74 Stable Servants and 



is the best time for singeing, and three weeks or a month 

 later for clipping. 



Clipping requires much practice and very neatly doing 

 to look well ; it is far more difficult than singeing, and 

 consequently is not so frequently used. The effect of both 

 is the same — to shorten the long rough winter coat to the 

 length of the short summer one, thereby preventing that 

 extreme sweating which is always consequent on a long 

 winter coat. It is performed with scissors and a comb. 

 The former are generally curved, and of various sizes, to 

 suit the different parts of the body of the horse for which 

 they are used. 



Singeing is performed with a gas-flame, or a lamp 

 burning naphtha or some spirit of the same description, 

 and which is passed lightly over the whole body till the 

 hair is reduced to the required length. It may be com- 

 menced as soon as the winter coat is partly grown, and 

 must be repeated about every ten days or a fortnight till 

 the coat is set and done growing, by which means the coat 

 will not only be kept short, but the hair will better retain 

 the natural colour. After Christmas, about once in three 

 weeks will generally be found sufficient to keep down the 

 long rough hairs. 



In some horses the coat is of so thick, coarse, and 

 woolly a nature, or has been left so long, it is impossible 

 to singe it without burning it into holes, and making the 

 horse look worse than before. In this case he must first 

 be clipped close, and then the singeing-lamp run lightly 

 over him ; it can then be kept down by singeing, as in 

 other horses, but his colour will be changed, as the part 

 exposed, or rather left, will be the under part of the hair 

 next the body, which is always of a different shade to the 

 top hair, which, in horses that are begun early and singed 

 frequently, from being never burnt quite down, retains its 

 colour. After clipping and singeing the horse should have 

 a gentle sweat, be well washed, rubbed dry, and well 

 clothed, after which he is fit and ready for his usual work. 



Some few very well-bred horses have in winter so fine 

 a coat that beyond removing the few long, ragged hairs 

 about their flanks and quarters, no singeing is necessary. 



