62 NOTES FOR HUNTING-MEN 



Water, as I have recommended in Chapter III., 



should be always before the horses, and, if this is 



done, I do not think there is ever any 



Water 



danger of an animal drinking too much, 

 or at the wrong time. 



Many stablemen have a holy horror of water as 

 a beverage either for themselves or the animal 

 they look after, and, as regards the latter, at least, 

 they carry their aversion to ridiculous lengths, often 

 stinting horses without cause. I have marched 

 and manceuvred a good deal in England, where one 

 sees thousands of horses, when hot from a field 

 day or long and dusty march, allowed to drink their 

 fill, and I have never known a case of a horse 

 suffering from this practice. It is better, of course, 

 to chill water before it is given to horses which 

 have lately been heated ; but water left standing in 

 buckets in the stable will not usually be too cold for 

 any horse to drink. The quality of water also 

 has a considerable effect on the condition of horses, 

 as one often notices in moving from one station to 

 another, where all the other conditions are exactly 

 the same. Horses do much better on soft water 

 than on hard, which has the effect of making them 

 look unthrifty. I have dwelt on this question of 

 watering because it has a very important bearing on 

 feeding and the condition of the horses generally. 

 You notice this particularly in the army. If two 



