PREPARATION FOR FAST WORK. 311 



worms, and rouse the digestive apparatus to activity, one or 

 all. In this case, the horse may as well be stabled for eight 

 or ten days before his physic be given. It should be mild. 

 If the horse be fat, lusty, or as stablemen say, full of humors, 

 foul, or foggy, his flesh soft and flabby, he will require a smart 

 purgative. If he be very full of flesh, have bad legs, and 

 be a good feeder, he may need several doses, each as strong 

 as the horse can safely bear it. His safety is never to be 

 compromised. There are other means of reducing him, if 

 physic, in safe doses, will not do it. He may have the first 

 as soon as his bowels are relaxed by bran mashes. The sec- 

 ond is not to be given in less than nine clear days. The 

 third, if absolutely necessary, is not to be given in less than 

 fourteen days after the second sets. 



Should the horse fall lame, or from any other cause require 

 to lie idle for several days after his training has considerably 

 advanced, physic may be necessary to prevent plethora. This 

 state of the system may also be prevented by reducing the 

 allowance of food. But racers and hunters can not be starved, 

 and whatever kind of food they get it must either produce 

 plethora or a large belly. The physic prevents both. Unless 

 lameness or swelled legs demand it, the physic need not be 

 given till the horse has been several days idle. If he must be 

 out of work for more than two or three weeks, a second dose 

 may be necessary. But it is only horses of very keen appe- 

 tite that need physic to prevent plethora. A delicate horse 

 of light carcass, narrow loins, and irritable temper, rarely re- 

 quires physic to prevent or to cure plethora, and very seldom 

 to remove superfluous flesh. They eat sparingly, and the 

 training exercises reduce them more, and faster, than others 

 of robust constitution. Between the most delicate and the 

 most robust there are many others with whom a middle course 

 of treatment must be adopted with regard to physic, and to 

 everything else. While those of very strong constitution 

 may require a full dose, the very delicate may require none. 

 To some a mild or a half-dose is suflicient ; and to others ei 

 diuretic or an alterative may be useful, when the propriety of 

 giving even a mild or a half-dose is doubtful. 



Horses that have undergone a good deal of exertion, wheth- 

 er in training or in work, often need physic to refresh them. 

 The legs may be slightly swelled, the horse a little stifi', and 

 dull. If much emaciated, a mild dose is suificient ; if lusty 

 \he dose may be strong, particularly if the legs be the worse 

 cT wear. 



