teA....

THE

POCKET AND THE STUD:

PEACTICAL HINTS

MANAGEMENT OF THE STABLE.

HARRY HIEOYER.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, & ROBERTS.
1857.

London :

Printed by Spottiswoode & Co.

New-street Square.

PREFACE

TO

THE THIRD EDITION.

It is a usual and indeed very naturally enter-
tained idea, that when any book has gone through
more than one edition, the work must comprise
some merit to render such repetition necessary or
advisable.

Takino; this idea in its oreneral bearins; the
conclusion drawn is more or less a correct one :
yet it may lead to very erroneous judgment as to
the extent of the sale of any published work, so
far as relates to the numerical quantum of copies
sold ; for where a work is of such a nature that
the price of each volume is somewhat high, both
author and publisher may feel it prudent to con-
fine an edition to a few hundred copies : whereas,
on the other hand, where the price is very moderate,
it may be judicious, indeed necessary, to let the
edition comprise some thousands, in order to
render the work remunerative : thus one work

A 2

IV TREFACE TO THE THIllD EDITION.

may have the eclat of going through several
editions, and yet, in point of copies sold, may fall
short of another that is still in its first edition.

As Author of " The Pocket and the Stud," I
could not but feel much gratified, that, after so
monster an edition as the first was struck off, a
second should so soon be requisite. I am now
flattered on finding a third called for.

My first published Book was " Stable-Talk and
Table-Talk," a miscellaneous work, in two large
octavo volumes. These are a general compilation,
touching Racing, Hunting, Riding, Driving, and
most subjects connected with field sports ; and fur-
ther, including the purchasing of Horses, and the
breaking-in and subsequent management of them.

Next followed the present work, " The Pocket
and the Stud." This enters more into the detail
of purchasing and managing horses in and out of
the stable ; treating also of the dimensions and
regulation of stables, so as to render them safe,
comfortable, and healthful to their inhabitants ;
and further, on the feeding of horses, as regards
quantum and quality of food, so as to promote
the well-doing of the *' Stud," with an equal regard
to that of the " Pocket."

That it has been thought to have tended to
promote such desirable results, I trust I may

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. V

entertain a hope, from the circumstance of this
third edition being called for.

Finding "The Pocket and the Stud" was
meeting a rapid sale, I wrote and published a com-
panion to it — " The Stud for Practical Purposes
and Practical Men." This work keeps in view
the interest of the Pocket and Stud quite as much
as its predecessor, and some particulars to a still
greater extent.

It sets before the reader the consequences to
be expected from the different ailments, general
imperfections, and peculiar habits of the horse,
whether arising from treatment or natural causes,
showing where he may venture to purchase, and
where it would be judicious to reject an animal
under the influence of any of the imperfections or
peculiarities alluded to.

" The Pocket and the Stud " has been, I
am aware, a taking title to the book ; for, as the
world is now constituted, a vast number of its
inhabitants are at once on the qui vive where any-
thing relative to a saving of the pocket is con-
cerned. So be it ; and under the impression that
it is so, I venture to recommend " The Stud for
Practical Purposes" for the reader's perusal, feeling
perfectly confident that, if the hints given in

A 3

VI PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

" The Pocket and the Stud " may be the means of
saving pounds in the generalmanagement of horses,
its companion, if carefully read, will cause a saving
of hundreds in the judicious purchasing of them ;
for, it must be borne in mind that, though a saving
of expense in stable management is a matter of
considerable importance In the long run, the pre-
venting the purchase of that at lOOZ. which is
only worth 50Z. is a saving of 50Z. in the onset ; and,
on the other hand, the affording such information
as may prevent the rejection (from erroneous ideas)
of that which would really meet the wants and
wishes of the reader, is a matter of quite as much
importance, both on the score of economy, and as
a saving of time, trouble, and much vexatious
search, which will only end in being obliged to
put up with some imperfection at last, — and what
imperfections may best be put up with, as re-
gards the purpose for which the animal is wanted,
— is the spirit and intention under which I
wrote, and venture to recommend, " The Stud
for Practical Purposes."

After the two last-mentioned books, both in-
tended to effect a saving of the pocket, it struck
me that one havino; for its intent the savino; the
life or limbs of the rider might be considered as
of at least some use : and, under this impression, I

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. VU

produced " Practical Horsemanship," confining
its contents chiefly to its intended use — namely,
tending to promote the safety and comfort of the
rider. This I have attempted to do, by bringing
forward such hints as long experience and much
personal practice in riding horses of all sorts
have taught me are likely to teach the Tyro in
Horsemanship how to avoid danger under, and
in, peculiar circumstances ; how to counteract any
evil propensities in the horse ; how to sit with
ease and comfort on him, and, by contracting the
seat and air of a horseman, to avoid the rude
jeers or jeering looks of the multitude, which an
evident display of bad horsemanship is certain to
produce. Nor is this book without its claims as
to saving the pocket as well as the neck ; for as
fine condition often doubles, and its reverse halves
the original price of a horse ; so riding him to
show him to the best advantage, or so as to go like
a brute, in many cases as much increases or di-
minishes his value. The old anecdote of a dealer's
man askins; whether he was to ride a horse he w^as
put upon " to buy or to sell," is corroborative of
my opinion on this point ; and I fearlessly assert,
that if a bad horseman were to get a good one to
ride his horse to show him, or were to do the same

A 4

Vlll PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

thing himself, it would with many horses make
half the difference in the price to be obtained.

My last production, published by Messrs.
Longman, *« The Hunting Field," though not
intended for the perusal of the generally penu-
rious man, is still intended to, and 1 hope does,
tell the uninitiated, who mean to indulge in an
amusement that cannot be enjoyed without ex-
pense, how they may avoid useless expenditure,
inasmuch as it attempts to show them the proper
kind of horse to purchase, the amount of work a
given number are equal to, and how to ride them
in the field with the least labour and exertion, both
to themselves and their stud ; by doing this, all
horsemen know that a moderate horse will, in some
men's hands, do wonders and gain a character,
where a first-rate one, with an injudicious rider
on him, will never be able to keep his proper place
with hounds ; and what cost perhaps a couple
of hundreds will shortly be estimated as worth
sixty for a mere park hack. Thus I trust each
of these books will be found, in its particular bear-
ing, not merely to conduce to the interest of the
reader as regards his comfort, safety, and enjoy-
ment, but his pecuniary resources also.

H. H.

PREFACE

to
THE FIRST EDITION

Whenever a man ventures to give hints or offer
advice to others on the management of their pro-
perty or affairs (be the nature of them what it
may), he lays himself open to a charge of both
arrogance and presumption, unless he can bring
forward a good reason for fancying himself quali-
fied for the task ; for it not merely implies, but
plainly states, that he conceives he knows more
about the matter than the generality of those for
whose perusal he writes. It, therefore, becomes
not only a matter of proper respect to them, but
a duty he owes himself, to explicitly state that,
in offering advice, he does not consider his quali-
fications for the task to arise from any fancied
superiority or particular perspicuity of intellect
in general matters, but from the very homely cir-
cumstance 0^ practical experience in those on which
he writes.

X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

I feel that I stand in the very delicate position
that I have described, in venturing to lay the
present work before the public : therefore, if ever
a book imperiously called on its author for a
preface or introduction, it is absolutely indis-
p.,>nsable to " The Pocket and the Stud."

I trust most of my readers will agree with me,
that supposing, from a particular turn of mind, a
man had made the manufacturing of chronometers
his study from childhood, and that if circum-
stances had compelled him to serve two apprentice-
ships to that art, he could not be accused of pre-
sumption if, after such experience and practice,
he ventured to give advice on the management of
a watch to those of far superior attainments in
mind in other matters, but who may not have
had the same knowledge and practice forced on
them, as regards the subject on which he ventured
to give advice, or, in more modest phrase, the
same experience and practice.

ISTow, I am precisely in the situation of such
a man, and I trust the liberality of my readers
will give me credit for acting only on the same
principle in offering advice on the subjects of the
present work. I have had a great part of the
knowledge I possess, and the practice I have had
in these matters, forced on me by untoward

PREFACE TO THE FIPwST EDITION. xl

circumstances, over which I had no control ; and
to those who may not have the same knowledge,
and have not had the same practice, I offer my
sincere congratulations that they have not been
placed in the like predicament, for Fate has -)t
vouchsafed to give this knowledge and practice to
me as a matter of pleasure, but has buffetted both
into me in some of her most angry moods, or at
all events, a great part of both are the result of
her will and decree.

There are, beyond doubt, numberless men who
possess more knowledge of, and have had more
practice in, the matters contained in this work
than I can boast ; and I am equally willing to
give them credit for being able (if they felt in-
clined to do so) to lay the result of that know-
ledge and experience before the public in better
form and terms than I can : to such men, of course,
this work would be useless ; but I trust that to
thousands of others it will not be found to stand
in the same position.

That there are many gentlemen better judges
of horses or their management (as gentlemen's
horses) than myself, I make no doubt ; that there
are many dealers, breakers, trainers, and others
concerned in the sale of horses that know more, I
must also, of course, admit ; but it might, perhaps.

Xll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

be difficult to find a man precisely in my situa-
tion— namely, that of one born, bred, educated
for, and as, a private individual — who, in addi-
tion to the knowledge in matters required of a
gentleman, has, as I have before stated, been
forced to acquire the knowledge of the minutiae
of the business and avocation of men in a directly
opposite position in society ; but, as such is the
fact in my case, I feel it a duty I owe my readers
to give a short statement of the circumstances
that have caused such an apparent anomaly.

I am not of sufficient consequence to render it
a matter of the slightest importance to my readers
what may be my name ; they will probably be
still more indifferent as to what was the orisjin,
is the extent, or who may be collateral branches
of my family : suffice it to say, that, though it
has ever been a family addicted to spending for-
tunes, I am the first member of it who ever at-
tempted to make money by business. Had they or
any of them ever had foresight enough to have
done so, I should, probably, never have written
'' The Pocket and the Stud." I am the last of that
family, except one. If the rest were living, I sup-
pose I should be considered a kind of scapegrace,
who had sullied their fair fame ; at least I judge
so, as my surviving aristocratic relative will not

PEEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Xlll

let me come " between the wind and his no-
bility," because, forsooth, I did not choose to
starve or beg while I could turn my knowledge
of horses to account.

Where I was born is, of course, of as little con-
sequence to my readers or the public as who I
am ; perhaps many of both may say it matters
little whether I had ever been horn at all: the
where I should never, therefore, have mentioned,
but from its coincidence with my propensities. I
shall therefore state the locality.

Whether these sporting propensities were pre-
destined or not, I know not ; but I was born on
Enfield Chase, and in a house stated to have been
a hunting-lodge of one of our hunting monarchs ;
as probably it was, for a farm called the Dog
Kennel stood within half-a-mile of the house. A
curious old place this said house was, boasting its
four rows of eight windows in front, save three on
the ground floor, substituted by the entrance to
the hall, where deers' horns, rusty pikes, cutlasses,
and God knows what, first delighted my boyish
eyes. At two years old I made my first debut on
the back of an animal; this I did in the following
somewhat rude and rustic manner — namely, being
daily taken by my nurse to meet the bullocks
coming home from labour, on the back of one of

XIV PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

which, I am told, I rode In great state up the old
avenue to the yard. Thus, so far as riding goes,
I may truly say that I rode before I walked.
My practice in this particular did not, therefore,
begin very late in life. This, as a matter of
course, soon led to a pony being wanted, and at
six years old I was first blooded by Lady Salis-
bury's huntsman on seeing my first fox killed.
At eight years old I could ride my father's horses
as straight as he could ; at twelve boasted two of
my own ; and at sixteen had a regular stable of
them, with an allowance, that only made it a
matter of surprise that I did not soon go — some-
where—headlong. However, I did not then,
though I have since, at times, been about as happy
as if I were there ; but let me in gratitude allow I
have also had hours, days, and years, when I felt
as if I were on the diametrically opposite tack.

It may be asked, from what I now say, or, very
probably, from what I have written, whether I
was ever at school ? Yes, reader, I have been
at various schools, some of them very odd ones,
but never at the sort of school that, if the question
were asked, it would refer to. No ; mamma would
not part with her only one, so I was managed in
this way at home. I loved hunting and horses
enthusiastically, and hated Horace and Homer

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. XV

as cordially as any young gentleman living : but
the bargain was, — Horace, Homer, ajid hunting,
but not the one without the other ; so, as I knew
that from this decision appeal was useless, I took
lessons from the huntsman and tutor at the same
time. Manhood came on, and for years my good
star was in its ascendancy, till death began to be
busy in our family, and as our property, or rather
incomes, depended on lives, not on deaths, if cor-
dial good wishes for their health could have kept
them alive, many of the departed would be to this
day still " living." Suits in Chancery ensued ;
some lost, others gained, — which will account at
once for the vicissitudes of different periods of
my hfe, and for the seeming incongruity that I
am aware exists in what I have at times written,
namely, my acquaintance with scenes, manners,
and men so much at variance with each other;
in fact, from the habits of the peer to the tricks
of the dealer. Yes, reader, I have been behind
the curtain, where both are actors ; kind Fortune
leading me, a willing and delighted spectator, in
the first case ; stern Fate obliging me to dive into
the mysteries of the other. But, at the same
time, I must allow that I have dived into many
curious scenes and places voluntarily, from mere
curiosity. I have sipped chambertin in a ducal

XVI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

residence, tete-a-tete with its noble owner. I
have drunk half-and-half with Tom Crib in his
parlour. I have dined in noble halls where aris-
tocracy, beauty, and brilliancy, dazzled the sight
and charmed the senses. I have dined at farmers'
clubs where drink dubbed every man " a right
good fellow," which stentorian lungs declared
" nobody could deny." I have danced in princely
drawing-rooms, and so " faith I have " at Donny-
brook Fair. I have been presented at more than
one court ; so I have at the racket-court at the
Fleet and Queen's Bench prisons. I have also
gone to very recherche dinners in the latter place,
where two honourables, a noble lord, one of the
most fascinating women living, myself, and one
whose name we frequently see mentioned as about
our present court, formed the party. So have I
(when I had a farm on my hands) dined in a field
on cold bacon on a lump of bread. I have had a
stable full of hunters of my own, so have I stabled
a hundred horses belonging to other persons. I
have given tradesmen a cheque for their bill for
follies that now I wonder at. I have received
one of another sort when in business for sending
in my own. I have sold many of my own horses
when it was a matter of indifference to me whether
I sold one. I have been twice — once for six and

PREFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION". XVU

once for eight successive years — in a situation
where hundreds of horses — some my own and
some the property of others — passed every year
through my hands. I have driven my own four
horses; so have I scores of teams belonging to
coach proprietors ; so was I once, when very closely
screwed up in pecuniary matters, very near driving
one as an addition to my limited means, with
this very consoling addendum to any other feelings
I miorht have on the occasion from the mouth of the
worthy proprietor: — "I am sorry that just now
I have no vacancy on a pleasant coach to give

you, but there is the mail, that poor

was killed from last week, going through

forest, where the road is always in a shameful
state ; if you would like that till I can get you
a better, I will put you on it with pleasure."
Though not a very particular man, I thought the
share of pleasure on my part in undertaking a
night mail that another had been killed from,
would be very small indeed ; so this vicissitude
— namely, driving as a paid coachman — has not
been added to the many of my life.

