AND WATER — CLEANLINESS 

 — OVER-REACHING 



I NEVER had a hunter go bUnd in my possession, 

 although I have always used very warm stables, 

 not lower than 63° of the thermometer in the 

 winter time. As to coughs being produced by 

 hot stables, I should much sooner suspect them to be 

 the produce of cold or damp ones. In a large mass of 

 blood, as in the horse, humours will circulate ; and 

 there is in some horses a strong disposition to get 

 flesh and become plethoric, which accounts for their 

 becoming foul in their work so much sooner than others, 

 and requiring so much more work to prepare them for 

 the field or the starting post. When Goosander, the 

 dam of Sailor, winner of the Derby in 1820, was in 

 training, they were obliged to stop and sweat her the 

 fourth day on a journey — such was her aptitude to 

 get flesh. 



Although with all descriptions of horses this is the 

 better extreme of the two, it is very injurious to legs. 

 I once had a horse of this description, which it was 

 with difficulty I could keep in any place without 

 knocking his legs to pieces with work. I sold him to a 



