252 THE HORSE. 



hunter, it is a topic which may be dispatched in a 

 few words. The quantity of solid corn allowed to 

 the racer, the hunter, and the stage horse, must in 

 general be measured solely by their appetite and 

 digestion; with respect to hay, regular grooms are 

 not usually prone to overfill their horses' stomachs 

 with it, and some of them, like their grandsires, are 

 niggards of water. The occasional use of the muzzle 

 is indispensable to foul feeders, that will not only fill 

 themselves to blowing with hay, but with their litter. 

 Beside this real use of the muzzle, however, the 

 ancient jockeys assigned to it a very important ima- 

 ginary one, that of promoting the horse's wind, by 

 occasionally confining it, and forcing him to breath 

 with difficulty. Upon a similar principle they trained 

 the racer in such as were styled " shoes of advan- 

 tage," namely, very heavy ones, that they might 

 acquire an access of speed in their race, from the 

 change to the lightness of their plates ! The hunter 

 is fed four or five times a day, that is to say, at each 

 stable hour. 



The following important observations are to be 

 found in one of the early letters of the thoroughly 

 experienced Nimrod. " The one (racer) is not more 

 than a few minutes in completing his task, whereas, 

 the other (hunter) is often ten or twelve hours about 

 his; the preparation therefore must be different — the 

 training groom (of the running stables) would be apt 

 to draw his horses too fine for the continued fatigue 

 they (hunters) have to go through. Good flesh as I 

 before observed is strength ; and in the preparation 

 of a hunter, particularly if he have to carry a heavy 