Let me hope that this rough sketch will suffice
to account, first, for any seeming incongruities in
what I may have at different times written ; but,
a

XVlll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

above all, that it will show that, if early initiation
in all horse affairs, constant practice, and conse-
quent experience, can be admitted as an apology
for a work containing hints and advice on such
subjects, the intent with which it is written
will be taken into the favourable consideration of
the public, and plead in extenuation of any defi-
ciency there may be in the mode in which it haa
been carried out.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Page
The Author's Apology for instructing his Readers.
— Advantages of Experience. — Obstacles in the
Way of profiting by it. — Necessity of their Removal 1

CHAPTER I.

Suggestions as to the best Way of buying a Horse. —
Advice of a judicious Friend indispensable. — Never
buy for yourself. — How to choose an Adviser. —
What Kind of Horse to choose. — Different Sorts of
Dealers, Breeders, &c.

CHAP. II.

Stable Management. — Ventilation — Warmth. — Dif-
ferent Treatment for different Horses. — Dryness. —
Wide Doors. — Stall Posts. — Racks. — Windows. —
Balls. — Mangers. — Head Collars. — Collar Shanks.
— Muzzles. — Lofts. — Objections to keeping Hay
in them. — Different Materials for Stable Floors. —
Causes for hanging back. — Stable Drainage. —
Stable Requisites. — Necessity of Rule. — Saddle
and Harness-room. — Stoves. — Boxes - - 45

no

XX CONTENTS.

CHAP. III.

Page

Different Kinds of Food. -Hay. -Straw.- Oats.
_- Beans. - Bran. - Malt. - Barley. - Carrots. -
Chaff - - -

CHAP. IV.

Stable Economy. -How to set about it. -Evils of
improper Directions. - The right Sort of Instruc-
tions.- Ingenuity of Servants. -Choice of a Groom.
- Ordinary Cost of Keep. — Tabular Statement.—
Veterinary Surgeons. - When to be consulted. -
Illustrative Anecdotes - - ■ * '

146

CHAP. V.

The different Value of different Horses. -The best
Judge of a Horse. -Cases in point. -The Price of
Perfection

169

CHAP. VI.

Different Modes of keeping Horses. — Chaque Pays,
chaque Mode. -The Kind of Horse best suited lor
different Carriages.— On Single-horse Carriages and
Pair-horse ditto. — The Pros and Cons of keepmg
Carriage-horses and Hunters at Livery. — Jobbing
of Hor°ses. — Summary of the Work - - - 187

THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

INTRODUCTION.

THE author's apology FOR INSTRUCTING HIS READERS.—

ADVANTAGES OF EXPERIENCE. OBSTACLES IN THE WAY

OF PROFITING BY IT. NECESSITY OF THEIR REMOVAL.

" Prologue precedes the piece, in mournful verse,
As undertakers walk before the hearse."

In these words commences the prologue to a
play : why should they not serve for an introduc-
tion to this volume, — not being so inapt to the
subject as they may at first appear? First, then,
in commencing a preface, I am an undertaker;
and in beginning the work, I am an undertaker
still. There is, however, this difference between
us ; I endeavour to make my work go on as
cheerfully as I possibly can — my brother under-
taker makes his proceed as mournfully as possible.
He feels it his duty to walk before his work; where-
as I see no advantage in my walking before mine,
though I shall feel much flattered if others will
only be kind enough to walk after it; not that in-

B

2 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

ducing them to walk is by any means its purport —
quite the contrary, its aim is to tell them how to
ride, with as little waste of money as possible. In
this, I trust, I lay myself under no imputation of
conceit or arrogance ; inasmuch as the chief part
of the advice I give is, that they should act on
that of others. In so doing I have, to the best of
my judgment, done one of my duties to my
readers. I suspect the wishes of my brother un-
dertaker and my own differ materially as regards
our friends, as I sincerely hope the day is far dis-
tant when I shall do my last duty by them.

Whatever may be a man's occupation in life, or
whatever his possessions, there can be no doubt
but that (setting aside the common contingencies
of luck) the carrying on of his pursuits with ad-
vantage to himself, and also probably to others,
depends chiefly on proper and judicious manage-
ment ; and, in like manner, the rendering of his
possessions as valuable as their nature will allow,
depends chiefly on the manner in which they are
treated.

A vast number of persons find themselves so
situated that their possessions, be they of what
kind they may, so far from affording them plea-
sure or profit, produce but little of either, although
they spare no expense in their management. It
might be supposed that such persons would, at
least, gain experience, as some equivalent for their

THE PEICE OF EXPERIENCE. 3

money ; if they did, the dearness of the purchase,
or its reverse, would depend on how much that
experience had cost, and how much it had been
w^anted. To many it Avould be cheap at one half
their fortune, for it might save the other. A great
many do not get it so cheap. I know some who
have spent about eighty per cent, of their capital,
and, so far as I can perceive, have not yet got
hold of any of this valuable commodity (expe-
rience) ; or, at least, if they have, they do not
seem to make use of it. I conclude they excuse
themselves for not doing this, as a well-known cha-
racter in Leicestershire did for not stopping, on
his friend getting a most desperate fall. Being
asked if his friend was not seriously hurt : " I
should think he was killed," said he, '^from the
way I saw him lie ; but the pace was too good to
stop to inquire."

Now with respect to gaining experience by con-
stant loss, the fact is, many do gain it ; but what
they do gain is not of the right or useful sort.
They merely gain that which tells them they are
losing money ; but they do not gain that which
would make them act more judiciously. And why
they do not is very easily accounted for. Instead
of attributing their losses or disappointments to
any error in their management, they will gene-
rally impute it to their ill-luck, and in a certain
degree they are right ; but their ill-luck consists

B 2

4 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

in something very different from what they sup-
pose or wish to be supposed.

We will suppose a groom puts on a horse's head
collar in such a way that, if the animal merely
rubs his head against the manger, the collar comes
off; he gets loose, gets kicked by another horse, or
in some way gets hurt ; a veterinary surgeon is
sent for ; the horse remains for weeks unable to
work ; a heavy bill comes in ; and after all the
horse is blemished. Case the first.

As soon as the horse is got into work, the owner
rides him to a friend's house, where he intends
dining ; is somewhat late, so rides fast ; gets the
horse heated ; gives him to any person who comes
to take him on his arrival ; no particular direction
or caution is given; the horse, in all proba-
bility, gets cold. Again comes the veterinary
surgeoa ; and as of course came the cold, so of
course comes the vet.'s bill ; whether of course it is
paid is another matter, and not to our purpose
here. Case the second.

The owner now wishes to drive this same horse
in harness ; the groom undertakes his management.
He is, perhaps, put into a gig at once. " Oh, Sir,
he won't kick ; " but he does. " Who would have
thought it ! " Why any one knowing anything
of putting horses in harness would have thought
it very likely that he would ; for his being " quiet
as a lamb," is no guarantee that he will not

PUTTING THE SADDLE ON THE RIGHT HORSE. 5

kick the first time he is put in harness ; he does,
and lames or scarifies hinsself. Case the third.

" What an unlucky brute that is," exclaims the
owner ; " he is always getting into some mis-
chief." Now luck, good or bad, had nothing to do
in either case: mismanagement and want of proper
precaution brought on each catastrophe."

^* Hov7 very unfortunate you are with all your
horses, James," cries the cara sposa ; '' they cost
you as much in surgeon's bills as in their keep ! "
The owner and the lady are both right in what
they say, though their correctness is so in a different
way from what they mean. The horse is an unlucky
brute to belong to one who knows little of the
management of horses; the gentleman is unfortu-
nate, in trusting to that management. Perhaps
some of my readers may recognise such a case.
The ill-luck is their not knowing how to ma-
nage better. This they will never know, so long
as they hold so erroneous an idea as to the nature
of their ill-luck; for while any man can flatter
himself that he is managing anything as well as
it can be managed, he would conceive it not only
to be an act of supererogation, but of absolute
folly, to attempt to manage it better. And there
is nothing hypothetical in the idea, that if a thing
is done as well as it can be done, it cannot be
done better ; this conviction is very rife amongst

B 3

6 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

persons who do anything, when estimating their
own qualities and acts.

This very prevalent idea may appear to border
very closely on over-weening vanity on the part
of those who entertain it, but candour must in-
duce us to exculpate many of such persons from
so serious a charge ; for, if we fairly consider the
case, it requires a good deal of time, practice, ob-
servation, and modesty, to teach a man that he
really is managing anything badly. He may find
that what he manages does not answer his wishes
or expectations : but, unless he seeks or has the
opportunity of seeing another person's mode of
manao'ino- the same thing, and also sees it succeed
under a different management, what is to tell him
that his own mode is and has been wrong ? Practice
and good sense combined may, in time, certainly
show him his errors, and teach him to adopt other
and perhaps better modes ; but this does not even
follow by any means as a matter of course —
" ccelum non animum mutant qui trans mare cur-
runt'" A man in doing anything may change his
mode; but if acting only on the suggestions of
his own mind and invention, he must be more
fortunate than his neighbours, if he does not find
it necessary to make several alterations in his
plans before he produces one solid improvement.
Practice and experience, though very sure, are ge-
nerally very slow and very expensive teachers; and

CHACUN A SON METIER. 7

if a man sets out with general mismanagiement of
anything, though time and practice may eventually
get him in the right road, he will find a strong
purse also necessary to back him on his journey ;
and with all this, he will yet remain in error, if
he continues to attribute his failure to ill-luck.
He would, under such impressions, still blunder
on in the wrong way, and would not change his
plans ; by doing which he has at least the chance
of hitting on a good one, or at all events on some
better one than the last.

A man with a less extravagant opinion of his
own abilities would neither continue long in any
habitual error, or even trust to himself in adopt-
ing other modes, if he could avail himself of the
advice or suggestions of those of more experience
and practice ; it does not follow that he must
look for a man of superior mental attainments to
himself in order to derive benefit from his advice ;
he may feel perfectly satisfied that the qualities
of his own mind are infinitely superior to those of
his adviser. For a little reflection would con-
vince us that, however great may be our natural
abilities, and however highly they may have been
cultivated by education, a common plumber's
labourer might be able to give us a lesson in
hydraulics that would excite our surprise, or, at
least, our curiosity and admiration. It is true,
the plumber's man may make sad havoc even

B 4

8 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

with his mother tongue ; and, if he were told that
the Missouri emptied itself into the Caspian Sea,
would, of course, believe it. He is not one to
apply to for geographical information, we must
allow ; but the man of education need not laugh
at the other's ignorance. If he did I would ask
him if he could oblige me by putting on a sucker
to my pump ? Not he, for the life of him ;
though a bit of leather and nails are all that is
wanted. If, therefore, he wants to interfere with
pumps, he had better seek information from
others before he puts them out of order by adopt-
ing his own ideas, and pursuing his own plans in
matters that he knows but little about. It is
much the same with horses.

There are many persons to whom I stand in
the position of the plumber, as well as of the
chronometer maker mentioned in the preface. To
such I offer no apology for soliciting their attention
to these pages ; for, in this case, I trust I am not
guilty of presumption. Nor do I offer any apo-
logy to those who know more of the subject than
myself; for, of course, I do not write for their
instruction.

CHAPTER I.

SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE BEST WAY OF BUYING A HORSE.

ADVICE OF A JUDICIOUS FRIEND INDISPENSABLE. NEVER

BUY FOR YOURSELF. HOW TO CHOOSE AN ADVISER. —

WHAT KIND OF HORSE TO CHOOSE. DIFFERENT SORTS

OF DEALERS, BREEDERS, ETC.

Looking at horses in a general way, so far as
they are kept by gentlemen, we must chiefly
regard them as objects of show and amusement ;
for though utility may also be added, this is but
a secondary consideration with such persons in
their inducements to keep them. Whether, how-
ever, we consider them as objects of luxury or
utility, or as both, the keeping them in the
best health and condition becomes an object of
material moment — as regarding kindness to the
animal, vanity as to his general appearance as
belonging to ourselves, and also as a matter of
pecuniary consideration; for I do not know any
saleable article whose price is more enhanced
or deteriorated by its appearance than the horse !
and that appearance, barring accident or illness,
depends wholly on the mode in which he is
treated; and, in fact, both accident and illness
greatly depend on his treatment also. If it was

10 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

not SO, why do we dally see one man losing
heavy sums by his horses (independent of their
general expenses of keep, attendants, &c.); an-
other losing only the amount of those general
expenses; a third making them nearly keep
themselves; and a fourth making them do this
altogether, and also occasionally putting some-
thing in his pocket by them? This all arises
from the different way in which these different
men first huy, and then treat their horses.

All men, or at least ninety-nine out of a hun-
dred, who can ride or drive a horse decently, are
fully satisfied that they can also buy him. Now,
though riding or driving, even moderately well, is
not a matter of very easy attainment, or learnt
by the generality of those who keep horses, and
though to do both well falls to the lot of very few
indeed, the buying part of the business is far more
difficult still. Yet such is the infatuation of
most persons, that though they find they rarely,
if ever, buy a horse fitted for their purpose, and,
as a matter of course, lose heavily by all that are
not, experience seems entirely thrown away on
them, and they persevere in buying for themselves
to the day of their death — the only circumstance
that could prevent their still going to market.

