STABLE MANAGEMENT 



ing coats on any horses. Their charges are kept 

 stripped in all weathers, and, provided a horse is 

 thoroughly cooled out, externally and internally, 

 everything is left open on him, and the $30,000 

 stake horse thrives under an exposure that would 

 put most of our coddled harness-horses in the 

 bone-yard inside of twenty-four hours. A horse 

 well fed and healthy will stand a vast amount of 

 exposure, and will be all the better for it. Blankets 

 as generally used are a delusion and a snare. "A 

 full grain-bin is the best body-brush," and ex- 

 periment will prove that medicine-chest and doctor's 

 bills are quite unnecessary if the horse is habitu- 

 ated to an exposure as stimulating as it is sanitary, 

 — one which may keep a stableman moving to 

 keep warm, but the more useful perhaps on that 

 account. Open up the stables, pack away the 

 blankets, and realize that a horse is healthy in 

 proportion as he approaches his natural state, and 

 that a hard working horse, as our cabbers and 

 other general-purpose animals prove, will thrive 

 under an amount of exposure that, according to 

 popular belief, ought to kill him off-hand. 



Our accepted idea of condition in carriage 

 horses is wrong, anyway, and our eye has been 

 accustomed, by the over-fattened condition of 



51 



