Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/206

194 194 HORSE [TREATMENT OF HUNTERS. he never takes more than a very few small ruouthfuls at a time, nothing like the quantity allowed by the most stingy groom ; and, if the amount consumed be measured, it will be found that, after the first day or two, the horse actually drinks less than when watered at stated intervals. Where the ad libitum plan is not adopted, horses should be watered four times a day. Nothing can be more unwise than the undue stinting hunters of their water on hunting days ; no one could expect a satisfactory day s work from an animal s a fie ring from excessive thirst. Where horses can have water when they like, it will scarcely be necessary to do more than to pat the cover on the water tank at about 9 30 on hunting mornings, assuming the meet to be at 11. It need hardly be said that the quality of water supplied to stables should be carefully attended to. Horses are easily made sick by impurities, and are very dainty in their choice of water. When on a journey, horses should never be allowed to drink at public troughs, as disease is very likely to be contracted by such a proceeding. Exercise. Exercise is a great preservative of health, but, like food and medicine, it should be given at proper times and iu proper quantities. Exercise must not be confounded with work ; the severe work horses are sometimes called upon to perform takes much out of them, and exercise is one of the means adopted to counteract any ill effects of hard work. In order that the muscles of a horse may not become prematurely tired, it is not sufficient that they should be violently taxed some three days a fortnight as with hunters ; they must be used every day, and the exer cise by which this is effected causes all the tissues of the body to receive their support by reason of the tone given to the circulation of the blood. Hacks, harness horses, and particularly ladies horses, should be sufficiently well exer cised to guard against an excessive exuberance of spirits ; for nothing is more annoying than to have an animal, quiet enough in an ordinary way, perpetually jumping about at the approach of vehicles or other horses, merely because he is too fresh. Hunters should have two hours walking exercise daily ; sometimes a slow trot of 3 or 4 miles may be indulged in, but, when the hunting season fairly sets in, and horses are hunted regularly, cantering should be forbidden at exercise unless either master or man happens to be a very good judge of what kind of exercise a horse requires. Treat- Hacks and harness horses are but rarely called upon to perform nieut of duties so exhausting as those of the hunter. In the case of the hunters, former animals, a suitable stable, good food and water, ventilation, and exercise, coupled of course with careful supervision,, should, save under exceptional circumstances, suffice to keep them in good health. All the previous remarks apply in the case of hunters, but with them something more is needed. First there is the getting the animal into condition, and then comes the proper mode of treatment after work, when the system is exhausted, and the horse suffering perhaps from the effects of a blow or a fall. The. art of fretting hunters into condition has made great strides during the last fifty years. Nowadays one seldom hears of horses dying in the field through sheer exhaustion; and it cannot be said that their work is lighter now than it was then. To begin at the beginning, a hunter should be fit for use by the end of October, and the question then arises, How long before this time should lie have been in what may be called training? using the word, of course, in a different sense from what is understood by training in a racing stable. The answer to this question depends very much upon how, at the termination of the last hunting season, the owner solved the difficulty of &quot; what to do with the horses.&quot; Assuming horses are to be kept through the summer, it will probably be nearly a month after the last hunting day before the summering treatment is adopted. A dose of physio will have been administered, and, if wise, the owner will have called iu a veterinary surgeon to see what damages have been sustained; but he should be one used to hunters and their peculiar infirmities. Many persons with the best intentions, and following very ancient traditions, turn their horses out to grass, saying that a &quot;summer s run&quot; will put new life into them, but not explaining why a horse that up to Monday night is kept clothed in a warm stable and fed on hard food, should be greatly benefited by being turned into a field on Tuesday without his clothing, and left to subsist entirely on grass. This sudden change of living, which used to be so universal in the case of horses, is condemned in th& human subject; and that is not the least powerful argument that can be urged against it. Moreover, most veterinary surgeons agree that more hunters have been made roarers or contracted disease of some kind from being turned out to grass than from