There are certainly some men, who, if they are
in want of a horse, but really know little about
the matter, will ask a friend, perhaps a first-rate

EST MODUS IN REBUS. 11

judge, " to look out for them : " that is, they are
disposed to honour such a friend by permitting
him to trot about to twenty different dealers'
stables and see perhaps forty horses out, and for
what? That the purchaser may then go and
pass his judgment on these same horses ! I do
not know what such gentlemen may think while
making such a request ; but this I know, unless
a man had made up his mind to the honour of
becoming their groom, I should certainly recom-
mend him to decline that of being their tout.

I scarcely know a piece of greater impertinence
than that of a man who is in want of a horse
asking another, in the common term, " to look out
for him." One might certainly, without giving
any offence, say to another, " I want a brougham
horse, and should like such a colour and size, and
intend going to such a price ; if, in your walks or
rides, you should happen to see anything of the
sort, would you oblige me by dropping me a line
saying to whom he belongs ? " To which may be
added (whether true or not), by way of a sweet-
ener, " If you tell me you think him a clever
one, I am sure I shall like him ; and I dare say
buy him."

Here is merely a little friendly and gentlemanly
commission given from one man to another ; no
trouble given to a friend to save your own ; and
as the friend does not, in such a case, select the

12 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

animal, or tell you he is one he recommends you
to buy, you pay him no ill compliment in not
doing so.

It is true there may not be many men on
whose judgment we should choose to rely ; that
is, there are very few men whom one that is a
good judge himself would depute to buy him a
horse ; but supposing a man is not a good judge,
and is not fortunate enough to possess a friend
who is, and would undertake the task of pur-
chasing or advising, in that case, supposing the
person wanting an animal knows some one who
he is aware is not a first-rate judge, but is still a
better one than himself, he would do better to
trust to him than to go to market himself,
inasmuch as it would be better the friend should
buy him a horse a little thick in the wind, than
that he should buy one for himself with the same
complaint (or some other), and a little down in his
eyes into the bargain.

I have been told that, as a child, if I was shown
any thing, my first exclamation used to be, *' Let
me do that my own self." This held good in
doing anything, whether it was to me possible or
not. No doubt the general result of this was cut
or bruised fingers, ending in a lusty roar. Still it
did not cure me ; I was at the same thing on the
next occasion presenting itself. Perhaps some of
my friends and acquaintances of mature age may

THANKLESSNESS OF ADVICE. 13

be actuated by the same desire of doing certain
things themselves, with equally unfortunate re-
sults.

I have an acquaintance who boasts that he
never does anything without getting the advice
of his friends. This is quite true : he does not.
He gets it, but no one who knows him will ever
accuse him of acting on any one's advice but his
own ; and if one may judge by the results of
what he does, I should say his counsellor has not
usurped all the wisdom of the bar for the benefit
of his client. I could say pretty much the same
thing of many of my friends, who retain the same
counsel when purchasing their horses.

The office of purchasing «?2ything for friends,
is one that a sensible man would certainly rather
avoid than seek ; for should he, in point of quality
or price, by superior tact or judgment, save a friend
thirt}^, forty, or fifty per cent, in the purchase,
he would first find it difficult to persuade that
friend that he had done so, or that the friend
could not have done as well for himself. Then
should the horse or article purchased turn out
ever so well, he will barely get thanks for what
he did: but should he or it not realise every ex-
pectation formed, he will not only get constant
and sundry direct and indirect hints on the sub-
ject, but, worse than all, will probably find that he
will be expected to turn salesman. Should he

14 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

get the purchase off without loss, all that will be
thought is, that it was no more than his absolute
duty to do so. If any loss accrues, it will pro-
bably be delicately insinuated, that had the friend
purchased on his own judgment this would not
have happened ; though it may be perfectly well
known that he never made a purchase in his life by
which he did not lose. But then, of course, that all
arose from ill-luck, not from want of judgment —
for this is a want to which very few are subject,
when judging themselves ; though their thinking
so is the best possible proof that they do labour
under such deficiency.

Notwithstanding these stumbling blocks in the
way of obliging another, no man of good feeling
or good -nature would, where his judgment was
properly appreciated, refuse to purchase for a
friend, if, from any circumstance, his doing so
would render a service ; but then, purchasing
for a friend is quite a different thing to playing
jackal and starting the game for Mr. Lion to
select from, or forking out the chesnuts to save
Mr. Pus: the risk or trouble of doinoj it himself.
To be requested by a friend to look at a horse
lie has found, is a compliment ; to be sent to find
one for the friend to look at is diametrically the
reverse.

Now, if a lady flattered me by a commission to
find her a horse, the case would be widely different

'^A HORSE OF ANOTHER COLOUR." 15

— I would not object to find her a hundred, if I
could, to select from. With nineteen ladies in
twenty the look of the animal is a matter of para-
mount importance. A particular mark, shade of
colour, mane, tail, ears, legs — even countenance,
are all scanned : each fair equestrian has her own
ideas and predilections as to what are beauties, or
the reverse. Then the style of going is another
consideration ; for it is not altogether whether the
animal goes well, but whether the going suits the
lady's ideas. It is not necessary that a horse
should be altogether of a good sort, to be very
clever as a lady's horse ; for beauty, safety, and
pleasantry is all that in ordinary cases is requisite.
If I picked out twenty horses, each of whom I
knew would carry a woman well, if a lady objected
to every one, I should feel in no way mortified or
offended ; for the fact would be, they would not
be objected to as unfit for \\iQ purpose, but merely
because they did not hit the taste of the lady.
The other qualifications she leaves to be appreci-
ated by those more informed on such matters.

A man may say he has a right to please his
taste in horses as well as a lady, Ko doubt he
has so ; and if he looks out for himself he may
look at all the horses on sale in London if he
pleases, till he becomes, like some I know, who are
such marked men among dealers, from the num-
bers they look at without buying, that it is with

16 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

reluctance a dealer will order out a horse for them
to look at. However, so long as such gentlemen
do not attempt to trouble others to be on the '4ook
out for them," it is all well enough. For though a
man may be disposed to humour, and get dealers
and others to humour, the caprices of a woman,
he must be of a much more accommodating dispo-
sition than I — or, I should say, most others — if
he would do the same for a man.

But we will suppose a man wishes to avail him-
self of the better judgment of another person, yet
at the same time, reasonably enough, wishes to
indulge his own taste as to general appearance.
Let him get the person, whose judgment he wants,
to take a walk with him, and as he will see in his
walk all sorts of horses, he has only to show the
style of one he likes for certain purposes : the
thing is then easy enough to manage.

Supposing a man to be a known first-rate
judge, there are two distinct classes of persons
for whom he may, in a general way, safely pur-
chase, without subjecting himself to the several
disagreeable results I have mentioned. First, a
man who is a perfect judge himself; for, if from
want of opportunity, time, or any other cause, he
asks an equally good judge to purchase for him,
he will mention (if it is not already known) the
style of horse he likes for any particular purpose,
then the purpose for which he is wanted, and the

A SATISFACTORY CASE. 17

price he intends to give ; and what is usual among
such men, will give a cheque, or the amount of
money for the purchase. Such a man knows
horses too well to expect you to send him perfection;
but he will feel certain that the horse sent him will
be fit for the intended purpose, and the purchaser
will feel equally certain that what he does send
will be properly estimated. And even supposing
the horse does not quite answer expectation,
knowing all the difficulties of the case, there will
be a proper appreciation of the pains taken
and judgment used in the selection. If, from
any peculiar whim or fancy of the owner, the
horse does not quite suit his wishes, he will
have sense enough to lay the blame on himself,
and not on the purchaser ; and should the horse
even turn out bad or unfortunate, good sense
will tell him that the same thing, or some other,
might have occurred had he purchased for himself.
Nor will his confidence in the purchaser's judg-
ment be at all shaken by the circumstance.
•These are by far the pleasantest of all men to
have to act for.

The other is the case of one who knows nothino"

to

at all about horses, and has sense enough both to
know and admit that such is his situation. He
will also mention the purpose for which he wants
the animal; may, perhaps, state the colour he
would prefer, or the size, or about the size he

18 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

wishes, if necessary : he will know that if he
states the purpose to which the horse is to be
applied, and whether show or use, or both com-
bined, be wanted, the proper horse for the purpose
Avill be sent him, whether it is to carry eight
stone or eighteen, to draw a brougham or a pony
carriage ! Possibly, nay, most probably, the horse
sent will be quite a different sort of animal to the
one he would have purchased for himself. In
fact, the one being a judge, and the other no
judge at all, it is twenty to one but it will be so ;
for if not, there would be no use in employing
another person. What is, however, generally the
result? He finds the one sent carries or draws
him pleasantly and safely; he has got what he
wanted for his use, and probably writes and tells
the purchaser he would not take twice the mo-
ney given, if it was offered him, to part with his
purchase. He would be quite right in refusing
it, unless the same judge would good-naturedly
undertake to get him another ; and even then he
would be wise to hesitate. It is bad economy in
a man, who is not conversant with buying and
selling, to part from anything that suits him for
profit on its sale ; nor should such a man, if suited,
ever part from a horse which, taking him on the
whole, does his business well and comfortably,
under the idea of getting perfection. He will not
get it, though dealers may assure him that he will.

MAN AND HOESES OF THE RIGHT SORT. 19

They thrive by keeping alive hopes in this parti-
cular : let a man give money enough, and change
often enough, he will be ruined by it.

My first, best, and most strenuous advice to
any man wanting horses, not being a thorough,
good, practical judge, yet wishing to keep the
money together, I shall write in large characters —

NEVER BUY FOR YOURSELF.

I am quite satisfied that most men who are good
judges would, if they studied their pecuniary
interests only, very often do much better by letting
an equally good judge buy for them, than by
purchasing for themselves. I have an acquaintance
whom, if I wanted a hunter, or, indeed any sort
of horse, I would certainly get to purchase for me,
with quite as much confidence in his judgment,
indeed, I will say more, than I should have in my
own. In such a case, I should at once send him
so much money ; beg him to give that, less or
more if I could afibrd it, and send me the nag.
If on seeing him I did not quite like his looks, I
should be certain there was a something to fully
make amends for any little falling off in this par-
ticular. If on riding him we did not seem com-
fortable together, I should be satisfied it arose
from some want of management on my part, and
c 2

20 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

I will be bound I should find myself right in
confiding in my friend's judgment.

I must correct what I perceive I have said in
one particular. I have stated that I would as rea-
dily take my friend's opinion of any horse as my
own. If I had added of any really good sort of
horse, I should have been right ; but if I wanted
a selling, money-making direct, London horse, I
would in such a case prefer my own judgment and
taste, simply for this reason — I have had more of
such horses pass through my hands, and think I
know London taste better, from having mixed
more among a certain class of society than he has
— a class who would regard show and fashion
before intrinsic worth or merit in their horses, or,
indeed, in many cases, in their acquaintance. Such
is precisely the sort of horse my friend is not
a judge of, and is the reverse of one he would
own or purchase for any one else. He is a
capital sportsman, capital judge of horses, and,
moreover, a capital fellow, but hates worthless
animals in horse or man, though both may be
turned to account in London by a man who knows
how to manage them, and this is all such horses
or such men are fit for. In saying that good judges
would often do well in letting an equally good
judge purchase for them, it must be observed, I
say their pecuniary interest, without reference to
their amusement, their whims, or caprices. As

**NE FRONTE FIDES." 21

a proof of this, it is quite well known there
are many men who have been employed by dealers
to go to fairs and other places, to purchase horses
for them, and have always on the average bought
well for their employers. These men have turned
dealers, and when buying for themselves have
been as unfortunate and injudicious in their pur-
chases as before they were successful and prudent.
I know one most respectable person who has rung
the changes on being dealer's man and dealer him-
self several times over. He never succeeded for
himself, but always did so when employed for
others.

The fact I have stated must at first appear
somewhat unaccountable; but a little considera-
tion will show that it arose from a very natural
cause. I have said the person was a respectable
man; I need not, therefore, say he was an honest
one. Why he did not succeed as a dealer did not
arise from ill-luck, imprudence in his business, or
from not being a good salesman ; but from buying
badly for himself. The cause was this. No man
knew better the kind of horse to buy to pay ; and
when employed for others, his good judgment and
honesty never allowed him to buy any other ; but
when laying out his own money, he departed from
those fundamental rules that should invariably
guide every man in purchasing to make money, or,
at least, to avoid loss. He would sometimes give
c 3

22 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

an imprudent price, because he fancied a horse ;
sometimes would let a money-making horse escape
him because he did not fancy him ; and at other
times would be tempted by a comparatively low
price to buy one that his judgment condemned.
But when acting for others he allowed no whim,
fancies, or price to hoodwink his good judgment
as to what ought or ought not to be purchased.
If, therefore, such a man would allow fancy to
mislead — in fact direct his judgment, — what may
we not expect one to do who does not buy ex-
pressly for sale, and is not an experienced buyer
for any purpose.

Many a good judge is often so captivated by
some peculiar point in a horse, either as to beauty
or qualification, that he is tempted to buy him
against his judgment ; he has a right to do so if
he can afford to pay for his whim, but he would
not buy such a horse for another. In laying out
the money of another person, or in giving advice
to another, he would only look at intrinsic value ;
that value might consist in beauty, or action, or
both ; but he would use his best efforts to get his
friend or employer value for his money — in short,
would only buy a horse likely to " keep the money
together."

If a man fell in love with a beautiful face and
faultless figure in woman, accompanied by the
temper and disposition of a very fiend, perhaps

A CHANGEABLE GENTLEMAN, 23

nothing could induce him to forego possessing his
idol ; but, where his senses would not be so fasci-
nated, he would not select such a one as a wife
for a friend. I have seen good judges thus infa-
tuated with a horse who, taking him in all par-
ticulars, was about as desirable an acquisition in
Ms way. This is another idol. I congratulate
the man who gets both ; but looking to the latter
only, if good judges, when buying for themselves,
will sometimes get into such scrapes, what have
the bad ones to expect ?

The man who is not a horseman must further
bear in mind the very different situation in which
he will stand if he gets a horse that does not suit
him, to that of the man who knows what he is
about. If the latter gets hold of a horse with
certain failings, he knows how to cure or palliate
them ; or if not, to so far hide them as to enable
him to get rid of them, and the brute with them.
The man who is not a horseman can do neither.

