58 



MODERN HORSE MANAGEMENT 



[chap. 



228. Foot Dressing.— The walls of the feet, 

 which are porous and covered with a porous 

 shell, the periople (see Chapter XVIII.), require 

 to be exposed to the air, hence harm will be 

 done if thick oil or grease is put on ; a very 

 common error made by grooms in order to make 

 the feet look nice. I strongly deprecate the use 

 of patent hoof dressings. There is no need to 

 blacken the horses' hoofs. As a rule, the dress- 

 ing is put on over the dirt, which causes the 

 feet to become brittle and break, due to the cells 

 becoming clogged up. If a dressing is insisted 

 on, it should be of an oily nature ; on no account 

 a varnish. A good dressing is made of grate 

 blacking (carbon) and cod liver oil. For brittle 

 feet the following dressing is very good ; it 

 toughens the feet considerably: — 



Oil of turpentine 1 oz. 



Oil of tar 1 oz. 



Oil of linseed 4 oz. 



Shake well and apply night and morning. 



229. Examining Shoes. — When a horse re- 

 turns to its stable his shoes must be carefully 

 examined. Merely pulling at them or trying to 

 move them sideways will not test whether they 

 are loose or not. They should be gently tapped 

 with an iron hammer, their tightness being 

 judged by the sound, in the same way as the 

 wheels of a railway car are tapped to test for 

 cracks. The clenches should be examined to see 

 if they are all right. Any clench that is sticking 

 out must be either bent in or removed to avoid 

 injury to another leg. Any missing nails must 

 be replaced, and a shoe must be examined to 

 ascertain that it has not shifted. 



230. Leading into Stable. — A horse should be 

 carefully led into the stable, and not be allowed 

 to rush in, nor be driven in, as he is liable to 

 knock himself against the door posts or to 

 damage the saddle or harness. The groom 

 should turn his back to the door and, holding 

 one bridoon-rein close to the ring in each hand, 

 lead the horse in while walking backwards him- 

 self. The same is to be done when leading out, 

 but a horse is more liable to hurry in to get his 

 dinner. Some horses object to being stared in 

 the face and will not follow the groom when he 

 faces him, so in this case he must turn away 

 from the horse, who will probably follow. 



When leading a horse by the halter in show- 

 ing him to anyone, the groom should hold the 

 end of the leading-rope in the left hand and 

 have his right hand ready to seize the rope near 

 the halter if the horse becomes fractious ; the 

 groom will run on the left side. In turning the 

 horse the groom must turn outside the horse ; if 

 he allows the horse to swing around outside of 

 him, he is liable to get away ; that is to say, 

 when turning he will invariably turn to the 

 right. In detecting lameness this, of course, does 

 not apply. 



Clipping 



231. The practice of clipping horses has been 

 much discussed in the past, but I have seldom 

 heard a scientific explanation of the reasons for 

 clipping or not clipping. On this point I fear 

 some of my horse-loving readers may disagree 

 with me. As in other questions of this kind, I 

 have studied the subject from the horse's point 

 of view before any other. 



In nature the horse has a long coat, but he 

 does not exert himself at hard labour while in 

 this coat. If a gymnast was made to go through 

 his performances in a fur coat, what would 

 happen? Would he not die, or at any rate col- 

 lapse, from excessive fatigue? In the same way 

 it is neither reasonable nor, as we shall see later, 

 humane, to ask a horse with a heavy coat to do 

 heavy work. In England job-masters have 

 proved this fact for themselves, but the same 

 applies in a lesser degree in Canada, where the 

 winters are cold. We provide the horse with a 

 heavy coat whenever he is idle in or out of the 

 stable, but remove it before we ask him to work. 

 We clip off his permanent heavy coat and pro- 

 vide him with temporary heavy blankets. 

 Horses doing slow work, as is usual with most 

 draught horses, do not require to be clipped ; 

 farm horses seldom require to be clipped. If a 

 horse with a heavy coat is worked until he is 

 perspiring freely his coat becomes soaked with 

 sweat, evaporation can only take place compara- 

 tively slowly, and this only from the ends of the 

 long hairs of the coat ; hence sufficient evapora- 

 tion on the skin is prevented, and the bodily 

 temperature is not reduced, as it should be, to 

 normal. The lungs and the whole system con- 

 sequently suffer, and the horse is feverish. 



Thin horses, when they are clipped in the 

 winter, invariably gain in condition. Nature 

 very soon readjusts matters and counteracts the 

 loss of a coat by producing more internal heat. 

 The fact that the coat is wet and steaming is no 

 proof that evaporation is going on rapidly ; on 

 the contrary, because evaporation may be more 

 rapid on a clipped horse that is showing no 

 signs of perspiring, than on a long-coated horse 

 that is perspiring freely. 



232. But — and this is where the cruelty comes 

 in — if a horse is clipped, he must never be left in 

 a stable or outside without his temporary coat. 

 A clipped horse must be blanketed and never left 

 standing if it is at all cold. In Canada harness 

 horses, when left standing, are generally covered 

 up with the fur robes used in the sleigh. For 

 most kinds of weather a heavy blanket is suf- 

 ficient, and unless the wind is quite calm the 

 blanket should be buckled on to prevent it 

 from blowing up. In very windy weather it 

 must be buckled over the quarters, or it may 

 blow up over the horse's head. A common sight, 

 which exposes the ignorance of wealthy horse 



