92 STABLE ECONOMY. 



Dressing after Work. — This operation varies according 

 to many circumstances ; it is influenced by the kind of horse, 

 the state and time in which he arrives at the stable. Slow- 

 working horses merely require to be dried and cleaned ; those 

 of fast work may require something more, and those which 

 arrive at a late hour are not usually dressed as they would be 

 by coming home earlier. The principal objects in dressing a 

 horse after work are to get him dry, cool, and clean. It is 

 only, however, in stables tolerably well regulated, that these 

 three objects are aimed at, or attainable. Carters, and other 

 inferior stablemen, endeavor to remove the mud which adheres 

 to the belly, the feet, a,nd the legs, and they are not often very 

 particular as to the manner in which this is done. If a pond 

 or river be at hand, or on the road home, the horse is driven 

 through it, and his keeper considers that the best, which I 

 suppose means the easiest, way of cleaning him. Others, 

 having no such convenience, are content to throw two or three 

 buckets of water over the legs. Their only way of drying 

 the horse is by sponging the legs, and wisping the body, and 

 this is generally done as if it were a matter of form more 

 than of utility. There are some lazy fellows who give them- 

 selves no concern about dressing the horse. They put him 

 in the stable wet and dirty as he comes off the road ; and 

 after he is dry, perhaps he gets a scratch with the currycomb, 

 and a rub with the straw-wisp. Fast-working horses require 

 very different treatment. The rate at which they travel ren- 

 ders them particularly liable to all those diseases arising from, 

 or connected with changes of temperature. In winter, the 

 horse comes off the road, heated, wet, and bespattered with 

 mud ; in summer, he is hotter, drenched in perspiration, or 

 half dry, his coat matted, and sticking close to the skin. 

 Sometimes he is quite cool, but wet, and clothed in mud. 

 The treatment he receives can not be always the same. In 

 summer, after easy work, his feet and legs may be washed 

 and dried, and his body dressed in nearly the same manner 

 that it is dressed before work. The wisp dries the places 

 that are moist with perspiration, the currycomb removes the 

 mud, and the brush polishes the hair, lays it, and takes away 

 the dust. The dressing in such a case is simple and soon 

 over, but it is all the horse requires. When drenched in rain 

 or perspiration, he must be dried by means of the scraper, 

 the wisp, and evaporation ; when heated, he must be walked 

 about till cool, and sometimes he may be bathed, that he may 

 be both cooled and cleaned. 



