228 POLO IN INDIA. [Chap. IX. 



take a long time to get fit and to learn to gallop ; 

 but they are such sensible, hard, sound animals, 

 and so easy to train, that it is a real pleasure to own 

 them. Country-breds, though sound and tough, are 

 often fidgety, excitable, and possessed with a pain in 

 their tempers. Regimental polo clubs, if buying a 

 batch of raw ponies for different men to train, should 

 never touch country-breds ; but should buy Arabs, 

 which will pay better, even at double the cost. I 

 attribute the great improvement during the last few 

 years in the class of ponies played up-country in 

 India by good teams, to the employment of Arabs. 



STABLE MANAGEMENT. 



As regards stable management, I cannot do better 

 than refer my reader to Training and Horse Manage- 

 ment in India, by my Editor, and will limit myself to 

 the following hints : — 



J. Ponies should get enough regular work. If 

 a pony has only one or two days' play at polo in a 

 week, he will require faster work than being merely led 

 about by a syce at a walk. I always made my syces 

 ride, instead of lead — as is usually the custom in 

 India — their ponies ; for I knew that they could not, on 

 foot, give them a sufficiency of smart walking exercise, 

 which should occupy daily about three hours (say, two 

 in the morning and one in the evening), when the 

 animals are not ridden on off days by the owner. If 

 ponies are not playing polo regularly, they should have 

 trotting and cantering exercise, as well as walking ; 

 because it puts muscle on, and keeps the wind right. 



2. It is well in India to crush the corn, the best mix- 

 ture of which is quarter gram, quarter bran and half 



