PREPARATION PAST AND PRESENT. 75 



CHAPTER X. 



PREPARATION. 



Past and present methods of preparation contrasted — Sweating in old days ; no 

 longer necessary — My disuse of it — Its evils — Other practices happily 

 abandoned — Other contrasts — Mr. Lawrence on preparation — Alteration in 

 bridles— Sir Charles Bunbury's method — Best season for preparation — Early 

 preparation advocated — The preparation of the two-year-old described — The 

 proper hours for exercise — Alternate rest and labour essential — The pre- 

 paration of older horses — Danger of excessive work when unfit — Training for 

 long and for short courses — The preparation of the yearling — My own and 

 other methods — Clothing — Exercise in frost — Essential principles to be 

 followed with horses of all ages — Should be commenced in time — Deceptive 

 condition — Appetite — The legs and feet — Final gallops — Precautions against 

 cold — Exercise in wet weather ; and in fog — Curiously fatal result of exercising 

 during fog — Sunday labour not necessary — Pleas for Sunday rest ; anecdote 

 of the late Lord Ribblesdale — Tendency to accept new theories ; the Turkish 

 bath. 



We have seen how the yearling is broken in. It may perhaps 

 lead to a clearer understanding of his subsequent preparation, 

 and that of the older horse, if, as a preliminary, a brief com- 

 parison be made of the salient features of the system in 

 vogue to-day and that of some years ago. 



For one thing the old practice of sweating — the steady 

 gallop of four miles under the excessive weight of two heavy 

 rugs, a woollen breast-sweater and two hoods — is little heard 

 of nowadays. Indeed the result is so weakening that the 

 principle should have been abandoned long before it really 

 was, especially as it is certain that the evil of it was 



