08 ON THE STABLES, ETC. 



convenience of shoeing horses in the stables, is my 

 reason for having arranged a smith's shop and shoeing 

 stable in the back-yard of the establishment which I 

 have been describing ; and to shoe and plate the 

 number of horses that may be supposed to be kept on 

 premises of such dimensions, there w^ill be full employ- 

 ment for a good shoeing smith. In all racing establish- 

 ments, a smith's shop and shoeing stable will be 

 found very convenient for the smith, to make the shoes 

 and plates fit properly to the horses' feet to which 

 they are to be applied. If the groom is afraid, that 

 from bad weather or any other cause, his horse might 

 take cold from being moved out of his own stables and 

 standing in the shoeing stable during the time of his 

 being shod, he may, before the horse comes out, order 

 an additional sheet or two to be thrown over him ; or 

 it would be very easy, a night or two previous to the 

 horse's being shod, to order a couple of hacks to sleep 

 in the shoeing stable to air it ; they could be moved 

 out in the morning ; one of them must, as a matter of 

 course, to make room for the horse to come in to be 

 shod; and if the horse should be a shy or irritable one, 

 the other hack may be found useful to walk before him 

 from his own stable door into the shoeing stable, and, 

 if necessary, to stay there with him in case of his being 

 restless, as many such horses are when being shod. 



A training groom who has been brought up in the 

 stables from an early period of his life, is fully aware 

 what may, at times, be done by making use of a hack 

 in this way, in getting flighty horses sometimes to 



