CHAPTER IV 



DAILY KOUTINE IN TRAINING 



DUEING the training months, the syces should be up 

 nearly an hour before daylight, and should give each of 

 the horses a little water, say, 2 or 3 pints, and from 1 to 

 1^ lbs. of corn, which quantity may be increased to 2 lbs., 

 if the animals are to be kept out longer than three hours. 

 When this is eaten, the clothing worn at night should be 

 taken off, the coats wisped over and smoothened down 

 with a towel, the manes and tails set straight ; the eyes, 

 muzzles, and docks sponged out ; and fresh clothing put 

 on according to the weather. The horses are now taken 

 to the exercising ground, and are kept walking for fully 

 an hour, so that they may empty themselves, and then 

 they get their work, fast or slow, as the case may be. In 

 some racing stables in England, the horses that go out 

 early in the morning, say, at six o'clock, during the hot 

 days of summer, get nothing before starting, while in 

 others they have a very small feed. The advocates of the 

 former system aver that their animals, being empty, are 

 in the best possible condition for getting work, and that 

 nothing is gained by feeding them at that time. If we 

 may reason from our own cases, we may assume that the 



