96 PUTTING INTO CONDITION. 



if it is the cold weather, the jhool in the morning's 

 walk should be kept on ; but walking exercise at 

 other seasons of the year, with clothing on, when the 

 thermometer is ninety, or more, is enough to put 

 any horse " in irons." 



DANGER OF OVERFEEDING. 



Condition is not the work of a week ; it will often 

 take half a year for a horse that is thin, or fresh from 

 the stables, and if you attempt to fatten too quickly 

 by grain, before the strength will admit of your giving 

 proportionate exercise, the stomach, unable to digest 

 a large quantity, will be weakened ; thus the grain 

 will often pass whole, and the horse fall off instead 

 of improving, or he will grow dull, heavy, and gross. 

 And even should he be able to digest all you .give, 

 this raising of the condition too quickly is very apt 

 to produce fever, or inflammation of the bowels. It 

 is always dangerous to allow an idle horse to overfeed 

 on grain, it brings on scouring ; besides, flesh gained 

 at this risk adds but little to strength. There are 

 some horses also that will keep plump on eight seers, 

 and yet not thrive on twelve. 



Continual increasing and decreasing of grain is 

 likewise very bad. Feeding a thin horse on ten seers 

 a-day, then reducing it suddenly to half the quanti- 

 ty, and then increasing it again to ten all this irre- 

 gularity is destructive to getting into condition ; yet 

 I have seen a man, when training, act not very dif- 

 ferently from this, but I never heard of one winning, 

 unless it was a donkey race. 



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