HAY AND WATER 8i 



running, with perhaps a brace of foxes, and upwards 

 of twenty miles home afterwards — are most injurious 

 to hunters, and call forth all the skill and judgment 

 of their grooms to recover them from their effects. 

 If mere fatigue be the consequence, rest, that vis 

 medicatrix naturcB, will do all that is necessary : but 

 if a horse is what is called over-marked, his groom 

 must be on the alert. There are two or three direct- 

 ing symptoms which cannot easily be mistaken. In 

 the first place, his appetite fails him, and he is very 

 greedy for his water. His respiration is not so smooth 

 as it should be, and there is a considerable relaxation 

 in the muscles in the interstices of the hips. Some- 

 times inflammation comes on very rapidly after a 

 hard day, bidding defiance to all precautions, and, 

 too often, if it does not destroy him, renders the horse 

 unfit for a hunter, as it generally terminates in his 

 feet. If he does not cast his hoofs entirely, they be- 

 come what is termed " pumice," and take a long time 

 to recover. Horses that have had fever in their feet 

 generally go on their heels afterwards, and the inside 

 of their feet becomes convex, instead of being concave. 

 I had a remarkable instance in my own stable of 

 the rapidity with which inflammation of this sort 

 attacks horses that have been over-marked. I had 

 seen one very quick thing of fifteen minutes, and 

 another of an hour, over the finest part of Leicester- 

 shire ; and although my horse was at one time a good 

 deal beat, he came home very cheerfully, and I had no 

 reason to expect mischief. Before nine o'clock that 

 night, however, he was quite blind, and nothing but 



