HORSES AND STABLES 263 



saying that in the best dealers' stables the horses are 

 not unduly coddled, and are as well cared for as they 

 are likely to be in after life. But there are dealers and 

 dealers, and undoubtedly some horses when in the 

 dealer's hands are fattened up on soft food, and are in 

 consequence very difficult to manage for a time — 

 unless, indeed, they are of the hardy sort to which 

 nothing comes amiss. And if horses which have — like 

 prize cattle — been fattened for the market happen to 

 fall into the hands of a coddling groom, it is fair odds 

 that they do no good afterwards. The change of food 

 probably puts them wrong to begin with, and then if 

 they seem at all dull and listless, the coddling begins, 

 and they are kept in far too hot a stable and treated as 

 if they were really delicate, whereas they would prob- 

 ably come right if left more alone. 



" If a horse goes wrong put him in a box, give orders 

 that he has to have plenty of hay and water and very 

 little corn, and forget him for a month," was the advice 

 once given by a man who was famous for his good 

 hunters, and there is a fair substratum of truth in the 

 dictum. All our experience is to the effect that horses 

 which are kept in hot stables are far more likely to take 

 cold than nags which can always breathe pure air, and 

 we can add to this that hundreds and hundreds of 

 hunters suffer because they do not get enough work. 

 The average matured horse in hard condition is equal 

 to a full day's hunting about every fifth day. Young 

 horses should not be out more than once a week, and at 

 first half-days or short days are enough for them, but 

 the hunter of nine or ten years old who is hardy and 

 healthy is all the better for more work, and this the 

 owners of small studs prove day after day. 



Then, again, the horse who is doing a lot of work is 



