HANDBOOK OF THE TURF. 131 



horse-breeding or horse-racing; relating or having to do with 

 horses and turf matters. 



Hot Fitting. Fitting the shoe to the horse's foot while 

 the shoe is hot — a practice ahuost universally followed, for- 

 merly, but now rarely used; a method obsolete with the best 

 farriers. 



Hoiir. Trotting races are started at two o'clock p. m., 

 from the first day of April to the 15th day of September, and 

 after that date at one o'clock p. m., until the close of the season. 



Housings. A covering. The name derived from a 

 coarse sort of tapestry or carpet work, used in the East for 

 housings or coverings of saddles ; hence, the trappings or capar- 

 ison of a horse ; the leather fastened at a horse's collar to turn 

 over the back when it rains. A pad which covers the horse's 

 back under the harness saddle ; a lay. 



Hub. The center or stock of a wheel in which all the 

 spokes are set, and through which the axle-arm is placed. In 

 England it is called nave. The best hubs of wood are those 

 made of American Elm. 



Hub Case. That part of the wheel of a pneumatic 

 sulky which receives the cone containing the ball bearings. 



Hug the pole ; Hug the Track. Said of a horse that 

 trots close to the pole or guard-rail, or that trots low ; as in 

 such case he " hugs " or goes close to the pole, or hugs the 

 ground in a square, level, uninterrupted gait. 



Hunting Seat. [Eq.] In horsemanship, as distin- 

 guished from a riding seat in racing contests. 



The race riders mount for other people's pleasure, and the large sums 

 of money at stake ; the hunting man rides for his own i>leasure, and 

 is only answerable to himself for his expenditure of horse Jlesh.— 

 Seats and Saddles, Francis Dwyer. 



Hurdle. A movable fence ; a bar or frame placed across 

 a race course to be cleared by the horses in a hurdle-race. 

 Hurdles are usually made three feet high ; of plank, rods or 

 narrow boards, with an additional foot in height of cedar brush 

 placed above that. The sections of hurdles are placed upon 

 feet, braced, in order to make them stand in position. 



Hurdle Race. A race in which the horses are required 

 to jump over hurdles or similar obstacles. Although this style 

 of racing was abandoned throughout the South and AYest about 

 1882, the American Turf Congress still maintains rules for 

 hurdle racing. No such race shall be of less than one mile, if 

 a dash race, or over less than four flights of hurdles ; and in 

 races longer than one mile there must be an additional flight 

 of hurdles in each quarter of a mile. Winners of hurdle races 



