ioo THE CARE OF HORSES 



CHAPTER XIII 



TURNING HORSES OUT TO GRASS 



Horses, like people, sometimes need a holiday — a 

 rest and change of scene after months of hard work 

 and confinement in stables more often than not 

 dark, badly paved, and wretchedly ventilated. In 

 this matter we might take a leaf out of our colonial 

 brothers' book in our treatment of horses, and act 

 more on the up-to-date system of the open-air 

 treatment. This, from necessity at first and from 

 common-sense now, has always been the usual 

 treatment of our trusty noble friend in the Colonies, 

 and grand are the results obtained. 



The English horse, of whatever class, too often has 

 to lead a life which outrages his real nature at all 

 points. Kept in the kind of stable already described, 

 often damp, dark, stuffy, and ill-ventilated, he is tied 

 up in a stall in which he can hardly move, and often 

 never has a chance to lie down. 



When taken out he is encumbered with heavy 

 unnecessary harness, his natural paces are wholly 

 disregarded, he is urged to violent exertion until 

 in a profuse sweat, when he is left to stand in the 

 cold at his master's convenience, whose main object 

 is, in his short-sighted way, to get his money's worth 

 out of the animal. No horseflesh can stand the 

 treatment long without contracting all kinds of 

 ailments. Turning to his colonial brothers we 

 find a much more natural condition of things, and 

 consequently much better results. The colonist 

 must depend in a great measure upon the fitness 

 of his horse ; he realizes, as we so often fail to do, 

 that the horse is an outdoor animal, and intended 

 to live in the air. In the autumn the horse in 



