CLIPPING 19s 



Very few saddlers know how to make them properly 

 — scarcely ever cutting them deep enough or long 

 enough for full-sized horses. I am, however, a great 

 advocate for warm clothing in the stable. It promotes 

 the insensible perspiration that is always going on 

 through the pores of the skin, and tends to keep horses 

 in health. 



It may be expected that I say something on the 

 practice of clipping hunters. The grand object of a 

 groom is to make his horses look as if they were well 

 groomed, which they cannot do unless they have 

 a fine short coat ; therefore, of course, he conceives 

 a fine short coat to be conducive to health and con- 

 dition, and no doubt it is. I should certainly prefer 

 seeing a horse of mine with a fine short coat without 

 the aid of clipping ; but if that were not to be accom- 

 plished, I would certainly have him clipped. The 

 advantages of a short, and the disadvantages of a long 

 coat, I have already treated of. 



As it always has been, and ever will be, with most 

 innovations on old-established systems, objections 

 have been made to clipping horses, and some silly 

 reasons given for them. That they may be susceptible 

 to cold, if exposed to it soon after the operation, is 

 rational to conclude ; but in all my inquiries from the 

 owners of such horses I did not find this had been the 

 case. One gentleman gave it a pretty good trial. 

 His horse was finished clipping on the Thursday, 

 and he swam or forded a canal three times with him 

 on the Friday with Lord Berkeley's stag-hounds, and 

 he was not the least the worse for it. Fat sheep, 



