SWEATING. 209 



the body is perceptibly acted on. Hence, when the groom thinks 

 that his horse is loaded with fat about the heart, he puts on extra 

 " sweaters" over that part, or on the contrary, if his object is to 

 unload the ridge of dense adipose membrane, which constitutes a 

 high crest, he puts on two or three extra hoods, and sweats chiefly 

 in that region of the body. The local effect of these partial 

 sweats is, perhaps, a good deal overrated, but undoubtedly there h 

 some foundation for the general belief. The use of clothing for 

 sweating is not nearly so frequent as it used to be, even in racing 

 stables, and horses are not now drawn so fine, by a great deal, as 

 they were twenty or thirty years ago. At that time runners in 

 the Derby, or in any other great race, when they were saddled, 

 looked like living skeletons, and to an eye unaccustomed to the 

 hard lines presented by their limbs, the beauty of their forms was 

 entirely gone. Now a different system prevails ; the object is not 

 to reduce the horse as much as he will bear, but to bring him out 

 as big as he can be, consistently with good wind. The celebrated 

 trainer, John Scott, has shown what can be done in this way, and 

 his example is now generally followed. So also with hunters, 

 although they are often required to do more, perhaps, than any 

 other variety of the horse, and in the grass countries are made as 

 fit as if they were going to run in a steeplechase, yet they are 

 brought to covert looking big and full of muscle, without any 

 pretensions to be considered as drawn fine. Still the sweat, either 

 in clothes or without them, must be occasionally carried out, or the 

 internal organs will continue loaded with fat, as is natural to them 

 when they have been for some time in a state of rest, coupled with 

 high feeding. The use and amount of sweaters must be propor- 

 tioned to the constitutional peculiarities of the individual ; in one 

 horse a slow gallop will produce a perfect lather on the skin, while 

 in another treated in all respects in the same way, there shall be 

 hardly a hair turned. So also the effect of apparently the same 

 degree of sweating on different horses is very variable, producing 

 a great relief in one case, and scarcely any in another. The groom 

 mast not attempt to carry out anv fixed rule, but must watch the 

 effect of each day's work, and increase or diminish the amount 

 next day according to circumstances. 



As I before remarked, a sweat may be with clothes or with- 

 out, the object in each case being not so much to do a certain 

 amount of work, but to get rid of a fixed quantity of superfluous 

 fat and humors. On the other hand, a gallop has quite the oppo- 

 sioe end in view, being intended to brace the muscles, heart, blood- 

 vessels and lungs, by stimulating them to act in an extraordinary 

 degree, but without any view to reduce the weight of the body or 

 any part of it. In a sweat, therefore, the pace is slow and long 

 continued; no exertion is made to render it smart, or to develop 



14 



