170 LIGHT HORSES: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



Almost of more importance than food to the hard-working 

 horse is a proper system of watering ; and the writer ventures 

 with some confidence to express his conviction that if grooms 

 paid more attention to this important detail of stable manage- 

 ment, feverish symptoms would not be nearly so common as 

 they are, nor would the dose of physic be in such constant 

 request. Save on one or two occasions to be mentioned in 

 due course, horses should be allowed to drink as much as 

 they please, and this, if they are not kept without water too 

 long, will never be of any great amount, for horses drink no 

 more than nature requires. But, as a horse has no means of 

 knowing what work is to be required of him, the groom's 

 common-sense must step in if the horse be wanted for fast 

 work soon after stable hours, and the usual quantity must 

 then be diminished. On hunting mornings, especially if the 

 horse have some distance to travel to the covert side, there is 

 not the least reason to stint the animal to any great extent, 

 or, as is sometimes done, to deprive him of water altogether. 

 This is a most cruel practice, and is based merely upon 

 the prejudice of the groom. If experiments were tried it 

 would be found that no hunter would be one whit the worse 

 for a reasonable amount of water on hunting mornings. 

 During the hunting season hounds never meet before half- 

 past ten, so something like three hours would elapse between 

 the consumption of the water and the commencement of the 

 work, and this is surely long enough to enable him to get rid 

 of a moderate amount. 



After hunting it rests with the master himself to take the 

 first step towards comforting his horse ; and no time should 

 be lost in giving him half a bucket of gruel, or failing that, of 

 chilled water. A cake of Rumney's food carried in the 

 waistcoat pocket renders the rider independent of the meal 

 or flour of the inn, and enables him to give his horse a bucket 

 of nourishing gruel whenever a little hot water is obtainable. 

 On arriving home he will have more gruel, and before he is 

 done up for the night the hunter should have thoroughly 



