REMOUNT HORSES IN INDIA. 
493 
during tlie hot, dry season, and in many stations where the surround¬ 
ing country is nearly all rock, constant cases of navicular disease and 
laminitis will occur ; keeping the soles of the feet a little soft may 
lessen the concussion and jar, and in a small way check these diseases 
in some cases. A tub of stopping, ready mixed, might be kept at the 
end of each stable. 
Training. 
The remounts, on arrival from the depots, should be put away on a 
line together, remote from the rest of the horses for the first month, 
on veterinary grounds. The rough-rider or some steady rank and file 
N.-C.O. can be put in charge of them, and a steady old soldier and 
good rider be told off to groom and ride each one of them. It is 
advisable to put them to work at once. Nothing is worse for young 
horses in every way than being’ led about by syces and doing no 
regular work; they get saucy and above themselves, and take double 
the time to break and train, or else they get bilious from want of exercise 
sufficient for digestive purposes. I recommend their being backed at 
once and being ridden for the first fortnight for about half-an-hour in 
the morning and half-an-hour in the evening ; after that they may be 
ridden from one hour to one hour-and-a-half daily in the morning, 
taking care to get them back into the stables before the heat of the 
sun be great, and to work them very quietly. 
It is a good plan to back them and start them at their work in a 
walled, circular menage of about 25 to 30 yards in diameter, well littered 
all over, in case of falls ; they should be led there by hand before being 
mounted, and there should always be three or four spare men to hold 
and lead the horses when first backed. The greatest care must be 
taken at first, for I know of no horse so easily spoilt and ruined as a 
young waler. A few days of rough handling or a blow or two, to 
resent which he bucks and puts his rider down once or twice (the 
ordinary soldier has not a very firm seat or light hand), and gets 
damned as a buck-jumping brute, men get nervous of him, and, from 
being constantly left in on every available opportunity, he goes from 
bad to worse, and gets a bad name which he may not really deserve. 
I should advocate that the O.O. attend at the riding schools every day for 
the first fortnight, for if he does so and the men see that he takes a per¬ 
sonal interest in the young horses, they will soon learn to do the same. 
Though every 0.0. may not, perhaps, have the time, and with many 
the breaking and training of young horses may not be, as with myself, 
a hobby ; however, unless there be a thoroughly good rough-rider in 
the battery (I can count the good ones I have known in 22 years’ ser¬ 
vice on the fingers of one hand) it is most essential that either the 
C.O. be there or some one of the officers who is really fond of horses 
and takes an interest in the work. 
A broad strap, with a buckle, just long enough to strap the fore-leg 
up to the forearm, is an excellent and most useful appliance. A horse 
that is restive on mounting, and inclined to buck a bit at starting, is 
often quickly settled down and brought to order by two or three turns 
round the menage on three legs; the strap can at any moment be 
quickly released by one of the spare men. 
