38 



MODERN HORSE MANAGEMENT 



[CHAP. 



especially in cool weather, need only drink twice 

 a day. 



It seldom hurts a horse to water him when 

 hot or directly after hot work ; cavalry horses 

 are watered in this way, and keep far better for 

 it. Even ice-cold water seldom does any harm 

 on such an occasion. It is wrong to take the 

 chill off water unless the horse is feverish. If 

 a horse is watered when very hot or tired, he 

 must be walked for ten minutes afterwards to 

 prevent his internal organs cooling down too 

 suddenly ; then he will do far better than if not 

 watered until cool. The horse must never be 

 hurried while watering. One that is used to a 

 bucket often drinks slowly from a trough or 

 stream, so he must be allowed plenty of time ; 

 five minutes is sufficient. 



151. Reaction is readjustment of a disturb- 

 ance, and healthy reaction causes increased func- 

 tional activity. But if the disturbance is too 

 violent or prolonged it will not become re- 

 adjusted, and, for example, a chill may result. 

 The greater the functional activity before the dis- 

 turbance or shock the more easily will the system 

 be able to readjust itself ; hence, the sooner we 

 water a horse after he returns from work, the 

 better will he be able to stand the shock. But if 

 the horse is very hot or fatigued, as stated above, 

 he must not be allowed to stand for ten or fifteen 

 minutes after being watered. If he is sent 

 straight back into the stable the system will cool 

 down too suddenly, i.e. the blood will be driven 

 from the intestines to the extremities (the legs), 

 and he will become foundered. This is the cause 

 of horses becoming foundered that have been 

 watered on return from work. The groom says 

 that the watering caused the harm ; but far 

 from it, the water was necessary to assist the 

 functional activities of the body. It is the stand- 

 ing still after the watering that does the harm. 

 As explained farther on, cold water is necessary 

 for a heated horse. 



Horses must never be trotted to or from 

 watering, and working horses should be walked 

 for half a mile after drinking at the fountain, 

 unless they have drunk only a little. Horses on 

 the march should be watered as often as possible. 

 The first time the horse raises his head from the 

 trough is no sign that he has finished ; he is 

 probably getting his breath. Horses should not 

 be watered with bits in their mouths. When 

 they are ridden bareback to water, a watering 

 snaffle should be used, which is an ordinary 

 snaffle with a small mouthpiece. Foremen and 

 others in charge of horses should see that horses 

 are not hurried away before they have had their 

 fill ; a horse cannot take too much water. 



152. Watering buckets must always be clean, 

 and should be scoured out once a week with boil- 

 ing water. If watering troughs are used they 

 must be high enough from the ground to prevent 

 horses pawing their feet over the edge, and there 



must be no sharp edges. They should be either 

 painted iron or zinc-lined, and must be well 

 scrubbed out at least once a week. They should 

 be long and wide, eight to ten inches in depth, 

 and the inlet must be sufficiently large. There 

 should be a plug or tap in the bottom. A horse 

 should be allowed a space of about four feet in 

 width while watering. I fully realise that 

 glanders and other diseases may be spread by 

 public watering troughs ; but while one in a 

 hundred thousand horses may get a disease from 

 a public trough, to abolish them would be to 

 cause one hundred thousand to suffer from 

 thirst. 



If we take such extreme precautions we must 

 never allow horses to get near to one another on 

 the street or put a horse into a livery stable, be- 

 cause a glandered horse might spread infection 

 by sneezing. To take such extreme precautions 

 is impossible, and so it would be foolish to 

 abolish the public drinking troughs. 



Nevertheless, all public troughs should have a 

 free stream of water running through all the 

 time, and the best plan is to water from the 

 driver's own bucket ; and for this purpose all 

 public drinking troughs should have two or three 

 taps for filling private buckets. The surplus 

 must be thrown down the drain and not into the 

 trough. 



153. In 1903 there were 1,945 cases of glanders 

 in the City of London, in 1910 there were 594, 

 and in 1911 about 400. Yet during these latter 

 years the number of public troughs in use was 

 double that in use in 1903. Half a million horses 

 drank daily at these troughs ; the consumption 

 during 1910 was estimated at over 81,000,000 

 gallons. An anti-germ individual-cup drinking 

 fountain for horses has been placed on the 

 American market by the H. F. Jenks Company, 

 of Pawtucket, R.I. I can highly recommend the 

 adoption of this cup by city authorities. A new 

 reinforced concrete sanitary drinking fountain is 

 also made by the Sanitary Fountain Company, 

 Kansas City, Mo., U.S. 



154. Water. Good water is not by any means 

 the clearest. Horses as a rule prefer cloudy 

 water in a ditch to the clear spring water, be- 

 cause the former is softer. As a rule horses 

 prefer soft water to hard water, but the best 

 horse-breeding districts are those on limestone, 

 and the water in these districts is generally fairly 

 hard. Good water must be fresh, pure, tasteless, 

 clean, aerated, fairly clear, colourless, fairly soft, 

 and odourless. 



Bad water very seldom does a horse much 

 harm, because as a rule he will refuse water that 

 is harmful. Very bad water can be filtered 

 through a sand bed, or cinders, or charcoal. 

 Hard water undoubtedly causes a derangement of 

 the horse's intestinal canal ; horses watered much 

 on hard water often have harsh, staring coats, 

 which will rapidly become normal if the water is 



