34 
NIMROD ON THE CONDITION 
as an agent in promoting condition, as I myself have ever been, even 
to the preference of an ill-ventilated warm stable to a cold one. 
Had we not before us, in addition to experience, the convincing 
arguments in its favour of writers such as Mr. Percivall, and others 
of your profession, the horses of the desert might be produced in 
proof. Independently of the firmness of their bones and sinews — the 
effect of the warm climate, and the arid soil of the country in which 
they are bred — there is a kindly feel, a glossy appearance in their 
coats, which even a cool stable, in a climate so much colder than 
their own, as an English one must be, but little affects. I have 
seen several Arabians in large loose boxes in London, and other 
places, in the winter months, but never saw one whose coat was 
much disturbed, still less long and staring, as that of low-bred horses 
become from the effect of cold. And we find, even with our Eng- 
lish horses of inferior breed, their coats will be silky, close, and fine, 
provided they have always been subject to a high degree of warmth 
in their stables when at work, and well fed likewise. 
With respect to the coats of horses, I am not going to assert that 
a long and shaggy one may not be productive of warmth ; but this 
I will say, — that which looks silky and fine to the eye, as in the 
case of a horse in high condition, is a better safeguard against cold 
than that which is long and staring , and on a dry skin, the effect of 
poor keep in a poor stable ; and if such were not the case, post-horses 
and gentlemen’s coach horses, which hang about doors for hours in 
all sorts of weather, would not stand such treatment with impunity. 
And one more word upon coats. There are, and have been, horses 
(Parasol, the famous racer, for one) whose coats will always be long, 
under any treatment ; but this is no bar to condition, as I have myself 
proved, having possessed two hunters subject to this peculiarity. 
Under proper treatment, they dried, after sweating, equally quickly 
with others whose coats were shorter. 
I rejoice to find that, touching alteratives and tonics, as promo- 
ters of the condition of horses, I am backed in my commendation 
of them by such good authority as Mr. Gabriel’s, and there the 
judicious combination is every day becoming better understood 
than it was in old times, when farriers and science were nearly 
strangers to each other. And I am also glad to find him a friend 
to the timely application of the properly composed cordial ball, the 
good effects of which I have so often experienced. It is in the 
abuse of them alone that any mischief may arise from cordials, and 
in that case to a serious extent, inasmuch as the late Earl Courte- 
ney’s father had two sets of coach-horses destroyed by them. 
On the subject of clipping, I cannot agree with Mr. Gabriel as to 
th ) call for it, still less admit its “ almost universal adoption.” I 
would clip road coach horses, and a hunter that had been summered 
