134 THE HUNTING FIELD 



brought in, and dividing and subdividing trades, 

 professions, and occupations. The first thing a lad 

 does now-a-days is to set up a watch, after which, if 

 his mind incline towards horses, he buys what he 

 calls a " printed book " about them, and thinks 

 himself equal to Field, Mavor, or Goodwin. The 

 real requirements of horses are very few and very 

 simple : good food, good grooming, good stables, 

 and work proportionate to the food and constitution. 

 Apportioning the food to the work is a thing that 

 never enters the heads of nine-tenths of the horse 

 kissers, calling themselves Grooms ; their great 

 anxiety always being to get as much food down each 

 horse's throat as they possibly can. They are quite 

 unhappy if they can't cram four feeds down a day. 

 We would rather see them keen about giving them 

 plenty of exercise than plenty of corn. It is in the 

 exercising department that half the stable servants 

 fail. Young lads are especially slack, and some have 

 the still worse trick of trying to put two hours' exercise 

 into one by hurrying, trotting, and cantering. We 

 have seen urchins rushing with their horses out of 

 the stables, jumping up, snatching their bridles, and 

 cutting away as if they were riding for the midwife, 

 instead of going out in that leisurely, orderly way, that 

 belongs peculiarly to the word exercise — exercise in 

 contradistinction to errands or work. Indeed there is 

 not one boy in fifty fit to be trusted with horses, we 

 mean fit to be left in the entire charge of them. 

 They should always have a man over them. Let the 

 reader recall the equestrian performances of his own 

 boyish days, the hurried and protracted ride, the secret 

 gallop, the stealthy leap, the quiet race, and say 

 whether he would have been a fit person to trust 

 with a valuable horse at that time of life. Talk of 

 years of discretion at one-and-twenty ! Let a man 

 of forty ask himself if he was discreet at one-and- 

 twenty. 



