268 HOKSE POKTRAITUBE. 



the danger of over-sweating the neck there is even in the 

 chest, which will also bear a great deal of reduction. We 

 may reduce the muscles that cover the shoulder-blade too 

 much, but the intercostal and abdominal muscles will bear 

 a diminution of their tissue, if that is necessary, to get rid 

 of the fat in their immediate neighborhood. Of all your 

 horses, the Clipper is the only one that carries a heavy 

 neck, and his is nothing like so bad as that of many very 

 successful trotters. The "blood" here works to advantage, 

 and I will cheerfully admit that, so far, it is a great and 

 lasting benefit, not only in giving a configuration of neck 

 that is better adapted to speed, but much lessening the 

 work necessary to get the horse in order. 



In saying that we would sweat Never Mind to-morrow, 

 and again in a week from that time, I did not mean to be 

 understood that we would fix on a definite time for sweat- 

 ing. The interval between the sweats will not only vary 

 in the different horses, but the same horses will probably 

 go longer at one period than another between them. 

 Causes that we cannot now foresee will affect the ani- 

 mals frequently, and a horse may require to be sweated 

 every few days, or there may be weeks intervening. There 

 is not much use in speculating now on what such causes 

 might be, as undoubtedly we will have a practical illustra- 

 tion of some of them before the season is ended. We will 

 find a great difference in the aptitude to take on flesh by 

 the same horse under apparently the same circumstances. 

 The feeding may be alike ; the driving and exercising the 

 same, there may not even be any great dissimilarity in 

 the weather; yet we will find that the horse in an unaccount- 

 able manner has accumulated more fat at one time than 

 another. It will be obvious that, in such a case, the sweats 

 will have to be more frequent than they were. I am not 

 fond of drawing a horse "very fine," as it is termed, when 



