THE HORSE. 27 



travellers usually putting up at the same inns, should 

 insist upon the landlords or the ostlers placing all 

 vicious animals apart from other horses, or at least 

 in situations to prevent them doing injury to any 

 but themselves, and especially to strangers who may 

 have occasion to go into the stables. Ostlers fre- 

 quently place these untractable brutes either next 

 the door, or but one remove from it; so that persons 

 having horses in the same stable have to run the 

 gauntlet of the former, while seeing proper atten- 

 tion paid to their own. 



ON CARRIAGE. 



For use, never buy a high-stepper. It is erroneous 

 to imagine that safety depends on this ; so much so 

 that all tumble-downs and stumbling brutes usually 

 step high ; while the daisy- cutter, or horse that would 

 kick a sixpence before him, rarely falls. Both are 

 evils as extremes, and, therefore, as in other cases, 

 the medium is the best rule. The horse that unne- 

 cessarily lifts his feet too high batters them in tread- 

 ing, producing inflammation, besides fatiguing and 

 wearing himself out by overstraining his muscles. 

 The daisy-cutter is liable to a degree of inflamma- 

 tion about the feet, causing him to go lower than he 

 would naturally, in order to lessen the concussion 

 of his feet with the ground and prevent the pain of 

 lifting his legs. With sound horses, a practised judge 

 would in time make them step as high as he pleased ; 

 but all this lofty action is at the best but artificial, 

 and only tends to tire and jade the animal. Lord 

 Ongley's celebrated horse, Coventry, was sold on 

 account of this high action, for three hundred guineas. 

 But what would he have been worth to a commer- 

 cial man, when it is well known, that if driven from 

 the west end of London to Hampton Court, he was 

 so exhausted, that he required some days' rest before 



