SCRAPING, AND WALKING ABOUT. 410 



perspiration, the cimy comb removes, the mud, and the brush 

 polishes the hair, lays it, and takes away the dust. Tlie dressing 

 in such a case is simple, and soon over, but it is all the horse 

 requires. When drenched in rain or perspiration, he must be 

 dried by means of the scraper, the wisp, and evaporation ; when 

 heated, he must be walked about till cool, and sometimes he 

 may be bathed, that he may be both cooled and cleaned. 



Scraping.— The scraper is sometimes termed a sweat-knife. 

 In some stables it is just a piece of hoop iron, about twenty 

 inches long, by one and a half broad ; in the racing and hunt- 

 ing stables it is made of wood, sharp only on one edge, and hav- 

 ing the back thick and strong. When properly handled, it is a 

 very useful instrument. The groom, taking an extremity in 

 each hand, passes over the neck, back, belly, quarters, sides, 

 every place wliere it can operate ; and with a gentle and steady 

 pressure, he removes the wet mud, the rain, and the perspira- 

 tion. Fresh horses do not understand this, and are apt to resist 

 it. A little more than the usual care and gentleness at the first 

 two or three dressings, render them familiar with it. The 

 pressure applied must vary at different parts of the body, beino- 

 lightest wliere the coat and the skin are thinnest. The scraper 

 must pass over the same places several times, especially the belly, 

 to which the water gravitates from the back and sides. It has 

 little or nothing to do about the legs ; these parts are easily 

 dried by a large sponge, and are apt to be injured by the 

 scraper. This operation finished, the horse, if hot, must be 

 walked about a little, and if cool, he must be dried. 



Walking a heated Horse.— Every body knows that a horse 

 ought not to be stabled when perspiring very copiously after 

 severe exertion ; he must not stand still. It is known that he is 

 likely to catch cold, or to take inflamed lungs, or to founder. 

 By keeping him in gentle motion till cool, these evils are pre- 

 vented. This is all that stablemen can say about it, and perhaps 

 little more can be said with certainty. We must go a little 

 deeper than the skin, and consider the state of the internal 

 organs at the moment the horse has finished a seveTe task. The 

 action of the heart, the blood-vessels, the nerves, and perhaps 

 other parts, has been greatly increased, to correspond with the 

 extraordinary action of the muscles, the instruments of motion. 



