Stallion Management. 93 



tempered. A high-tempered stallion and a hasty-tempered 

 groom are a bad combination. Firmness without harshness 

 is desirable ; the man must be master, but not a tyrant. A 

 timid man is quite out of place with a stallion, for the horse 

 soon learns the man's secret and takes charge ; or, the man 

 to hide his " funk," shouts and bullies, with the result that 

 the horse resents it and develops temper. 



Another point in stallion management, and one which 

 is very frequently overlooked, is the desirability of bringing 

 the stallion to what may be called the height of the covering 

 season by graduated stages. Some grooms seem imbued with 

 the idea that the stallion, during the annual " recess " 

 between July 1st and February 15th, is busily storing up 

 semen in readiness for the coming season, the first week of 

 which, from their point of view, being the period when 

 lavish calls on the horse's services will be most easily and 

 satisfactorily responded to by the supposed accumulated 

 seminal fluid. A little consideration will show the fallacy 

 of this. The function of secretion, whether of saliva, milk, 

 semen, or gastric juice, is entirely governed by the law of 

 " supply and demand." When the demand ceases, supply 

 stops forthwith. Consequently, when February 15th dawns, 

 the stallion's semen-secreting glands have been lying dor- 

 mant and idle for over seven months, and suddenly to call 

 on him to make quickly-repeated services, would be on a par 

 with taking a fat race-horse out of his stable, sticking the 

 spurs into him, and sending him a racing-pace gallop with- 

 out a preliminary walk or canter. The groom's object 

 should be, by a sparing use of the stallion in the first weeks 

 of the season, to bring the dormant secreting glands 

 gradually to their fullest activity. 