Whatever may be the faults in a horse that he
may purchase, they will be shown in all their
deformity, when in his possession ; very probably
be made worse. Then Tattersall's " to be sold for
what he will fetch," is the only remedy. There
some other Mr. Green gets accommodated ; the
original one (notwithstanding the lesson) no doubt
going to market again : he will then probably get
the significant colour changed, and gets done

C 4

24 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

Brown. This do possibly makes him look very
Black, till he again sells, and again buys one who,
on his mounting him, makes him look very Pale,
and throws him. This makes him Black-and-
blue : he sells him, and gets another bargain.
Before mounting, he looks at his bruises ; he finds
they are Green ; and when he is mounted, the
people look at him, and declare he is Mr. Green
again. I have given what I know to be good
advice to such persons ; that is — not to buy at
all. If, however, they are determined to run the
risk of doing so, I will tell them the sort of horse
they will have a chance of not losing much by ;
and, on the other hand, the sort by which they
must lose.

Every man knows the purpose or purposes for
which he wants a horse ; but as possibly he does
not know the sort fit for the purpose, let him at
least show this much judgment — let him buy
one that has been satisfactorily doing the same
sort of work he wants him for, and one that has
been seasoned to it. Such a horse, from many
circumstances, he may have the opportunity of
buying at a fair price ; in short, at something like
his ordinary value. I am now only alluding to
road horses, for we will not suppose any man
insane enough to contemplate buying hunters
unless he is a good judge of them ; and, indeed,
unless he is this, and a good horseman to boot, he
will have no occasion, or, I should think, inclina-

ESTIMATION OF MERIT VARIES. 25

tion to possess them. Mrs. Glass says, "first
catch your hare ; " but she supposes you to be
already a cook, otherwise she would probably
have said " first make yourself a cook : " so I
should say, first make yourself a horseman, then
get the hunters.

When I recommend the tyro among horses
only to buy such as he has seen doing in a satis-
factory way the description of work for which he
wants them, I must give him another caution,
and that is, to consider whether he is judge enough
to decide whether the horse has done this work in
a proper manner; for a satisfactory way, as the
term is here applicable, renders it by no means a
definite one ; as the question may be put, " satis-
factory way " to whom ? For if it is only satis-
factory to a person who does not know how work
ought to be done, the buyer may get possession
of a brute that he will not find it very easy to
get rid of under considerable loss. Doing work
as it ought to be done, and only doing it some-
how, just makes the difference, in two horses of
similar age, soundness, and appearance, of being
worth a hundred and forty, or only forty. It is
true there are many persons who are content if
their animal does his business anyhow, provided
he does it ; and if they are satisfied with this,
and have bought such a treasure at his proper
value, he is as good value to them as the best

26 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

stepper that ever looked through a bridle ; but
as men, who are not judges of horses, are gene-
rally equally astray in their ideas of how they
should do their business, the chances are they
give as much for a brute as for a clever nag.
This will never " keep the money together ; " for
though a man may fancy his brute to be as good,
and worth as much, as such a horse as the Mar-
quis of Anglesey would ride or drive, if he at-
tempts to sell him he will find the whole of his
mistake, and only one fourth of his money, as the
consequence of purchasing for himself. It there-
fore becomes equally necessary for such a man to
consult a judge as to how a horse does his work
that has been at it, as it does to take the opinion
of such a man in purchasing one to put to work
that he has not been doino^.

The next thing to be looked at is how the horse
has been treated, for to bring one from good or
careful management to the reverse is certain loss.
If a man who has a farm of poor land was to
purchase cattle from the rich feed of Lincoln-
shire, he must lose by every head he buys, to a
dead certainty. I did not mean an equivoque by
the expression, but let it stand, for probably some
of them at least would die ; but if a lot of Scots
or Kerries are put on the same land, they will not
only " keep the money together," but materially
increase it.

ALTERATIONS NOT ALWAYS IMPROVEMENTS. 27

So it is with horses ; almost all of them will
improve on additional care; but every one will
lose in condition, and consequently in value, by
a want of that care to which they have been
accustomed. If a man wants a horse to stand
heat and cold, wet and dry, three or four sweats
a-day, with permission to clean himself against
a post, nothing but a country butcher's hack
would do it. If, not intending to use a horse
thus unfairly, he wants a quick buggy horse that
can step over his seven miles into town in about
thirty minutes, go back in the evening, and do
this, we will say, five times a-week, and keep
in condition, he must get one that has been used
to it, or he must bring him to it by slow degrees.

One of the best buggy horses I ever had I
bought of a Whitechapel carcass butcher, merely
from seeing him come into town, certainly at
the rate of sixteen miles an hour, with a heavy
man and two calves in the cart ; but I gave
eio-hty-five guineas for him, and the good butcher
showed me two other nags, nearly as clever, and
in as fine condition as hunters. He prided him-
self much on this; in fact they could not be
otherwise, for, partly from good judgment, and
partly from the nature of his business, his horses
had the three great promoters of condition — good
care, plenty of corn, and fast work.

Now if any man bought one of these horses.

28

THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

and gave him less work and less com, he might
do very well, and look well, but he would not be
in the condition our friend the butcher had him.
With the same feeding and less work he would
get fat, foul, good for little, and perhaps either
vicious or sluggish ; with less corn and the same
work he would become thin, dispirited, and de-
bditated ; with the same corn and work, and bad
care, he would get colds, swelled legs, inflamed
lungs, farcy — in short, out of condition in every
way. The butcher's horses were treated in the
precise way to keep them in the highest state of
health and condition, and whoever had bought
them, the more or less he departed from the same
way, the more or less would they lose tip-top con-
dition— that is, such condition as is in all cases
necessary to horses called on to exhibit both speed
and lasting quality. This is not, of course,
necessary to all horses; but whatever the horse's
business may be, to enable him to do that with
ease to himself and owner, he should be in the
best possible condition for the work he has to
perform; in fact his condition, and consequent
capability, should be such as to qualify him for
greater exertion than he is daily called upon to
perform, if we wish him to do his ordinary work
pleasantly to himself and to his owner. Although
I regret to say there are not so many kind horse-
masters in the world as the animal deserves, still

THE STUD VERSUS THE POCKET. 29

there are many ; but there are also many, who,
intending to be the most indulgent masters living,
are, from not knowing what is and what is not
kindness to animals, quite the reverse of what
they wish to be.

I have an acquaintance for whom I purchased
a very clever horse, and, when in proper condition,
a very strikingly-handsome one. In this sort of
condition he was last spring, when I sent him
to his present owner. No man was more disposed
to be kind than his new master; still when I saw
the horse in his stable, only two months afterwards,
he was no more the same horse than he was the
Hero, or any other. He was one of the hand-
somest coloured greys I ever saw, except Old Isaac,
who was precisely the same. When I sent him
to his new master he shone like a bottle, was as
round as one, and all the muscles in their right
place. His mane and tail, both of which were par-
ticularly handsome, looked like spun glass; and
his legs, which were remarkably good, felt and
looked clean and firm as iron. When I next saw
him, his coat was dead as a scrubbing-brush, and
in many parts somewhat of the same colour ; his
mane and tail a kind of dust colour, and felt as if
they had been washed with greasy water; his
muscles flabby, and his legs filled and flaccid ; in
fact, if he had bought the horse of a dealer, and
had given a hundred for him, the man would

30 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

have been quite justified if he had been asked to
take him back, in offering fifty as the maximum
price in his then condition ; though no doubt had
such a case occurred, the owner would have set
down the dealer as a rogue for making such an
offer. Now none of this falling off in point of
condition arose from any ill usage or intended un-
kindness, but solely from want of judicious ma-
nagement. He had come from a stable where all
was done right ; he went to one where all was
done wrong. It would have been uncourteous in
me to say so on seeing him : indeed, I conceived
it to be unnecessary, considering the horse told this
pretty plainly himself. Of some of his master's
peculiarities in managing horses at work I shall,
perhaps, have occasion to speak by way of eluci-
dation of some other matters ; I have said enouo-h
for my purpose here.

I have said that every horse will suffer from
coming from a good master to a bad one : this is
indisputable. I have also added that most horses
will improve by coming to a better home than the
one they may have left ; but the inexperienced
purchaser must bear in mind that better treatment
does not always mean increased feeding or dimin-
ished work : that must, of course, depend on the
quantity the animal had had of each. If the feed-
ing had not been in adequate proportion to the
exertion, the horse would improve either by in-

LOSS, MAJOR AND MINOR. 31

creased feed or lessened exertion; but a man
might get into a serious predicament by taking
one from high feeding and strong work, and only
riding or driving him three or four miles a day
at the rate of six miles per hour, though he
might, to a certain degree, diminish the very high
feed he had been accustomed to. For instance,
there are numberless horses going in coaches,
omnibuses, and occasionally one in a cab let out
for hire that do their work well, quietly, and are
in good condition ; but give them to a man wha
would only require what would hardly be exercise
to them, he would find many of them take a very
extraordinary mode of showing their gratitude for
the indulgence ; and, vice versa, give a lady or
gentleman's fat pet to a Newmarket jockey, merely
to ride between the heats, if he had several races
to ride during the day the boys would kill him
by merely bringing the clothes from the starting
to the ending post of each race.

For these reasons, I would strenuously recom-
mend persons who do not understand the purchas-
ing or management of horses, yet wish to avoid
inconvenience and loss, under no circumstances
to make purchases on their own judgment, if they
would not suiFer in person or pocket. For even
supposing they go to a perfectly honest dealer, he
is not to judge as to what is likely to suit. He
will not sell them a lame or vicious horse : but it

32 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

is not to be expected, if he has an unpromising
young one, or a seasoned horse that is a brute,
that he is to chronicle the imperfections of his
own property, or to be philanthropic enough to
keep such an animal, lest another person should
be inconvenienced by purchasing him. If, on the
other hand, such a person as I have mentioned
goes to a rogue, of course he is done every way,
both as to price and qualifications.

We will suppose a much stronger case, and one
where there is the least probability of deception
on one hand, or error on the other ; viz., where a
man not conversant with horse affairs goes to pur-
chase of another of similar character (two respect-
able tradesmen, we will say) : the one, having no
further use for his horse, wishes to sell ; the
other, wanting a horse, wishes to buy ; the ani-
mal is known by both parties to have done his
work quietly and honestly for the last twelve
months, and never to have been during that
time (in the common phrase) '^ sick or sorry."
Here, says or thinks a man, I am surely certain
to get precisely what I want, and cannot err
in buying. He will find he may though ; for
if the fresh purchaser wants such a horse for a
different kind of purpose, or intends to treat him
differently, be it with more or less indulgence,
what the horse has been seen to do with his last
master will be no guarantee of his doing equally

" INCIDIT IN SCYLLAM QUI VULT/' ETC. 33

well with his new one. But we will suppose the
new one does intend in every particular to treat
and use him as he has been used and treated be-
fore ; surely a person might say, " In such a case
I may venture to buy without better advice than
my own." Certainly you may, and possibly — I
will say probably — the horse will suit you; and
if so, you would do little harm in buying ; but,
should you want to sell, very probably you would,
even under these favourable auspices, lose half
your money ; for this reason — though the horse
may have done his work honestly enough, he may
be but a brute after all. His former purchaser
may have bought him of a dealer who behaved as
well as could be asked of him, — namely, selling a
sound, quiet animal ; but, depend on it, he got from
the kind of customer to whom he sold, sixty for
what was only worth thirty. The owner tells you,
as a friend, true enough, "I am no horse-jockey "
(upon which I dare say he much piques himself) ;
'• I do not want to make money by my horse ; and
though I ran the risk of how he would turn out, and
have proved him a good horse " (mem. qucere), " I
only want what I gave for him." Nothing can be
fairer than all this. Still, though your friend is
" no horse-jockey," you w^ill find, if you want to
sell, as he would if he had wanted to sell (unless
he had found you, or some other knowing as little),
that you are done clean out of thirty ; the only dif-
D

34 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

ference being, the dealer knew he was sellmg at
sixty what was only worth thirty, your friend sells
for sixty what he believes to be worth that sum,
tliough only worth half of it : you are both done,
and your pocket derives no benefit from your friend
not being "a horse-jockey." Still, purchasing
under such circumstances is perhaps the best and
safest mode by which such persons can go to work,
if they are determined to purchase for themselves.
We will now suppose that a purchaser of the
class I have alluded to, buys a young horse of a
farmer, miller, or some such person, who bred
him ; and to such sources such purchasers are
much in the habit of going. I possibly may have
known instances where such purchases have been
made, and the purchaser has not lost by them. If
I have, the instances have been so few, that I
cannot bring any case to my recollection ; and,
where they have occurred, probably the not losing
arose from not attempting to sell. Low-priced
horses are generally wanted for purposes where
use without show is wanted. I have occasionally
wanted such a horse. I trust I need not say I
never bought a raw young one for such a pur-
pose ; consequently, personally, I never had deal-
ings with farmers for low-priced horses ; but I
have seen many of these forty-pound bargains,
and, generally speaking, precious bargains they
were. Such men always, without exception, value

ADVANTAGE OF BREEDING TINE STOCK. 35

such beasts much above their mark ; and then, as
if the circumstance, like charity, covers many sins,
they tell you " they bred them." So you see
written up, as an inducement to the passer-by,
" home-brewed ale," and " home-made sausages,"
when. Heaven knows ! the chances are that those
who partake of either delicacy will wish they had
been made a thousand miles from home. Such
men breed from any mare that will breed ; get a
common country forty-shilling sire ; or, if their
aspiring thought carries them so high, some tho-
rough-bred one, whose shape, make, blood, and
performance bring him to about the same price;
they thus get a living beast probably inheriting
all the combined imperfections of both j)arents,
put him (very properly, if they kept him there)
to plough at two years old, ride him at three, and
at four — provided he will carry you on his back
(for mouth or action is, of course, not attended
to) — he is sold as a " loickly thing " at forty or
thereabouts. " He has never been, in anybody's
hands but their own " (so much the worse).
" They know what he has cost " (very doubtful
this); ^' he must be worth that." Why? For-
sooth, because, like the beer and sausages, he was
manufactured at home.

