34 HORSE-MASTERSHIP 



it the right way. The first necessity, of 

 course, is food and drink, and I am not going 

 to assume that any of you who have paid me 

 the compliment of coming here to listen to 

 me to-night are so ignorant of the horse that 

 you need to be told what to feed him on. 

 None of you would complain to your com- 

 pany officer that your horse had failed to 

 " pick up his seed." You all know, too, that 

 you should always water your horse before 

 you feed him, but I wonder if you all know 

 why you should do this ? The reason is very 

 simple. The horse's stomach is, for the size 

 of the animal, remarkably small, and has a 

 remarkably large opening into the duodenum 

 or first stage of the small intestine. If, 

 therefore, you water your horse when his 

 stomach is full of *'seed," the water which 

 passes at once from the stomach to the 

 intestines carries with it much of the oats 

 before the latter has had time to be properly 

 acted upon by the gastric juices. It therefore 

 passes along through the animal undigested 

 and passes out with the waste. And this 



