108 Roaring in Horses. 



Damp weather, and especially if it is also cold, is unfavour- 

 able for such horses ; and an attack of catarrh or bronchitis, 

 if ever so slight, greatly aggravates the Koaring. The good 

 effects of abstention from water have often been noticed ; 

 and to relieve the distress consequent upon severe exertion, 

 it has been sometimes found advantageous to administer a 

 quantity of an oleaginous or lubricating fluid previously. 

 To diminish the breathing capacity, and so lessen the strain 

 on the larynx, the nostrils have also been partially occluded, 

 or bulky food has been given. 



With regard to the latter treatment, Youatt gives an 

 amusing anecdote. He writes : " There are few hunts in 

 which there is not a Roarer who acquits himself very 

 fairly in the field, and it has occasionally so happened that 

 the Roarer has been the very crack horse of the hunt ; 

 yet he must be ridden with judgment, and spared a little 

 when going uphill. There is a village in the West Riding 

 of Yorkshire, through which a band of smugglers used 

 frequently to pass in the dead of night. The horse of the 

 leader, and the best horse of the troop, and on which his 

 owner would bid defiance to all pursuit, was so rank a 

 Roarer that he could be heard at the distance of a quarter 

 of a mile. The clatter of all the rest scarcely made so much 

 noise as the roaring of the captain's horse. When this got 

 a little too bad, and he did not fear immediate pursuit, the 

 smuggler used to halt the troop at some convenient hayrick 

 on the roadside ; and, having suffered the animal to distend 

 his stomach with this dry food, as he was always ready 

 enough to do, he would remount and gallop on, and for a 

 while the roaring was scarcely heard. I am not compelled 

 satisfactorily to account for this ; but the loaded stomach 

 now pressing against the diaphragm, that muscle had 

 harder work to displace the stomach in the act of enlarging 

 the chest and producing an act of inspiration, and accom- 

 plished it more slowly, and therefore, the air taking longer 

 time to rush by, the Roaring was diminished. I will not 



