6 The Practical Stud Groom. 



lofty, well-lighted and ventilated. The door posts should 

 be fitted with rollers, to prevent injury to the horse's hips 

 if he is inclined to be headstrong when being brought out 

 to serve mares. The Covering Yard should be of generous 

 dimensions; plenty of "elbow room " is required when 

 covering " maiden " mares for the first time. A circular, 

 roofed-in covering yard is preferable. Well-bedded down 

 with straw or tan, it is useful all the year round, being a 

 safe lungeing ground in wet weather or when roads and 

 paddocks are slippery from frost. The inclusion of the 

 Stallion Paddock in the general scheme is not an imperative 

 necessity, and will depend largely on the individual stud 

 master's views on stallion management. As I deal fully 

 with the care of stallions in a later chapter, I will only 

 point out here that with a hot-tempered sire, whose exercise 

 on the public roads would be attended with much risk, 

 some such arrangement for private exercise would be a 

 necessity. Where the practice of giving the stallion a daily 

 run at grass, after the covering season has ended, is contem- 

 plated, it will be necessary in planning the boxes to see that 

 the windows (if any) facing the paddock are so arranged 

 that in the case of the one paddock having to serve for more 

 than one sire, there shall be no chance of the other inmate 

 or inmates of the boxes being worried or unsettled by being 

 able to watch the gambols of the occupant of the paddock 

 for the time being. I should have stated with regard to the 

 Covering Yard, that the entrance gate to it may also serve 

 as the "teasing bar," at which the mares are "tried" 

 before being covered. It should be at least 12 feet in 

 length and 5 feet in height, and well padded with leather or 

 cocoanut matting. 



