59? 
SHORT HOTES 
ON THE 
CARE OF THE TROOP HORSE: 
EOR 
YOUNG OFFICERS AND N.-C. OFFICERS. 
BY 
MAJOR J. HOTHAM, R.H.A. 
As some ninety per cent, of both officers and men in the mounted 
branches join the service with almost absolutely no knowledge about 
horses, and as I have found, I regret to say, after many years ex¬ 
perience, that officers and N.-C.O.'s of five and six years' service, and 
even much more, have the very vaguest ideas about conditioning, 
nursing, diagnosing sickness, etc. of horses, I have tried to put to¬ 
gether a few notes to aid both young officers and young soldiers on 
joining, to acquire some little knowledge of their duties as horse- 
masters. 
Although both officers and men, in these highly scientific days, are 
examined after lectures on musketry, gunnery, range-finding, and 
what not, but little attention, up to date, has been paid to teaching 
them to know something practical about the horse. 
I am, at present, serving in one of the largest stations in India, where 
there happens to be a large force of cavalry and artillery, but I will 
undertake to state that there are not ten officers in the station who 
can shoe or age a horse, make and give a ball, or diagnose and treat 
a simple case of colic, distinguishing it from inflammation. 
This, I think, is a very lamentable state of things, when you consider 
the number of horses there are in their charge, and that on service 
many of them—often a detachment—may be without a Veterinary- 
Surgeon or a Farrier-Sergeant. 
But very little teaching and trouble would enable all officers to do 
these things and more, yet how few there are among them, who, 
although good soldiers and able horsemen, will take of their own 
accord the trouble to learn. 
That this is so, is chiefly the fault of their early training, as I find 
that both officers and men are all really keen to learn. 
When a young officer comes to my battery and he tells me he has 
passed the gunnery school, range-finding and, perhaps, signalling, 
although these qualifications are excellent in their way, they give me 
12. VOL. XXI. 79 
