2 THE COMPLETE HORSEMAN 



'*We only have one horse and we take it near 

 the way." It cannot be too strongly impressed 

 upon the horse owner that the same broad rules 

 must be observed whether he possesses one horse 

 or twenty, if he would get the most out of his 

 horses, which is of course what all men seek 

 to do. 



The hygiene of the stable is one of those 

 subjects in which we have made great progress 

 during the last fifty years. In the early and 

 middle years of the last century the stables in 

 which good horses were kept were insanitary to 

 a degree. Our ancestors were great economists 

 of space in their stables. The boxes in which 

 high-class racehorses were kept would make a 

 modern trainer's hair stand on end, and the 

 most fashionable sires were stabled in boxes 

 circumscribed in space, without light, and with 

 a vitiated atmosphere for want of sufficient 

 ventilation. I have in my mind's eye now a 

 little low hovel with a thatched roof to which the 



occupier of the farm pointed with pride. '' 



stood there for many years," said he, naming a 

 horse whose name is writ large in The General 

 Stud Booky '' and we won't have it pulled down." 

 I looked in, and found a sow with a litter of pigs 

 occupying the box which was erstwhile the home 

 of a classic horse ! In a way it was fitly tenanted. 



At the tim.e I am writing about, grooms had 

 a craze for hot stuffy stables and a breath of 

 air was scarcely allowed to enter them. Every 

 ''crannied chink" was carefully stopped up, for 