Going to topping farmers and breeders is quite
another affair. Such persons, being known as
breeders of horses of a superior class, are sought
out by private gentlemen, or by such dealers as

D 2

36 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

Elmore, Anderson, and other first-rate men in the
trade. Such breeders find that when they have
a superior horse, they can get a long price for
him; and, on the other hand, when they unfor-
tunately breed a bad one, or, at least, a bad-look-
ing one as to shape and action, that they can get
very little for him ; and, indeed, such dealers as I
allude to would not buy him at all. Breeders of
this class, therefore, unlike the small farmers, soon
learn to distinguish between fine horses and ordi-
nary ones, and know that having hred a horse will
avail them nothing, unless they have bred a good
one. They soon learn the value of London action
for London horses ; and also racing action, or
something very like it, for horses intended to be
made first-rate hunters of. Such horses range in
price from ninety to a hundred and fifty ; for,
now-a-days, a fine young horse, with first-rate
action for harness, is worth quite as much as one
intended for a hunter. It is true that when the
one becomes a hunter, he may be worth consider-
ably the most money; but it must be borne in
mind, that the horse with fine action is almost
certain to make a first-rate harness-horse ; but the
one with equally promising action as a hunter
may not be worth a farthing as such when put
to the test. Therefore, although the purpose for
which the latter bids fair is of a higher order than
that for which we design the former, the chances
against realising our hopes being so many more

WHEN THE ^^STUD" ASSISTS THE '^POCKET." 37

against the hunter than the harness-horse, their
value, till tried, is about the same.

Such breeders as produce this superior sort
of horse for sale are very proper persons for
three distinct classes to apply to, of course sup-
posing each man of each class to be a good judge ;
namely, first-rate dealers, men of large fortune,
and men of very little fortune. The first applies
to them as (in a general way) the best source
from whence he can get horses suited to his pur-
poses of trade. He then, as a matter of course,
puts such persons about his purchase as will make
him what he wants.

The man of fortune goes or sends to such breed-
ers because he wishes to have both fine and clever
horses ; and knowing the enormous price he must
give for such as he would like when made hunters
of, he buys a young horse, puts him under a man
who knows the precise qualifications in a horse to
meet the wishes of his master or employer, and,
as far as it can be done, he rides and makes the
horse into what is wanted. It is perhaps an
amusement to the owner to see the young horse
improving (that is, when he does improve). If he
stands the ordeal, and becomes a good and perfect
hunter, he made a fortunate purchase ; but, know-
ing what I do of young ones, if he made such a
hit this year, I should recommend him not to
expect to do so the next. He must wait his turn.
» 3

38 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

There is only one 6 on the six sides of a die ; so
we must not expect to throw it twice running.
We may, and often do; but sometimes we may
throw ten times without the 6 : so it brings it
to about the same odds. They are quite as great
against a young horse turning out first-rate as a
hunter.

The other man is the man of moderate means.
He goes to the same source if he wishes to have
very fine horses, because he cannot afford to give
three or four hundred for a very fine horse — a
made and proved first-rate hunter. This man
instead of paying for having his horse made,
makes him himself, and succeeds more or less, ac-
cording to circumstances; but if he attempts to
do this, we must suppose he has fine judgment,
fine riding, and fine nerve to back him ; in which
case, though he will not, of course, succeed with all
horses alike, still he will make them all into
moderate, good, or capital hunters ; and, barring
accidents or great ill-luck, will make money by
them ; and so he ought who gets plenty of bruises
by land, and occasionally half drowned by water ;
for this is a little sauce piquante that a man may
expect with the first and second courses in trying
to keep his place.

I have now got among a different class of men
from those I set out with, and for whom only the
foregoing has been written. I have mentioned
three distinct classes who go to the best breeders

MEN AND HORSES OF HIGH CASTE. 39

for horses, and find their account in so doing. I
trust, however, that by mentioning the advantage
of such persons purchasing from first-rate breeders
I shall not induce men of less pretensions in horse
affairs to go there ; for if they do, they will find
their losses even greater than in buying from the
small farmer, inasmuch as they cannot be supposed
to be in any way better judges of superior horses
than they are of those of an inferior class ; and as
the price in one case will very far exceed that in
the other, so will the penalty they will pay for
want of judgment be proportionably greater : they
will, in fact, give a hundred and twenty for what
is worth sixty, instead of sixty for what is worth
thirty ; and will also find that they will lose by
such valuable young horses in a still greater pro-
portion than even what I have stated as relating
to the purchase money.

It is not probable that the man who is not a
judge of what is and what is not a promising
horse will be found a good horseman, or one,
either by treatment or otherwise, likely to bring
on and improve such an animal ; and it is only by
improving a young horse that he is to be made
worth more money than he was when purchased.
The higher the class of horse, the higher will be
the class of men he will be destined for ; and the
higher the class of men, the more particular are
they (generally speaking) as to the qualifications

D 4

40 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

of their horses ; and as much more as the man of
fortune and fiimily would lose in the estimation of
others than the common man by coarse and vulgar
habits, or by the want of refined ones, so much
more will first-class horses lose in value than ordi-
nary ones, from wanting those niceties in certain
qualifications expected from superior animals. A
boring, heavy, dead mouth, or a light, pleasant
one, will, in a horse of equal pretensions as to
breed, shape, beauty, just make the difference
between two hundred and fifty to carry the master
of the pack, or eighty to carry the whip, though
both are equally good horses, and, in other re-
spects, equally good hunters.

If a man who is not a good judge of horses, or
a good horseman, thinks he can bring forth in a
young one all the qualifications I allude to as to
action, carriage, mouth, fencing, and temper, let
him buy him : should he succeed, I shall willingly
allow I was wrong in attempting to check his
ardour in purchasing ; but as I conceive there is
quite a possibility that he will fail, if he does, there
is also a possibility that he may regret not taking
my advice ; which is, to such a man, " Do not
buy young horses yourself for yourself; or, if you
get one, do not attempt to teach him anything
yourself for yourself, or for anybody else.'''' I do
not mean to say that it is at all impossible for a
man who may be by no means a good horseman
to make a young horse into a something to suit

"WHITE LIES." 41

himself, his style of riding, and his ideas of what
is pleasant, and this would quite suffice if he
makes up his mind to keep the horse for one of
their lives, or both, should they end them toge-
ther— a finale by no means to be considered as
an impossible event under such circumstances, for
most extraordinary are the opinions of some men
as to what is pleasant and what is safe in the
action or habits of a hunter, or indeed a horse for
any purpose.

I remember, as a boy, frequently meeting
General White with hounds, that is, occasionally
seeino; him for the first ten minutes after a find with
the Duke of Richmond's, but much oftener with
Lord Newburgh's harriers, with whom I occasion-
ally took a day when living near their kennel.
The worthy General walked a good sixteen or
seventeen stone, and stood an honest six feet,
whether on the ground or on his horse, for when
in a gallop such was the peculiarity of his seat,
that he stood equally straight and upright in
either case. The General piqued himself on his
riding, and still as much on two extraordinary fat
pig-like animals that he rode, and thought and
affirmed them to be two of the finest horses and
best hunters living. To see him in a gallop on
these mountains of flesh was awful ; he rode with
both bridoon and curb-reins together in his hands,
on which he had accustomed them to hang, and
bore till he could not have kept his seat, or

42 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

rather stand, without this fulcrum, and they
would not know what to have done without the
General as a support to their heads : command
of their mouths, of course, he had none, but when
he plumped down on his saddle they took it as a
signal to stop, and stopped accordingly. Of the^
General's fencing I have heard him speak loudly
himself, but as I never saw anything of it, or
any one who had, I can say nothing on the
subject.

I anticipate the observations of some on reading
what I have written, and can fancy I hear tbem
say, " It requires no ability to tell a man when
he has done wrong that he has done so." No one
can deny the truth of such an aphorism. I will
add something further: it does not require
abilities of any high order to tell a man where he
has done wrong, though this may be somewhat
more difficult : it may also be added, that if any
man takes upon himself to tell another when or
where he has done or will do wrono-. he ought to
feel himself competent to tell him how to do
right. I allow he ought; but whether he can is
quite another affair.

If a man wanted such information as was ap-
plicable to the general tenor of his conduct in life,
he could not fix upon a man less qualified than
myself: in short, in fixing on me as a finger-post
to point out the right way, his selection would be
a most unfortunate one, not having been prominent

"A BOAT, A BOAT, UNTO THE FEREY." 43

in wisdom as regards my own career in life ; but
as in the present case, I only venture advice on
the very subordinate acts of purchasing and treat-
ing horses, though I cannot say I shall do any
good in giving it, I at all events try to do so ; and
in point of fact, I have not only promised to tell
a certain class of men where they act injudiciously,
but I further promise to tell them how they may
act with more prudence ; for if I show them in
how many ways they must suffer in making their
own selections of horses, and then purchasing for
themselves, I conceive it to be tantamount to re-
commending them to let others purchase for them.
It would be an act of greater arrogance than I
hope I have ever yet been guilty of, if I could
suppose any one would act on my advice, merely
because I give it. But if they find that by acting
on my advice (which is, to act on the advice of
others) they avoid losses they have hitherto sus-
tained, so much the better ; if instead of this they
choose to act as they have hitherto done, they
will be only where they were.

Supposing (to bring forward a personal case) I
fancied myself a waterman, and wanted a boat ;
I might go to Searle, and fall in love with one of
his wager-boats, that carries one, not, as we say
in coaching, " outside " or " inside," but as those
boats do, half out and half in ; I might show my
taste in having purchased a very pretty sort of
aquatic race-horse ; for which, no doubt, honest

44 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

as Mr. Searle doubtless is, seeing me a Mr. Greeu
he would make me pay a pretty price, well know-
ing, at the same time, it would be about as useful
to me as a pair of dancing boots to a whale, and
that the chances would be ten to one but that I
upset it the moment I got into it, thus reversing
the boat and the order of things at the same time ;
I underneath, the boat playing leap-frog over me
— a kind of aquatic pastime I should possibly not
have the opportunity of repeating. vServe me
right ! What business should I have buying
boats ? Now if I wanted some such water-
machine, and had sense enough to depute some
friend conversant with such matters to get me
one, I doubt not but he would have sense enough
to get me a good-sized flat-bottomed punt, that I
could shove about and sit or stand in at my ease,
like a bear on a timber-float, a passenger who not
unfrequently makes use of such a mode of transit
in the far West.

There are few of my readers, I dare say, who
could be induced to think that in purchasing
horses they are in about the same situation as I
should be in going to boat market. Such, how-
ever, is the case with very many of my acquaint-
ances; they do not certainly run the risk of
being upset in a river, but their pockets get upset
to a certainty, and sometimes both their vehicles
and bodies also; the only diflerence being, that
these occurrences take place on dry land.

45

CHAP. 11.

STABLE MANAGEMENT VENTILATION. WARMTH. DIF-
FERENT TREATMENT FOR DIFFERENT HORSES. DRYNESS.

WIDE DOORS. STALL-POSTS. RACKS. WINDOWS.

BALLS. MANGERS. — HEAD COLLARS. — COLLAR SHANKS.

— MUZZLES. LOFTS. OBJECTIONS TO KEEPING HAY IN

THEM. DIFFERENT MATERIALS FOR STABLE FLOORS. —

CAUSES FOR HANGING BACK. STABLE DRAINAGE.

STABLE REQUISITES. NECESSITY OF RULE. — SADDLE

AND HARNESS ROOM. — STOVES. BOXES.

We will now suppose a person to have got,
through the good offices of a friend, as many
horses as he intends to keep, and those of a fair
sort for the purposes in view. Of course I put
race-horses out of the present consideration. We
will now have a look at

The Stable.

If I should say that about one stable In a hun-
dred is built so as to be perfectly comfortable,
healthful, convenient, and workmanlike-looking,
I should be giving odds in favour of the planners
of them. Doubtless horses live that have been
kept in all sorts of stables, and sometimes in very
bad ones ; but horses also die that have been kept
in them ; and many of these stables have been the

46 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

occasion of more deaths than they are accused of.
Provided the horse is comfortable and healthy, it
certainly matters not, as an abstract fact, where he
is kept ; but it is not very easy to know, but by
consequences and the effect of time, whether he is
comfortable, or healthy. He may be comfortable,
but not healthy. He also may be healthy, but
not absolutely comfortable. I grant this cannot
go on ad infinitum, without our finding it out ; but
then the evil is done, either in a temporary way or
in a lasting one. It is really singular, or rather
remarkable, how constantly we see very clever
men permitting all sorts of annoyances to exist
about them, and though we may daily hear them
regretting the existence of the evil, yet take no
steps towards remedying it. The suffering these
inconveniences to go on very frequently arises
from sending for a mechanic in the first instance,
instead of consulting their own common sense.
The mechanic's interest is, of course, to make a
job ; consequently, if twenty shillings would do
it, he recommends what will first cost five pounds
in the undoing, five pounds in materials, and then
another five pounds in doing up again. The con-
sequence is, the evil is allowed in many cases to
go on, rather than incur a heavy expense.

I have frequently heard people complain of the
damp of their stables, and the water hangino- on
the walls ; in almost every case this dampness is

ATMOSPHERIC INFLUENCE. 47

to be got rid of, with the exception of, in some
cases, the water on the Avails. [This sometimes
arises in stables near the sea coast from the mortar
having been made with sea sand, instead of the
proper dry material. Such walls will universally
give in damp weather, or indeed w^hen warmed
by the heat of the horses.]

In almost all other cases, dampness in stables
arises either from ground damp or want of ventila-
tion. Of this any man may judge from different
circumstances, and, generally speaking, the remedy
need not be attended with any very serious ex-
pense : drainage and raising the floor will mostly
have the effect in one instance, and making proper
vents for the heated vapour to escape near the
roof will also nearly always be sufficient in the
other.

Where a stable has the defect described, it
should be remedied at once, or the horses taken
out of it ; for if they are not, sickness will sooner
or later cause double the expense of the remedy.
A lady may be very comfortable who, during
six months in the year, never stirs from her own
heated apartments, unless to get into her carriage,
where a chaufferette keeps that to the same tem-
perature, while it conveys her to the still more
heated atmosphere of a rout. She is comfortable,
and for a time fancies herself in unimpaired health;
but the habitual lassitude, the physician's carriage

48 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

at the door, and the cheek from which the tint of
nature is fast receding, tell a tale that, if long
unheeded, ends in the necessary sojourn in another
climate — sad prelude to the tomb of loveliness
and probable worth.

