ON PHYSIC. 127 



stripped (the boys being ready to go to bed, having 

 previously got their suppers) the stables may now 

 be shut up for the night, which will most likely be 

 about nine o'clock. On the following morning, when 

 the groom comes to the stables, he expects to find 

 each horse's physic set; in other words, to have stopped 

 working. Such of the light horses as may not have 

 purged much the day before, and such others as may 

 have stopped purging in the night, may, the first 

 thing in the morning, have a dish-full of corn given 

 them, which they will eat whilst the stables are setting 

 fair ; they may then be got ready to go out on the downs. 

 But if the weather is cold, windy, or uncertain as to 

 rain, they may be walked in the paddock at the back 

 of the stables for an hour or so, merely to give them 

 an appetite. When they return to the stables, tlie}^ 

 are to be fed and treated in all respects as they were 

 prior to their going into physic. But those horses 

 which we have already made mention of as having 

 been briskly purged the day before, and which have 

 not quite stopped purging the next morning, are to 

 remain in the stables the whole of the day. They 

 should be fed on dry food, and have some thick gruel 

 given them to drink, at the different stable hours ; and 

 on the following morning, their physic being set, they 

 may be taken out as the other horses were the day 

 before. 



I have, in the early part of this chapter, made men- 

 tion of the necessity there would be for giving physic 

 to a horse in training, that may have met with an 



