90 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



FEEDING. 



Feeding is a matter of observation, and reqviires study 

 and attention. Most servants are so fond of stuffing them- 

 selves that they think horses must be equally so. Stuffing 

 may do with a cart-horse, but will not answer with a 

 hunter, or a horse required for quick, strong work. A 

 groom should study each horse's appetite and constitution. 

 Some horses require far more meat than others, but this 

 truism never enters the head of most of the fellows calling 

 themselves grooms. Having ascertained the " maximum " 

 quantity of corn master allows, they forthwith prepare for 

 getting it down the horses' throats in equal proportion. 

 A half -finished feed conveys no hint to them : they add a 

 whole feed to it next feeding hour : then horses get cracked 

 heels and swelled legs, and the fellows wonder how it 

 happens. They perhaps have recourse to their antedi- 

 luvian book, or some horse leech in the neighbourhood, 

 who cannot even write out a bill for the medicine he 

 professes to give. Bleeding and physicking should be 

 included in a groom's catalogue of qualifications; but never 

 allow either to be done without an order. 



Some grooms say they cannot keep horses in high con- 

 dition without high feeding ; but many masters would ride 

 much more pleasantly if their horses were not in such high 

 condition. What is the use of having a horse capable of 

 double the exertion the rider is equal to ? We are not all 

 Osbaldistones, to ride two hundred miles in nine hours ; 

 and whether on the road or in the field, a horse above 

 himself is a great nuisance. 



Lord Pembroke truly observes, that "it is a matter of 

 the greatest consequence, though few attend to it, to feed 

 horses according to their work. When the work is hard," 

 says he, "food should be plenty; when it is otherwise, the 

 food should be diminished immediately, the hay particu- 

 larly." That sentence should be placed in every stable 

 and saddle-room in the kingdom. 



Hay. — The principal food of horses in the stable is hay 

 and oats, and consequently it behoves every master of 

 horses to be a good judge of their quality. The hay given 

 to your horses should be old upland meadow hay, bright, 

 greenish, fragrant, and not too dry and crisp; it ought. 



