Clipping and Singeing. 477 



Every one who has ever clipped a horse, after watching him for a few weeks in his 

 long winter coat, has seen how the animal's appetite, spirits, and power of endurance improve 

 in the most rapid and wonderful manner. The clipped or singed horse is dried and cleaned 

 in one-fourth of the time of one with a long coat, if, indeed, the latter is dried at all. When 

 a horse has a short coat, a groom has no excuse for not dressing him thoroughly ; when he 

 has a long one, it will not unfrequently happen that on arriving late at night, he will be 

 turned into his stall to shiver in his clammy coat all night. Grooms are but men. We all 

 like as little trouble as possible, and the best results for the least trouble. A long-coated 

 undipped horse never does justice to the groom's labours, let him work as hard as he will. 



As to the chances of catching cold, they would be experienced, if anywhere, in the 

 most famous hunting counties, where at cover-side at least four-fifths of the long-priced 

 hunters are clipped or singed. But then these much-exposed horses are well fed and 

 admirably groomed. 



The practice of shaving horses is quite obsolete. Singeing, which was first and is still 

 sometimes performed by a spirit-lamp, has become much more common since the use of gas 

 has been so much extended. The gas-singeing apparatuses are very perfect. 



Horses with very thick coats are better clipped than singed. Greys and light roans 

 seldom singe well. Some horses absolutely refuse to allow a flame to approach them, and 

 these, unless they can be " Rareyficd" must be clipped. ' To make a good job of singeing, 

 the process must be commenced early in the autumn, and repeated little by little every 

 fortnight, until the coat is reduced quite close. If this is skilfully done, accompanied by 

 good grooming, exercise, and sufficient corn, the horse will carry a bloomy, glossy coat through- 

 out the winter, and will change from the singed to the natural summer coat almost imper- 

 ceptibly ; but if poor and out of condition, he will look mangy all the summer. Any intelligent 

 groom can learn to use either a clipping machine or a gas-singeing lamp. Singeing should 

 be done on dry days ; in damp weather the hair does not burn well. 



If a young groom does not understand singeing, he should be taught — that is, if he be 

 worth teaching anything. Singeing a horse's head is a very nice operation. On no account 

 should the whiskers, eyelashes, or inside hair of the ears of a horse be touched. Grooms, like 

 the barbers before beards came in, like to clear all before them. But the whiskers are the 

 horse's feelers ; to remo\-e them is equally stupid and barbarous ; while to cut the hair from 

 the inside of a horse's ears is to remove an important protection, and make room for deafness 

 and catarrh. 



Scissors were formerly emplo)'ed for clipping. It was a very laborious operation, re- 

 quiring a good deal of practice and skill, but now the hand-clipping machine has been brought 

 to such perfection that any ordinary groom can use one ; and, consequently, it has to a great 

 degree superseded singeing. To make a horse look well after singeing it must be commenced 

 as early as October, and repeated several times before the hunting season commences. 

 Clipping may be deferred until the whole of the winter coat has appeared, and then the job 

 can be done once for all the season. In really skilful hands scissors make a better job than 

 a machine, but the skilful hands are rare, and the operation, as we have said, is long and 

 laborious. There are many good clipping tools, English, French, and American. I use Clarke's 

 of Oxford Street, London, and find that it answers perfectly. 



" It is a common practice to leave the saddle-place undipped, with the idea of rendering 

 the hair less liable to saddle-galls. I can only say that I have found the practice productive 

 of the very evil it \\as supposed to prevent. Indeed, it stands to common sense that it 



