THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 303 



horse-laugh originally against them by Bracken and 

 Gibson ; and could we but both reason and experiment 

 away the exhausting, enfeebling, spirit-galling, crip- 

 pling sweat, we should render our training and running 

 stable system very near to perfection ; which indeed 

 already is, with the above stated exceptions, the most 

 correct, maturely considered, and comfortable to the 

 horse, of any other in existence." 



In continuation, the same writer says, " Speed ma- 

 terially depends on the freshness, elasticity, and healthy 

 tone of the sinews, which one would suppose can 

 scarcely be promoted by a weekly laborious and 

 fatiguing gallop of four or six miles, under a weight, 

 alive or dead, of perhaps fifteen or sixteen stone, the 

 horse not perhaps fairly able to race with twelve ; all 

 horses, besides, whatever their powers, age, nature, or 

 constitution, being treated in the same way. If there 

 be any satisfactory experimental proofs to invalidate 

 the above arguments, such have not reached me : I 

 have never heard any other plea for the necessity 

 of forcibly reducing running-horses to the state of hone- 

 leanness, than that of custom and opinion ; and to 

 dismiss this part of the subject, granting that a severe 

 method of training would ensure a somewhat greater 

 superiority of performance, would it not be preferable 

 on all hands to give up such an advantage, if an ad- 

 vantage it can be deemed, for compassion's sake in the 

 first instance, and for the considerable benefits of pre- 

 serving the limbs of the horses in a sound state, and 

 more to be depended upon, and of lengthening the 

 duration of their service ?" 