On the other hand, the sturdy wife of the
labourer, while she pursues her daily occupations,
within doors and without, has little perhaps to
boast of as to absolute and general comfort. She
has health and bodily activity — knows no real
suffering; but the effect of exposure to the ele-
ments without, and her usual occupations within,
produce a coarseness of frame and general appear-
ance at variance with feminine beauty, thouo-h
conducive to health and strength.

The heated, unnatural, and vitiated air of most
of our London stables, though they may not show
their effects in the appearance of the horse, or
seem to affect his vigour, when required merely for
a park drive, would tell tales if the same horse was
called on for severe and long-continued labour.
Here the effect of his debilitated constitution would
soon tell something was wrong, and probably in-
'flammation of the lungs would quite satisfy us of
the fact.

On the contrary, the stable where proper warmth
is wanting, and where currents of cold air are fre-
quently permitted to enter, though not perhaps
so comfortless as to cause suffering to the horse,

ATMOSPHEPwIC INFLUENCE. 49

or to directly injure his health for certain purposes,
would shortly show him as an animal, both in ap-
pearance and condition, as totally unfit, internally
and externally, for that fast work to which valuable
horses are put — externally from having the coat
of a bear, and internally from its having been im-
possible in such a stable to have carried him
through that discipline necessary for such purposes.
Such a stable, after a sweat, would be death,
though the cart-horse might live and have his
health in it.

Various have been the plans suggested and
drawn for the elevation of stables, and in many
cases the taste and talent of some of our first-rate
architects have been called for in the erection of
them. This is all very well, so far as it gratifies
a very pardonable vanity in men of large fortune,
who pique themselves on their studs of horses,
among their other valuable possessions. They,
as a matter of course, have many friends who
indulge in similar pursuits, and consequently vie
with each other in the arrangement of their sta-
bles, as much as their ladies do in that of their
nursery, boudoir, or conservatory. Such expensive
and tasteful decorations, internal and external, of
course, add nothing to the comfort of the animal.
All that is required in stables for the well-doino-
of the horse amounts only to this: they should
stand dry, be roomy, lofty, warm, yet with the

E

50 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

means of abundant ventilation when required ; for
in fact, even in the severest weather, ventilation is
indispensable : it is in this particular, more than
any other, where the healthfulness of stables
usually falls short of what it should be ; however
icarm a stable may be, it should be perfectly dry.
The moment anything like steam is seen hanging
about, that stable is unhealthy, and colds and de-
bility, with all their concomitant evils, follow as
sure as night follows day. Many a first-rate
stable have I entered in the morning, when even
the clothes on the horses' backs felt damp, the
walls and windows, of course, streaming with
water. To speak to a groom on the consequences
of permitting this to continue would be words
thrown away ; he will fancy it keeps his horses
fine in their coats, while the fact is, it has a di-
rectly opposite tendency — It produces debility
and ill health, and if horses so circumstanced can
look blooming in their coats, they must be made
of different materials from any that I ever had
to do with. It may be that while horses are in
this pest-house, and consequently are in a state
of comparative perspiration, their coats may stick
to their skins. So they would if they came out of
a warm-bath. But take them into the air: if their
coats do not stand on end, and thus let every par-
ticle of cold wind on to their skins, I am much
mistaken. The coachman or groom, on seeing this,
w^ill say, perhaps — "You see now what bringing

51

them out of the warm stable does ! " I should,
on the other hand, say, if he had sense to under-
stand it, " You see what putting him into your icet
warm stables does." I quite approve of the
warmth ; but there is some difference between the
fine dry warmth of a well-aired, well- warmed
dining-room, and the damp heat of a washhouse,
with a copper boiling in it. I ridicule the idea
of those who talk of keeping horses in a natural
state of temperature: that is, natural, according
to their ideas of what is natural, by which they
mean cool, or rather cold. The fact is they
mistake what is natural to the horse : heat is
natural to him, not cold — that is, it was natural
to him in his original state, and we by use have
rendered it the same to him in his present one.
He will thrive under a tropical temperature : but
let it be remembered, a tropical heat is a dry one.
A cook will bear the heat of his kitchen, with
fires, and. hot hearths round him ; the damp)
heated air of a forcing-house would shortly kill
him, thou2:h his kitchen is the warmer berth : but
the air there, though hot, is dry. The warmth of
the stable is comfortable and healthful to the horse,
if it is only a proper warmth : it only becomes in-
jurious when the warmth is from a wrong cause :
proper warmth should be gained by excluding the
cold air, not by keeping in damp and heated ex-
halations from the horses' bodies.
E 2

52 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

Most good stables have quite a sufficient
number of windows to admit as much air and
light as any one could desire ; and also as many-
flies during the summer montlis as could be
wished, and rather more. But these apertures,
from their general situation, are totally inadequate
to the escape of the vapour : it therefore be-
comes condensed, thus converting the stable into
a dripping well. All the windows required in a
stable, in a general way, are as many as will
afford sufficient light : there should always, where
practicable, be a sufficient number placed towards
the north, for this reason — they can be made to
fit close enough to exclude cold in the winter, and
in the summer it is cool air we want. Now,
though I consider that there are generally aper-
tures enough in most stables to answer one
purpose, we rarely, if ever, see them made for
the other — in fact, in most stables there are none
where they are wanted, which is at the highest
point of elevation the stable will afford. Of these
there should be some both before and behind the
horses (made to close when wanted) ; for, should
the air blow in either of these directions, it must
follow that no escape of effluvia can take place on
that side ; whereas the current coming in on one
side drives this steam out at the other. So, instead
of having a condensed fog over the horses, we get
a fine dry air, which is, or should be, too high to
affect the horses so far as cold <?oes.

VENTILATION. 53

We often hear persons laugh at many of the
practices of our ancestors, though in many things
I conceive the true laugh is on the other side.
Let us look at a very old-fashioned bed, for in-
stance : here we see the foundation, about fifteen
inches from the ground, having an honest nine or
ten feet between it and the tester. Look, then,
at one of more recent date: here we find the
foundation made so high that it forms a kind of
first-floor of our bed-room, and by the time a
paillasse, wool and hair mattress, and perhaps a
feather-bed, are put on, we get into the attic, to
which we are forced to climb by a movable stair-
case. This brings us nearly within arm's reach of
the tester when we lie down. If then a set of
good thick curtains are drawn around, we have a
very fair succedaneum for cucumber culture.
Persons sleeping thus, then, wonder they get
colds, sore throats, et cetera, and feel enervated.
Why, the very cucumbers suffer if the gardener
omits giving them air at proper times or shutting
them in if any cold wind blows. How, then,
can people expect to escape? The good ladies
of those forefathers we laugh at, would not have
had an appetite to eat beef-steaks and drink ale
for breakfast had they slept thus.

So far as relates to the general temperature of
stables, in an ordinary way, I should say that
60 deg. is a fair average for horses used for road

E 3

54 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

work, or for hunters rode with harriers : hunters,
as they are now used with foxhounds, should be
kept several degrees warmer, particularly about
the time they are changing their coats. At this
time, a few days will change a horse's coat from
satin to cotton velvet, unless the thermometer
in the stable is closely watched, and each horse
watched also. Lucky, indeed, is the man who, if
he does not strictly attend to this himself, has got a
groom who will. All the comfort — nay, luxury —
of a fine coat in a horse will be destroyed by a few
days' inattention in the autumn. Let him once
get his coat up at this time, you may look for-
ward to early summer to see him with a fine one.
Nature is uncommonly obstinate in this particular:
if she is permitted to put a pea-jacket on a horse
about the time I mention, I defy art to take it off
again unless she cuts it off.

I have heard a diversity of opinion between
the good or bad effects of two different modes of
keeping horses warm, some advocating very cool
(I do not say absolutely cold) stables, with heavy
clothing ; others very warm stables, wuth lighter
clothes: and these two opposite modes I have
heard discussed by men who were quite competent
judges of the matter. I should be very pre-
sumptuous, w^here such men disagreed to pretend
to say which was wrong ; but I can have no hesi-
tation in saying the man w^ho took the middle

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION ON WARMTH. 00

course would be riglit. Supposing, however, it was
necessary to adopt one of the two extremes, and
any one complimented me so far as to ask which
I should consider the least bad, I should say a
stable somewhat too warm, and moderate clothing.
I reason by analogy. We w^ill suppose two per-
sons to be sitting in two different rooms ; the one
in a room at the ordinary warmth of a comfortable
dining-room, say %5 degrees, and clad in an ordi-
nary evening dress ; the other to be placed in a
room ten deg-rees colder, but so be-lamb's-wooUed
and be-piloted as to bring the temperature of his
skin to the warmth of the other. Let them both
strip to their shirt and drawers, which we Avill
consider to stand in the place of the natural coat
of the horse, and go out. I consider the man
throwino; off his sweaters would feel the sudden
exposure of his skin accustomed to such clothing
more severely than the other would the change
of atmosphere. Against this, I am aw^are it may
be said, how severely we feel the cold coming out
of a theatre or crowded ball-room. No doubt we
do, and so would a horse coming out of a stable
of the same temperature ; but when I allude to
stables somewhat or rather too warm, I do not
mean one at 90 degrees; and when I state I
prefer one rather too warm to one rather too
cold, I mean it in the case of gentlemen's
horses, not of a street cab horse, or even a

E 4

56 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

medical gentleman's pair, or the one condemned
to shiver for half an hour at some old lady's or
hypochondriac gentleman's door, while the worthy
Esculapius is persuading either that their case
requires the most delicate care, or in a case
which, in justice to our medical friends let us
allow, is of quite as frequent occurrence, namely,
where the fancied invalid endeavours to convince
the medico of the same thing. Such animals (not
the invalid or medico) must be kept cool in every
way both as to stable and clothing. So far as their
outsides go, their warmth must emanate from (in
stable slang) their " body lining ; " and even then
they must be brought to bear this sort of treatment
by degrees ; for let a medical man, in the middle of
winter, purchase of a private gentleman a pair of
horses which have been accustomed to different
treatment, in a month, or perhaps less, he would
Avant another pair. We should recollect that gen-
tlemen's horses are in their stables, taking one day
with another, perhaps twenty hours out of the
twenty-four, and when they are exposed to the air
they are at exercise or work. Consequently the
proper warmth of the air they breathe in their
stables is of vital importance to them ; and though
I most decidedly object to their breathing a hot
damp air all this time, I am quite sure, clothe him
as you will, a horse will never feel comfortable, or
be in condition, that breathes a cold one. How

TREATMENT FOR DIFFERENT HORSES. 57

should we like (clothe us in blankets if you will)
to be kept night and day with our head out of the
window ? A cold stable is, in a limited sense, some-
thing like this: — let me ask my friends this simple
question, — have they never on a cold night (though
with plenty of bed-clothes on) put their noses
under them ? If they have, I need say no more
on the luxury of inhaling cold chilling air, or its
reverse.

Ask any man who has undergone the pleasing
change of taking off his warm clothes, and been
kept waiting on a cold day, in his silk jacket, on
his horse (while some gentleman rider was arrang-
ing himself to his — not the man in waiting's —
satisfaction) how he felt on such an occasion.
Coming from Mexico to Canada is heaven to it.
If a man is too warm from a room beino; the
same, but is moderately clothed, evaporation can
go on ; he is warm — hot, if you please — but his
skin is comparatively dry : great thickness of cloth-
ing would prevent this ; so the pores of the skin
of the wearer would be as damp and open as if he
came out of a warm bath.

To return to the upper apertures for ventila-
tion, they may be either glazed or simply of board,
as suits the taste of the builder, and should be
made to open and shut by a double cord hanging
down within reach of the hand. The lower win-
dows I have had made to slide rldit and left into

58 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

the wall : they are less likely to be broken than
such as open inwards or outwards, or turn on
their centre. But I had a far better reason for
having them made thus, which was — I always
had a movable frame made to fit the window on
the inside ; on this I had stretched the same kind
of open material that is used for meat-safes ; the
windows can then be left open, and those positive
pests to a stable in summer, the flies, are thus ex-
cluded. But I went a little further than this,
and, as the expense is not more than twenty shil-
lings once in half as many years, I venture to
recommend it. I had also a framed-door, on
which the same material as that for the extra
window-frames was stretched. This opened the
reverse way to the usual stable door; it was
made to take on and off the hinges, so that in hot
weather the usual door could be fastened open and
the stable kept cool : this, of course, can only be
done where the stable is in a secure situation ; but
where it can, it is a great convenience at times in
extremely hot weather.

Having paid, perhaps, more attention to the
comfort and safety of horses than the generality
of persons, I will mention another very simple
precaution I had as to stable-doors. These, I must
mention, en passant, are generally made by far too
narrow, and often too low. Some horses have a
trick of both enterinoj and comino; out of their

CHEAP ADVANTAGES. 59

stable in a hurry, probably learnt while in a
dealer's hands. When the doorway is either nar-
row or low, this often occasions their getthig hurt ;
and this further increases their propensity to rush
through the aperture : and I doubt not that many
of those horses we see down on one hip have
become so by a blow against the door-post. This
idea set me to work to provide a safeguard against
such a contingency, which I did in the following
way : I had my frames made a foot wider than
usual, and the door, of course, made to fit them.
I had two round pieces of wood, similar to a leap-
ing-bar, with the same sort of iron spindles at
each end ; these were fitted perpendicularly inside
the door-case ; so if a horse hit them in passing
they rolled round, and all danger of an injured
hip-bone was avoided. The diflference in expense
was not twenty-five shillings ; and when we con-
sider that if five horses, worth (say) five hundred
guineas, inhabit a stable, and each pass the door-
way twice a day, we have a thousand guineas
placed within the chance of injury seven hundred
and thirty times every year, which would be
avoided by a single sixpence, which is about the
interest of the money laid out.

The doorways of all loose sheds where valu-
able mares, colts, or horses go in and out of them
should be made wide; for these frequently pass
the doorway in a trot — sometimes, indeed, in a

60 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

gallop. Padding such doorways will answer the
purpose : but horses, particularly young ones not
doing work, are mightily inquisitive, and are apt to
wish to learn what the padding is made of, to as-
certain which they will take the liberty of tearing
it off; a clothing of furze is the best safeguard.

