Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/39

Rh would be willing to run some risk of having a worthless animal for his own use, in the hope of possibly having one free from the dreaded defect and of superlative excellence. In any event, however, the practice is to be eschewed and the risk to be considered excessive.

Previous to sending the mare to the horse she should be got into the most perfect state of health and condition, by moderate exercise, abundance of good nutritious food, and warm stabling. It is not desirable that she should be in a pampered state produced by hot stables or extraordinary clothing, that she should have the short fine coat, or the blooming and glowing condition of the skin, for which one would look in a race-horse about to contend for a four mile heat—not that she should be in that wiry form of sinew and steel-like hardness of muscle, which is only the result of training. Still less desirable is it that she should be overloaded with fat, especially of that soft fat generated by artificial feeding. While the mare is carrying her foal, during the first three or four months of her gestation, she will be much the better, not the worse, for doing her ordinary work,—not of course galloping long distances at her speed, nor trotting matches, nor doing extraordinary distances on the road; but, if she be a carriage mare or a hackney, doing her regular day's work at her ordinary pace before a carriage or under the saddle; or, if she be a farm mare, going through the usual routine of light ploughing, harrowing, or road-work, never being put to any sudden or extreme exertion, such as being made to pull at excessive loads, or to any efforts likely to produce sudden jerks or strains, which are, of all things, the most likely to cause a mare to slip her foal. At a later period her work should be lighter and slower, but none the less regular, nor should her exercise ever be wholly intermitted. If she be let to run at grass, she should be