SIGNS OF FITNESS. 45 
public opinion ; nor was it, in the result, unrewarded. From 
their employers, the trainers received well-earned and freely- 
given thanks ; from the public, an ovation such as a victorious 
General might be proud of. The public had erred, and had 
to confess it; being forced to admit that as horses run in 
all shapes and forms, so they do in every conceivable state 
of condition, so far as the eye can judge. 
To insist at all hazards on a glossy coat is, in my opinion, 
only on a par with the barbarous custom of forty years ago 
or more, to shorten the docks of all horses young or old. 
Usually they were subjected to this treatment during the 
first or second week after their arrival at the training quarters : 
the operation being performed by the severance of a few inches 
of the vertebre of the tail, staunching the hemorrhage by the 
application of powdered resin and the actual cautery. 
Happily for the tortured animal, the practice has long since 
ceased to exist, as has nicking and nerving, that old and 
useless veterinary practice ; “more honoured in the breach 
than the observance.” All men now prefer to see the noble 
animal as formed by nature, rather than in a mutilated 
shape, disfigured at the hands of capricious humanity. 
We have learned something of the essentials, in feeding 
and stable management, of good condition ; and it will now 
be well to describe the signs that enable a person to judge 
correctly of the fitness of a horse to do what may be required 
of him. 
Every one who has seen or takes an interest in a racehorse, 
talks eloquently, in conventional terms and set phrases, on 
his condition; a point in which one horse so resembles 
another, that existing differences often escape all but the 
experienced eyes. Horses that look pretty much alike are 
praised or condemned, rightly or wrongly, as fancy dictates. 