It is a very common — indeed the most com-
mon — plan to build stables with the stall-posts
running up to the ceiling, and where that is not
the case (as if the people were determined not to
be without some inconvenience of the sort), they
frequently put balls on a pedestal on the ends of
the standing : these, made of oak and octagonally
cut, certainly look well, and give a handsome
finish ; but they are nearly as great an objection
in the stable as the long stall-posts. Ornament a
stable as much as you think proper ; but it should
never be done at the slightest risk of injury or
expense of comfort to horses.

The first objection to the long post is this.
We will suppose the stall to be the full width
— six het (if narrower the objection is tenfold), —
and the horse to be standing turned round in his
stall to have his head dressed ; this being done,
he has to turn round to his phice. How is he to
do this ? It is quite clear he is much more than
six feet from his head to his tail. He is aware
the stall will not admit his turning with his neck
in anything like a right line with his body; so

INCONVENIENCE OF STALL-POSTS. 61

where there is no stall-post he avails himself of it
to put his head over the adjoining standing, and
thus turns without inconvenience; but where
there is, he is forced to tuck his head and neck
round like a turkey poult prepared by the poul-
terer. This takes him some little time to do ; and
there are such things as grooms to be found who,
instead of permitting him to do it at his leisure,
have a habit of accelerating his motions by a flick
with the duster ; round he forces himself, making
the standing creak again, and looking — and, in-
deed, being — frightened out of his wits, from sup-
posing he has done something wrong. But more
than this, some timid horses, if told to " go round !"
sharply, forgetting the stall-posts, bang their
heads against it, and many an eye has suffered in
such a case ; master finding his favourite Quornite
the next morning with one shut. Of course, the
horse " did it during the night, in the dark," where
perhaps that eye will for the future remain. The
same objection, but in a minor degree, exists in
the horse coming round : but he seldom comes
round as hastily as he goes back. The elevated
ball is not quite, but nearly, as bad ; he can, if not
too high, lift his head over this ; but unless plenty
of time is given him to do so, bang goes his head
against that also.

I know but of one or two reasons that can be
produced in favour of stall-posts: the first is,
that each stall in this case, furnishing a prop for

62 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

the support of the cross-beam of the celling, tends
to add strength, where the timber is light ; and if
the standings are made, as half of them are, of
deal, they gain considerable strength by it also ;
and this reason is very well, where a place to put
horses is only intended to be built, that at the
least possible expense, and, as is universally the
plan on such occasions, to build on as small an
area of ground as possible. Such places are only
a shelter partitioned off; but, where a man means
to build a stable, the difference between a good one
and a bad one, in point of expens-.) is more than
compensated for by the comfort of the one over
the other, to yourself, your horses, and your men
particularly, wdien health, safety, and durability
are taken into consideration.

Another motive for having stall-posts may be
the wish to have, for appearance -sake, arches over
or rather behind the horses. Whether a stable
looks better with or without them is a matter of
taste ; but they certainly afford no advantage ; but,
on the contrary, harbour spiders, flies, and, in
some degree, prevent a free circulation of air —
two objections, I should think, sufficient to ex-
clude their use.

There is a possibility — though, I grant, no
great probability — of another very serious cata-
ttrophe occurring, both from stall-posts and balls.
It is possible, because I have twice known it occur;

SACRIFICIXG TO ORNAMENT. 63

but I allow it is improbable, because, among the
many thousand horses that have come under my
observation or knowledsfe, I never heard of but
these two instances. This is kicking over the
standing.

The first was a mare (at a particular season of
the year) : she was found with her leg over the
standing, completely kept there by the stall-post ;
the groom, hearing the noise, went down, but
before help could be got she had broken her thigh,
and thus dropped back into her stall. The other
was a horse : he, no one knew how, had got his
leg over, and, being confined by the ball, could not
get it back again : there he was in the morning,
as it were, riding the standing with a thigh each
side of it. However, they sawed the pedestal of
the ball through, and then, by main force, shoved
him back till he slid over the end of the standing.
I am willing to allow twenty men may each keep
twenty horses in a stable all their lives, and never
get a horse so situated. But why run the risk,
when it can be avoided? As to the former objec-
tions, they occur every day.

Supposing there to be neither stall-posts nor
ornamental balls, even then the ends of the stand-
ino"s should not be left square, but nicely rounded
off; so that in turning, no obstruction should
meet the horse's head or neck.

On mentionins^ these circumstances to an ac-

64 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

qualntance, I was asked how, without the stall-
posts or balls, the pillar reins could be fixed. To
this I observed, that I conceived the use of pillar
reins to be merely to prevent a horse, while wait-
ing saddled, from straying from his stall : and sup-
posing the standing to be the proper height, I
thought that end would be completely answered,
as, under ordinary circumstances, I had no wish
that my horses, while so waiting, should be stand-
ing on a gag. I mention this, as the same idea
may strike any one else.

Racks are made of all sorts and shapes, and
placed in various situations ; nor unless they are
placed too high, do I consider it a matter of any
very material importance where they are placed.
Take them all in all as to look, comfort to the
horse, economy as to forage and durability, I
should say a small iron corner rack on the near
side is the best. This should be low enough for
a man to put the hay in without using a fork. It
will then be low enough for the horse to eat with
comfort, and he will not be induced to pull out
more than a mouthful at a time : when he does
it produces great waste, as perhaps one third gets
trampled under foot. When a horse does this, I
have heard people accuse him of greediness; but
it does not generally arise from any such cause,
but from his having been accustomed to eat from
a rack situated so high as to make the gettino- at

THE RACK MADE COMFORTABLE. Q5

Ills provender an inconvenience to him ; conse-
quently he has sense enough, when he does raise
his head and neck to pull out a mouthful, to bring
with it enough to last him some time, and this
he discusses at his leisure. Racks should not,
when filled to their utmost, be able to contain
more than about ten pounds of hay. If you have
a good groom, he knows that is more than enough
at any one time ; if he is an ignorant one, if the
rack will hold half a truss, he will cram it full.
If the hay is good, such practice is highly detri-
mental ; if bad it is certain destruction if per-
severed in.

Iron mangers possess several advantages over
wooden ones ; horses cannot contract the habit of
gnawing the bottoms of them, nor are they so
tempted to lay hold of them in any part. Some
get into the habit of licking the manger : this is
all but a sure precursor to crib-biting, and should
be put a stop to immediately. Let the stationary
manger be well smeared over with train oil, and
have a wooden lining made to fit in ; this should
only remain while the horse eats his corn. If this
is attended to so soon as the habit is first taken
to, the horse will oftentimes leave it oiF.

Head-collars have been much improved upon
lately. The old sort were constantly being got
off: those now made are quite safe in this parti-
cular, and are as good as can be, with one excep-
r

66 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

tion — that is, that, unless particularly ordered,
saddlers never make the forehead bands long
enough by an inch on each side, by which the
head-strap is brought so close behind the ear that
it pinches it into a corner, which causes confine-
ment and uneasiness ; in fact, I have seen the ear
chafed by it.

If any one who may read this work holds
economy worth consideration, I would suggest to
him, that ordering his head-collars to be made
with, as it is termed, the flesh side outwards,
causes them to wear nearly double the time of
others.

In gentlemen's stables collar- shanks are usually
of leather, which are the best — first, for appearance;
secondly, they make less noise in running up and
down than rope ; and thirdly, when the horse
travels with his head-collar on, they roll up neatly.
I say shanks : but in speaking of my own, as re-
lates to one head-collar, I should only say shank,
for I never use but one to each horse : for this
reason ; a horse sometimes gets his hind foot over
them in scratching his head or neck : this leads
often to serious accidents. Of course, where there
are two, there is more chance of this occurring; than
with one ; but the chance of his getting into this
dilemma with two is much greater than the num-
bers go ; for from the diagonal direction of each
from his head to the rings, they are just in the

"there's nothing like leathee." 67

way where his foot would pass from his head, and
as he naturally, for his own convenience, brings
his head round as much as he can to meet the
foot (of course the hind one), it seems almost a
miracle he does not get entangled whenever he
may try the experiment. If he is tied up with
one shank, bringing his head in contact with
his hind foot, the shank goes diagonally in an
opposite direction from his head, so that it is all
but impossible for him to get the leg over it ; at
least, so I have found it, for such a matter never
occurred in any stable of mine. It may be objected
that some horses will bite at or play with others
over the standing, unless they have double reins or
shanks. I allow they will, if the stalls are narrow,
the standings low, and the shank left too long ; but
standings near the manger should be too high to
admit of these freedoms, which would often end
unpleasantly. And there is a sure rule to go by as
to the proper length of the shank. Bring the end
that fastens in the head-collar to the top rail of the
manger, let the shank then be of such length as
just to allow the bottom of the log to reach the
ground ; no matter whether the horse be sixteen
hands or a pony, that is the length, for each sized
animal has to lie on the ground.

There is a fastening made to affix to the manorer
for which, I believe, a patent was taken out, but
I forget in whose name ; this is as secure as the
r 2

68 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

common ring, so far as relates to a horse pulling
at it in any ordinary manner. But should he get
a leg over the collar-shank, and consequently be
in dansrer of throwinsr himself down, he must of
course force the shank strongly downwards: in
such a case a spring gives way, and he gets free.
I had them, and found them answer the purpose
of any other fastening, and had I used double
shanks I dare say I should have proved the ad-
vantage of having them : they cost little, and I
venture to highly recommend their use.

It is rather remarkable how careless many per-
sons are in some respects, while in others they
are provokingly careful or anxious. This arises
frequently from their not knowing or seeing
apparent danger of loss in one particular, but
from having a vivid sense of it in another. If a
man went out leaving his desk open, in which
there were a hundred and fifty sovereigns, although
he mio^ht know it was a thousand to one against
any one even going into the room, he would feel
fidgety and uneasy till he got back and found
his treasure safe: yet the same individual would,
and perhaps daily does, allow an equal sum, in
the shape of a horse, to be exposed to much greater
risk without having an uneasy thought about it,
till a broken leg, or some such casualty, gives him
reason to repent his want of foresight. He then
finds that from very slight causes very serious

FISHING FOR HORSES BAD SPORT. 69

accidents occur. For instance, a friend of mine
had his rack-chains ending in a hook, to fasten to
a rino; in the chain. I told him there was dano;er
of a horse getting this into his lip or nostril : mj
only thanks were a laugh at my conjecture. What
I considered very likely to occur certainly did
notj but what was likely to end in a very serious
affair, though of much less probability of occur-
rence, as certainly did. One of his horses got the
hook completely through the upper eyelid: he
had torn the hook from its hold of his eyelid, and
was found in the morning bleeding profusely, the
rack-chain hook covered with blood. It left a
frightful gash, and a most ghastly-looking eye;
and, from some cause or other, the horse ever
afterwards startled at most objects that either met
or passed him on the off-side. It is quite true
such an accident probably never might occur
again in the same stable ; but, from the same
cause, some other accident very likely might. And
why have anything in a stable that holds out the
remotest chance of injury, where it has neither
look, utility, nor economy to recommend it ?

There are two additional rack-chains, or it might
be more proper to call them stall-chains, that I
have found extremely useful with horses ticklish
and inclined to bite in dressing. It is true, a
horse may have his dressing-muzzle on, and the
ordinary rack-chain will prevent his hitting the
F 3

70 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

groom with the muzzle, which he would otherwise
do. But he can still fly at the rack and rack-
staves, by which 1 have known a tooth broken
more than once, and have seen the lip injured
several times.

The two check-chains I allude to should be
fixed to the standing, about two feet and a half
from the wall, or rather boards, that are before
the horses ; and when buckled on or fastened to
each side of his head-collar, effectually prevent his
reaching rack, manger, or man, each chain being
made so as to shorten or lengthen at pleasure.
Thus the horse can be kept nearest the side the
groom is not, if necessary. Horses that have a
tendency to rush at persons passing by their heads
while waiting on the pillar-reins when bridled, can
be fastened on the check-chains, which prevents
annoyance or irritation to man and horse, as in
that case they stand with their heads towards the
manger. I once saw a mare, in rushing at a
stranger passing her head, so severely checked by
the pillar-reins that it threw her on her haunches
like a dog sitting, at the risk of a sprained back.

Of muzzles there are various sorts; any of
them will answ^er their purpose, and there is but
one that can be called absolutely objectionable
(though still in very common use) ; this is made
with a tin shallow basin or dish at the bottom.
This I hold as a bad sort, for it stops inhalation

THE MUZZLE AND THE MARE. 71

of air, or exhalation of breath at the bottom ;
and, further, should a horse rush at the rack or
manger, the chance of injuring his teeth or lips
(as before mentioned) is very much increased ; and
indeed, in one instance, a serious accident had
nearly occurred to a man of mine from one of these.
I had sent him on to an inn with a favourite mare,
in order to meet hounds the next day. He had
omitted to take her dressing-muzzle with him
(which I rather wondered at, as she had more
than once had a grip of him) : he borrowed one
of these tin-lined ones : and after dressing her, and
letting her down from the rack-chain, he stooped
to do somethino; to her fore-lesr. She never njave
away a chance on such occasions, and made a
dash at the nearest part that presented itself,
which happened to be his head : this she struck
with the rivet that fastened the tin plate at the
bottom, and laid his head open as completely as
any Cornish single-stick player could have done,
where, in their phrase, to constitute **a head"
the blood must "run an inch." So much for tin-
lined muzzles, independent of their very common
appearance.

The next sort are those in use in racing stables,
made of solid leather both at bottom and also in
the part that goes round the nose, with holes
punched in every part to admit air. These are
somewhat heating to the nose in summer time we
F 4

72 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

must allow ; but as they are also used as " setting "
muzzles, it is quite necessary to prevent the horse
getting at any of his litter, which he might do if
they were made more open ; and for racing stables
they are certainly the best, or for any occasion
where a horse has to be set over-night : a pre-
caution quite necessary with some horses, as
hunters, for, if greedily inclined, they will get at
their litter if at all stinted in their hay, which is
worse than the hay itself. One precaution should
be always used with muzzles ; namely, to have a
throat-latch to them ; for, if left on all night, the
horse is all but certain to try to get them off.
If he succeeds (where he is tied up), they get
under or about his feet. This, probably, frightens
and sets him plunging. |

I once saw a muzzle made without any strap
ffoins: over the head. It had four billets, one of
which buckled to each ring of the nose-band of
the head-collar, and one that fastened in front.
It struck me as a safe and good mode of putting
it on when used merely as a setting muzzle ; and
had this advantage, it did not require the bottom
of the muzzle being kept so close to the horse's
mouth to keep it steady; thus allowing free
respiration.

