REARING OF RACING STOCK. 87 



nion, combined with long-established prejudices, 

 and in direct opposition to the daily acknowledged 

 fact of dry and warm countries having been the 

 first to produce the horse in perfection, that it is 

 only within a very few years that young thorough- 

 bred stock has been reared in the manner in which 

 it should be reared. A thorough-bred colt mav 

 now be said to be in training from the day on which 

 he is dropped, so great is the care taken to force 

 him into shape and substance.* Not only is he 

 drawing from the teats of his dam the milk of a 

 highly fed animal, and consequently, in itself high- 

 ly nutritious, but, before he is twelve months old, 

 he eats nearly two bushels of oats per week. The 

 time for expansion of frame is youth, and, when 

 we see a two-year-old at the post, with eight stone 

 four pounds on his back, which is to be seen in 

 every meeting at Newmarket, and looking like a 

 horse able to carry a light man after hounds, we 

 most cordially assent to the answer given by the 

 most experienced Newmarket trainer of the present 

 age to the question. What is the best method of 

 rearing a racing colt ? " First observe,'"' said he, 

 " that the blood, or cross, is good ; secondly, breed 

 him as you would a sheep, from a roomy dam ; and 



* An American gentleman, who visited several of the studs in the 

 neighbourhood of Doncaster, thus expresses himself : " I was much 

 astonished to find that the little foals of a few months old had shoes 

 on, and gave evidence of ha\ing been carefully groomed from the 

 time they were able to bear this attention. I think I saw foals of 

 eight months old as large as our yearlings — yearlings as large as our 

 two-year-olds, and two year old colts as large as our three-year-olds." 

 — Spirit of the New York Times, November 28, 1840. 



