MANAGEMENT OF LIGHT HORSES. 167 



pelled to assume an uncomfortable attitude when eating his 

 hay, but the seeds and dust necessarily come into his eyes. 



STABLE MANAGEMENT. 



Having made the stable as complete as possible, the next 

 thing is to adopt a judicious course of stable management, 

 in which of course the groom will play a very prominent part. 

 Some persons are fond of saying that they are their own stud 

 grooms, but practically the groom does almost what he likes. 

 As he has to deal with valuable property it is advisable to en- 

 gage as good a man as can be procured ; and if one can be 

 thoroughly recommended it is worth while to give an extra 

 shilling or two in wages. A man who has been trained under 

 a good stud groom is always to be preferred to one who has 

 picked up his knowledge anyhow ; but stable servants of all 

 kinds are desperately conservative in their notions, and can 

 hardly be prevailed upon to make any change from what they 

 have been taught. 



Feeding. Every horse must be fed with reference to his size, 

 his natural appetite, and the work he has to do. The 16 stone 

 hunter needs a more liberal dietary than the 15 hand hack. 



There are no horses over 15 hands which should have less 

 than three-quarterns of corn per day, and this will be about 

 the right quantity for horses that do easy work in the park, 

 and it may suffice to feed them three times a day ; but the 

 writer has a preference for feeding four times a day. Hunters 

 will always require at least four quarterns of corn a day, 

 while weight-carriers and those which hunt twice a week will 

 need five or six quarterns. A quartern is the fourth part of a 

 peck; and, when oats weigh 40 Ibs to the bushel, weighs 2| Ibs. 

 Beans should be given to hard working horses alone, and to 

 no horses until they have turned five years old. Beans 

 should be old, split, and a double handful twice a day will be 

 plenty. 



Opinions vary as to the best method of giving hay a very 



