128 HOW TO FEED A HORSE. 



are empty, and themselves craving a good dressing and a 



warm mash, than one would readily imagine. 



The faster and severer the work which a horse is ex- 

 pected to perform, the sounder, more nutritious and more 

 abundant should be his food. His oats should be increased 

 and his hay diminished. For a fast trotter, in constant 

 work, and expected to perform considerable distances in 

 good time, six pounds of hay will be amply sufficient — 

 since dry hay, indisputably, is injurious to the wind ; but 

 ihe oats may be increased to fourteen, or sixteen quarts, 

 or, in fact, to as much as the animal will eat. The same 

 may be said of a hunter, of a gentleman's roadster (when 

 the master is in the habit of calling on him to do long 

 distances regularly, at a good rate of speed) and, in sliort, 

 of all horses, which it is more or less necessary to force, 

 to keep in an unnatural state, for the performance of un- 

 natural feats. The training of racers and trotters is so 

 distinctly a science, apart and of itself, and is one limited 

 to so small a class of persons, comparatively speaking, and 

 consequently possessed of so little general interest, that it 

 will not be worth the while to speak of it in detail at pres- 

 ent. It consists, of course, in getting the horse for a 

 short time, into the highest possible state of condition; 

 hardness of flesh, excitement of spirits, bloom of coat, 

 speed of foot and depth of wind, which is effected by com- 

 bining the most nutritious and stimulating system of feed 

 ing with such constant and severe exercise, and such medical 

 treatment as, while exciting and raising every power oi 

 the animal to the utmost, prevents surfeit, prevents fever, 

 and, for the time, preserves an equilibrium, which, how- 

 ever, at best, is only temporary, and cannot possibly be 

 prolonged ad infinitum, A horse could no more be kept 

 always in full training than he could always be ridden at 

 ftill gallop. It is an abnormal condition; andjWhOe it 



