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CHAPTER XVI. 



SUMMERING HUNTERS AND WINTERING POLO 



PONIES. 



SUMMERING HUNTERS. 



BY the first week in April, a hunting man who wishes to 

 keep his horses for the next season, has usually to decide 

 what he has to do with them in the meantime. In such a 

 case, old English custom gives him a choice of a run at grass, 

 or " soiling " either in a loose box or in a straw yard. Turn- 

 ing out to grass is an alternative that restores the animal 

 more or less to his natural state, and is likely to benefit 

 over-worked legs and feet, provided that the ground is not 

 too hard. In soiling, the horse is kept on green food, hay 

 and straw, and can take very little exercise. Consequently, 

 this method of summering is inapplicable to all horses, except 

 those which require veterinary treatment. Besides, the con- 

 dition of the floor of the box or yard will generally be so un- 

 sanitary as to rot the frogs and to produce thrush ; and in 

 any case will necessitate constant supervision by a careful and 

 competent man. Mr. Harold Leeney (The Horse in the 

 Stable and in the Field) tells us that the stupidity of farm 

 servants cost him a valuable horse which died from thirst 

 during a time of frost, on account of the otherwise abundant 

 supply of water having been frozen over. In country places I 

 have frequently seen gross cases of cruelty caused by neglect 

 in the supply of water to horses on pasture. The know- 



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