40 QUEEN victoria's HORSE. 



on good grass alone. In warm dry weather even fast work can 

 ])e done well on it, and horses so fed are more likely to l)e quiet 

 and reliable for occasional services where appearances are not a 

 very formidable consideration. 



Xo horse, however lightly worked, should be fed on hay 

 aloiie, he should get either grass or roots with it, when the 

 work is not hard enough to make corn desirable. No horse that 

 is lightly worked should be highly fed on corn. It is a common 

 foolish practice which causes many good horses to be discarded 

 from a good place and condemned to a coach or cab. If for the 

 sake of appearance high feed must be given, then there must be 

 regular work enough to take off the surplus energy. The well 

 fed and daily worked horse is at once the most etRcient and 

 trustworthy, but failing plenty of exercise there should be little 

 or no corn. Most of the trouble that ladies and inexperienced 

 persons get into with horses, is the effect of too much corn and 

 too little or too irregular work. When Queen Victoria rode on 

 horseback her horse was always thoroughly exercised by a lady on 

 the moi'uiag of the same day she rode it. The exercise was given 

 early enough to allow of the horse being well sweated and then 

 dried and cleaned in time for her Majesty. Horses highly bred 

 and fed, however naturally good and quiet, are always dangerous 

 for a lady's use when allowed to stand idle. Indeed, under any 

 circumstances standing long idle can only unfit a horse for any 

 kind of work. The horse is adapted for something very like 

 perpetual motion, and for foraging for himself, and not for 

 standing for days together in a stable and feeding on corn. 



74. — Whatever the feeding is to be let it be regular, and 

 don't expect your horse to digest the most corn on the days 

 that he does the most work, or to digest grass on one day and 

 unmixed oats the next day. If he is to live on grass his tubes 

 will keep in the right form and diameter to deal with it, but if 

 he is to live on oats with but little hay they must alter wonder- 

 fully, and they cannot alter to meet such a change in a day or a 

 wei'k. Most of the painful and often fatal cases of colic which 

 surgeons, grooms, and coachmen are so ready to attribute to a 

 drink of water, are the effect of either being kept too long 



