768 VETEKINAEY HYGIENE 



duction of horses to their work. They must not be 

 forced ; forcing defeats its own object, and can only have 

 one termination and that is disappointment. The whole 

 process is a gradual one ; time, patience, and for the higher 

 form of condition, viz., that required for racing, skill, 

 profound judgment, and experience, are required ; for the 

 lower forms of condition, viz., for ordinary saddle and 

 harness work, all that is needed is time, patience, a know- 

 ledge of horses, and sound common-sense. 



In the conditioning of horses there is one feature not yet 

 alluded to, and that is the amount of 'condition' which 

 any particular horse can attain. This is a variable quantity 

 depending on the personal equation. There are some 

 horses which from their condition of extreme nervous 

 irritability can never be trained or got fit ; we are now 

 speaking almost entirely of the higher forms of condition 

 for racing and hunting. There are others of naturally 

 delicate constitution, whose limit of power is soon reached, 

 and if pressed beyond it go off their feed for a day or two, 

 in consequence of which it is practically impossible to get 

 them 'fit.' 



The amount of work each horse is capable of doing, 

 when he has yielded his maximum, and when he shows the 

 slightest deviation from his proper form, are features in the 

 training of horses only learned by long experience. Even 

 that experience is lost unless implanted on a judgment 

 which is almost intuitive, hence the training of racehorses 

 is in the hands of a few experts possessing extraordinary 

 powers of judgment. This judgment they are no more 

 able to transmit to others, than is the jockey who in a 

 few rare instances becomes a remarkable judge of pace, 

 and of knowing what he can really get out of a horse, and 

 the right way and time of doing it. 



This acute degree of perception is not required for the 

 ordinary conditioning of horses, but it is obvious that a 

 knowledge of what an ainimal is capable of yielding, for how 

 long the work should last, and the nature of the pace, are 

 quite as essential as in the higher form of training. 



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