TO DRESS A WKT AND ilUDDY HORSE. 423 



be taken to prevent him catching cold. He may be scraped, 

 and then clothed, or he may be clothed without scraping. 

 This is not a good practice, nor a substitute for grooming ; it is 

 merely an expedient which may be occasionally resorted to 

 when the horse must be stabled wet as he comes off the road. 

 I am aware that a horse is apt to perspire if clothed up when his 

 coat is wet or damp. But this takes place only when the cloth- 

 ing is too heavy, or the horse too warm. In the case undej 

 consideration, the clothing, unless the horse be cold, is not in- 

 tended to heat him, but to prevent him from becoming cold. In 

 hot weather, a wet horse requires less care ; he need not be 

 clothed, for evaporation will not render him too cold ; and if his 

 coat be long, it will, without the assistance of clothing, keep the 

 ekin tolerably warm even in weather that is not hot. In all 

 cases the cloth should be of woollen, and thrown closely over 

 the body, not bound by the roller, and in many cases it should 

 be changed for a drier, and a lighter one, as it becomes charged 

 with moisture. 



To REMOVE THE MuD. — ^Tliere are two ways of removing the 

 mud. One may be termed the dry, and another the wet mode. 

 The first is performed by means of the scraper and the carry- 

 comb, or a kind of brush made of whalebone, which answers 

 much better than the curiycomb. In most well-regulated 

 stables, the strappers are never allowed to apply water to a 

 horse that has come muddy off the road, and in no stable should 

 the mud be allowed to be removed from the horse by washing, 

 except he be hand-rubbed dry. The usual practice is to strip ofi: 

 the mud and loose water by the sweat knife ; to walk the horse 

 about for ten minutes if he be warm or wet, and the weather fair, 

 otherwise he stands a little in his stall or in an open shed ; then 

 the man begins with the di-iest of those that have come in toge- 

 ther. Much of the surface mud which the scraper has left about 

 the legs is removed by a straw wisp, or a small birch broom, or 

 the whalebone brush ; the wisp likewise helps to dry the horse. 

 The whalebone brush is a very useful article when the coat is 

 long. That, and the currycomb, with the aid of a wisp, are the 

 only implements coaching-strappers require in the winter season. 

 It clears away the mud and separates the hairs, but it does not 

 polish them. A gloss such as the coat of these horses requires, 



