HOT AND COLD STABLES 75 



friend for a large sum, and entreated him not to turn 

 him out with his other horses in the summer, as, know- 

 ing his constitution, I feared the consequence — ex- 

 clusively of the loss of two years' condition which he 

 then had in him. He, however, was turned out, and 

 came up extremely fat, with what is called a grass 

 cough upon him. In a fortnight after he had been in 

 the stable, he was attacked with inflamed lungs, and 

 in a month he was broken-winded. 



It is quite a mistaken notion that a horse with a 

 long coat on his back is less liable to catch cold than 

 one that has a short one. Were I in a situation in 

 life that required my riding about the country, putting 

 my horse into all sorts of stables, and trusting him to 

 all sorts of grooms, I would use every means to put 

 a good coat on him ; and for the following reason : 

 in the first place, it lies closer to him, and is warmer ; 

 and in the next, it is much sooner dry. When a horse 

 has a long hollow coat upon him, the wind blows it up 

 and exposes his skin ; but, what is worse than all, 

 it is many hours before it is dry after a sweat, or rain, 

 during which time it must contain all the chilling 

 properties of wet clothes. A horse with a short fine 

 coat is not subject to that sudden and premature 

 shedding of it which Mr Richard Lawrence, in his 

 excellent paper on diseases of the lungs mentions as 

 one of the causes of inflammatory attacks. Although 

 the skin maybe said to be generally the complexion 

 of a horse, there are some horses which no exertions 

 of a groom can get to wear a good coat, and are ex- 

 ceptions to the rule of looking well and being well, of 