almost any other cause. In the days when summering in the fields was the usual method pursued, a hunter was never really fit until the season was far advanced, and the turning out to grass in May was simply undoing all that had been done since the previous August. Although here and there a few individuals adopted a more common sense way of summering their hunters, the full evils of the grazing system were not impressed upon the public until &quot;Kimrod,&quot;in letters to the Old Sporting Magazine, advocated the adoption of a more enlightened system, and showed the weak points in the old one. The advantages claimed for the plan of turning out to grass were that the horse s system and his feet benefited, and that it was cheaper. But violent changes in the manner of living cannot be beneficial, and, as regards the feet, Mr Goodwin, veterinary sur geon to George IV., said : &quot;1 have invariably observed, where horses are turned out to grass during the dry and hot summer months, that, on bringing them up to be put into stable condition, their feet are in a much worse state than when they went out, dried up, and so hard and brittle that, on the application of a tool to bring them into a form to receive a shoe, the horn breaks like a piece of glass, and all the naturally tough and elastic property is lost, so that it requires some months to remove its bad effects. Horses at grass are much inclined to thrush.&quot; As to the expense, the objection is too trilling to be taken as a set off against any real advantages the system advocated by &quot; Nimrod,&quot; and now generally adopted, may be found to possess. 1 ut in whatever way a horse is summered, it is clear that there must be a great change from a state of hard work to one of absolute rest and quiet, and this change should not be the work of a moment. Unless an owner be particularly lucky, some one or more of his hunters will generally show signs of wear and tear before the end of the season has arrived, and these should be the first thrown up They should be exercised daily, but their corn should be diminished, and their dressing in the stable need not be of the same thorough kind as when they were in full work. After about a fortnight of this treatment summering may begin in its full sense The state of the horse s legs, and the judgment of the owner, will determine whether the horse shall be exercised during the summer, or left to exercise himself. In the former case he must remain shod, and have his feet stopped two nights a week with dam]) tow, or, if there be much tendency to fever, with totv dipped in the best Stockholm tar. Exercise should take place in the cool of the day, in the morning for choice, on soft ground, for about an hour and a half. Where the horse is left to exercise himself, he should be housed in a good-sized shed or box opening into a straw- yard or small paddock, which should be shaded by trees or build ings, so that the maximum of air can be breathed with the minimum of exposure to the sun. A horse thus kept should have his shoes removed, and, as his feet cannot then be stopped, he should stand once or twice a week, for an hour at a time, on wet lay. The constitution of each particular horse should be taken into account in deciding how he shall be fed during the summer months. The aim to be kept in view is to maintain the strength, but not to engender fever, to let the system down as it were, but not to undo all that has been done during the hunting season to a greater extent than may be found necessary. As a general rule, three feeds of oats a day (the feeds being rather smaller than those given during work) will be sufficient; beans should be eschewed, but 8 or 9 Ib of hay may be given. Green food should be given with caution, say twice or thrice a week, to assist in maintaining a healthy action of the bowels. The getting the horse into condition again for the ensuing season should be accomplished gradually, and all violent exertion should be avoided. About the beginning of August the shoes should be put on the unshod horse, and he should have an hour s walking exercise daily for about a week, when the time may be extended by degrees. The horse that has been exercised all the summer will need no special attention until the beginning of September, about which time all the horses should have slow trotting exercise twice a week on soft, but not deep, ground. During October cantering may be indulged in twice a week, but plenty of walking exercise should form part of every day s work. The quantity of oats given should of course be increased as the work gets stronger, until, before the commencement of the hunting season, the full quantity is reverted to. It is of course the groom s duty to get a hunter into condition, and to apply the proper treatment on his return to the stable, when tired by the day s work; but during the day the horse will be under the care of the rider, and carelessness or want of judgment on his part may occasion injuries not to be overcome by any known system of stable management. As soon as the hounds leave off, the rider,