One thing I most strenuously recommend all
masters to insist on ; namely, that a horse in the
slightest deQ:ree Inclined to bite should never be

"NE CREDE." 73

dressed without a muzzle on. The man may
trust, and say the horse " won't bite liim ;" but he
does, and then gets a thrashing (which is sure
to make him worse), all arising from idleness
on the part of the man.

Having said thus much of the middle part of
the stable, we will ascend into the loft ; and, on
returning, so soon as our feet touch the pavement,
we will cast our eyes on that.

Lofts are very proper over stables, provided,
and, as in legal phrase, " be it always enacted,"
that they are never used for the purposes to which
lofts are often from necessity appropriated ; that
is, a receptacle for hay ; or, what is worse, servants
and their families. I suppose I ought, par excel-
lence, to have given the latter precedence of the hay.
However, as an amende honorable, I will make my
remarks on them first. This I do for two reasons :
the one being by way of compliment to the lady
and her blooming ones — though, in truth, when
brought up over a London stable the bloom is
apt to partake a good deal of the lily's hue: —
my next reason for now giving them precedence
of the forage is, though said sotto voce, they are
by many degrees the greatest nuisance there.
If, however, it is thought proper to have a colony
over the horses' heads, disturbing them at all
hours, the ingress and egress should always be
from the outside ; if a passage is allowed through

74 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

the stable, the ten thousand errands such persons
always have from the time the milk is fetched in
the mornincy till dad's beer is sent for at niofht,
varied occasionally by his coming home tipsy from
having taken it out, give the horses about as
much rest as if they were picquetted in Fleet
Street or Regent Street, of which, if appropriated
to a lady's use during a London season, they see
quite enough during the time they are out, with-
out being reminded of the same thing when
wishing to rest themselves in their stable. No
doubt the allowing a servant's family to reside
over the stable certainly saves them the expense
of lodgings, and consequently enables the man to
take less wages than he otherwise could do ; but
it is a poor saving when half a dozen horses are
to have their rest broken by it, independent of
Jackey (if the passage through the stable is al-
lowed), whenever he can find the opportunity,
amusing himself by giving them a touch up
with whatever may answer the purpose, to see
" how they jumps " in their stalls — " Crikey, aint
it fun !" Let any one turn a wild ourang-outang
into my stable, I would forgive it, as probably
the brute would get kicked, and there his mischief
would cease ; but a half-tamed young imp of a
boy has cunning enough to avoid being got rid of
by so summary a process, and mischief enough to
harass any living creature ad infinitum while he

A GROWING NUISANCE. 75

can do so with impunity. It has fallen to my
lot to have had many lads or boys in my stables,
sometimes several at the same time. Among these
I have had some very good ones, who never at-
tempted to play any of their tricks with me. This
arose from several causes : they were never trusted
with horses out of sight of some one of whom they
stood in awe. The instant a boy is trusted alone,
it matters not whether he be the heir of the
family, or the fag of the stables, he is safe to be
in some mischief, and woe to the animal under
his control : to tease, and, in a certain degree, to
torture animals is the delight of most of them.
I know of few animals more annoyed than the
pony of one of these young imps, apparently fond
of the animal as he may appear to be. Keep a
pony for mamma's darling, if you like, but, in
mercy's name, never trust the animal to the boy's
sole control. It is true, boys are employed in
racing stables to dress, feed, water, exercise, and
work horses, worth, perhaps, a thousand each ;
but they are never for a minute allowed to be
alone with the horse. And they are at the same
time fully impressed with the firm conviction that
any trick detected would be followed by the
severest punishment from the trainer.

Let me, therefore, especially guard persons
against employing boys in any capacity about
horses in situations where they cannot be narrowly

76 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

watched. Boys are as artful as men, and may
appear steady and disinclined to mischief; but
this one thino; is certain — nothinor but absolute
dread, and constant watching into the bargain,
will keep them from it. Be as kind to them as
you please, and always reward good behaviour in
them, — but keep alive the idea that punishment,
more terrible than any man with common hu-
manity would attempt to inflict, would be certain
to follow any tricks played with horses. A per-
son not versed in the arrangement and discipline
of a racing stable would be quite astonished on
seeing small boys go about race-horses as perfectly
fearlessly as they do, and might see one of them
pass safely under the belly of a horse that would
at once savage a stranger, or, perhaps, even the
trainer, if he could get at him : this, at first
sight, speaks in the boy's favour, as indicating
kindness to the horse, and therefore trustworthi-
ness on the part of the urchin ; in nine cases in
ten, however. Jack merits little of such favourable
opinion, for never being with the horse but in the
presence of the trainer, or head lad, he dare not
but be kind, or, at least, quiet with his horse, and
as he feeds and waters him, the horse, in return,
does him no harm ; trust half a dozen boys with
as many horses, without being well watched, in
one week half the horses would be made vicious,
and, probably, half the boys killed. I have said

HAY IN LOFTS. 77

thus much on the subject of boys, from having
seen the dire results of persons, from a mistaken
idea of economy in point of wages, employing
them in situations of trust ; boys are useful and
clever ; industrious ones will stand nearly in the
place of a man in some situations, but they should
be only used as tools in the hands and under the
observance of a first-rate workman.

There are many objections, though not, perhaps,
of any very serious character, to keeping hay in
a loft : one that is frequently made I consider a
very futile one, which is, that the exhalation
arisins: from the horses and the stable renders the
hay bad to eat. In reply to this, I should say,
that any moderately good stable is so ceiled that
little of this exhalation would reach it, and it
must be very badly ventilated If it would do much
harm in this way : if it did, and the horses got
amiss, I should accuse the stable of the mischief,
not the hay. But the objections I make to the
thing are these. Throwing down the hay is apt
to get the seeds into the horses' ears and eyes.
The opening of trap-doors, and, above all, letting
them slam down, often alarms timid horses. If
there are no doors, cats amuse themselves by
jumping up and down; and, as their amorous
dalliance beo;Ins in strains not the softest or most
harmonious to any ears but their own, so it often
leads to fierce pursuit; and, though I highly

78 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

applaud and estimate the modesty of Miss Grim-
alkin, that induces her to rush down the rack like
" one possessed," and the chivalry of Sir Thomas
that brings him head foremost after her, the sober
steeds are thrown in most admired disorder, and
stand for the next half hour snorting their wonder
at the ardour of these proceedings.

But there is a greater objection still to hay
being kept in lofts. Unless they have skylights,
at certain times of the year it gets dark in such
places before the horses get their hay for the
night ; and though the groom or coachman may be
a careful man, an extra glass may be enough to
throw him off his guard, though not off his legs ;
and a dry loft is a bad place for sparks from a
candle, or from a public-house either. And here
let me most strenuously recommend the use of
gas in stables, in lieu of oil or candles ; its safety,
cleanliness, certainty of properly proportioned
light, and, where much is used, its economy, are
beyond all praise. I had it in fifteen different-
sized stables and seven boxes, all at the same time,
for several years; so I am tolerably well able to
judge of its advantages.

I do not make the same objections to straw
being kept over the horses; in one way it has
even some advantage in the summer season, as it
keeps off the heat of the tiles or slates. And
straw never should be wanted at night ; for two

^'FESSUM QUIES PLURIMUM JUVAT." 79

reasons: it should be put on the beds bj day,
which gives the stable a clean look ; and it gets
sufficiently trampled upon by the time the horses
should be bedded up at night to become soft and
comfortable. A clean wholesome bed is in-
dispensable to man and horse ; but stiff, fresh
straw is by no means a comfortable one, par-
ticularly to fine-skinned horses, who will often in
such a case be waled wherever they are not pro-
tected by their clothing. The whole bed should
be at all times (after any damp straw in the middle
of it has been removed in the morning) so clean
as only to require fresh straw to keep up the
proper quantity, and to give a fresh look to the
stall during the day ; then, with ordinary horses
that only do moderate work, what is put under the
manger is brought out at night. Hunters require
often to lie down during the day ; consequently,
as they will then lie on straw but little trampled, it
should be got as fine as possible. I greatly prefer
machine-thrashed straw. It does not look so well,
I allow, but it is far more comfortable to the
horse. I recommend the strong, round, unbroken
straw to fishmongers : to pack a salmon in, it looks
clean and neat, aud I should hail its appearance if
bringing one from a friend as a present, but I
eschew it in a hunter's stable. I have had horses
so fond of straw, that by night or day they would
devour their beds ; that is, so far as they could

80 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

reach, or the straw was palatable : this, so far as
the clean straw went, was, under ordinary circum-
stances, of no great consequence; and with a
hunter who is to go with hounds next day, and
has this propensity, putting on a muzzle stops
him, which is the safest plan : in a general way,
a little solution of aloes slightly sprinkled over
the litter near his head will answer the purpose :
it is not necessary to make the bed wet, or even
to be called damp, for a slight smell of the aloes
is sufficient.

I have heard many persons complain of straw
being sent to them that was short in length ; this
is a great mistake. I never wish to see a straw
in a stable more than two feet long : in fact,
trussed straw should always be cut in half before
the truss is undone. The long round straw is
very well for horse-dealers' use, to make the stable
look handsome ; but for private purposes it is both
wasteful and inconvenient. It is wasteful, be-
cause, should one part become soiled, four feet of
straw must be thrown out where only one foot is
objectionable ; whereas, in the same case, if only
two feet in length, of course only two feet would
be lost. It is inconvenient, because when it is so
long it gets round the horses' legs ; thus causing
them to displace the order of their beds every
time they move : in fact, for a hunter's or race-

PAVEMENT OF STABLES. 81

horse's stable I prefer straw that has never been
trussed.

Having made our inspection of the lofts, we
will now return to terra firmcu

The area of the stable of course depends on the
number of horses it is destined to contain ; but its
width should be the same whether it comprises
three stalls or ten. Seventeen feet is just the
width I would wish a stable to be from wall to
wall ; that is, where the racks are in the corner
of the stall : if they are the old-fashioned ones
that run across the whole front, the stable from
wall to wall should be just so much more in pro-
portion to the depth of the rack, so as still to
have the seventeen feet from the back of the
manger to the wall behind the horses. This is
wide enough to keep passers-by from any danger,
and not enough to make the stable barn-like
and cold.

Of pavement for the stalls there are various
sorts, most of them having their advantages and
disadvantages; but, at all events, the ordinary
flint stones as pavement are decidedly the very
worst ever proposed to pave a stall with. They
cut the litter to pieces : the horse cannot stand on
them with his feet bearing level, nor can he lie on
them in comfort, unless he has a waggon-load of
litter under him, which in summer is heating and
unpleasant: and, above all, no man can keep such
G

82 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

a stall sweet. Hard blue bricks, such as are
termed fire-bricks, are very good, and will wear a
long time ; but the best are, undoubtedly,^ the
clin'ker. I had once in Hampshire a stable with a
chalk floor throughout, and very well (with a good
deal of attention) it did ; but it is at best a make-
shift. The newly-invented India-rubber floor, I
should think, must in every way be excellent ;
at all events, it holds out numerous advantages.
What per contras there may be I do not know :
it is somewhat expensive as to its first outlay ; but
this does not prevent its being the most econo-
mical in the long-run. It strikes me the India-
rubber holds out a very considerable temptation
to its use in this particular — it has no projections,
and, if it had, even those would be flexible ; so that
in summer time, with ordinary work, a small
quantity of straw would make the bed soft enough,
and have the advantage at the same time of cool-
ness. There are numberless apparent savings in
what is done as regards the horse ; they are, taking
them all in all, really a waste of money. The
animal, unfortunately for himself, and very often
for ourselves, cannot complain ; so we go on gra-
dually, but imperceptibly, injuring him without
being aware we are doing so ; but it tells in the
lon^-run. A horse does not show at once that
he does not rest comfortably, but his loss of con-
dition will eventually speak for him ; and a pound

INCLINATION OF THE STALLS. 83

or two in money goes but a little way in veterinary
surgeon's bills. And in this way many pounds are
spent under the idea of saving as many shillino-s.

All who have written on the structure of
stables, or, at leasts all who understand the subject,
agree that for a horse's comfort the stalls should be
nearly flat. Dealers have them very much raised
in front, to show oiF the horses; livery-stable
keepers to make any wet run immediately back,
to save straAv ; the old flint-paved stalls were so
made, for otherwise the centre of the bed would
be a regular cesspool. Nothing but a great declen-
sion could enable the wet to meander its way
backwards. A gutter or drain behind the horses
is an unsightly thing, and^ were horses only to
inhabit the stable, it would be unnecessary ; but,
as mares also stand there, it cannot be dispensed
with.

I consider the best way to arrange the floor of
a stall is as follows : — The iron of the grate in
the centre should be 10 inches square, made of
good hammered iron (and not cast). It should be
a full half-Inch thick, and its extreme edge or
border much deeper, so as to give it a firm hold
in its oak frame. From wanting this precaution
they are apt to get out of place, as is sometimes
seen with the round Iron coal-cellar covers on the
foot pavement in London. The stall floor should
G 2

84 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

be perfectly flat from the manger, till it comes
within a foot of the grating : it should then have
a fall to it of half-an-inch. By this the fore-feet
of the horse stand on quite level ground. It
should slope in the same degree a foot each side
of the grate, and also from a foot behind it. This
is sure to make the wet made by the horse run into
the drain beneath ; and his hind as well as fore
legs stand level. These declivities on a well-paved
stall are quite enough ; and when the horse lies
down, the bed prevents his feeling them. I must
remark here, mares should always stand at the
end of the stable ; that is, the lowest end, as the
gutter should be made with a slight fall.

In pursuance of my fixed principle, that what
is best for any purpose is, in the long-run, the
cheapest, in building a stable I certainly would
make my standings of oak ; that is, the boards of
which they are made should be of that timber.
They do not require to be made of the best sort ;
so the expense is not a great increase on those
of deal. The posts and top-rails, being of con-
siderable substance, will have strength enough if
made of any wood ; but if the boards are of deal,
one kick in right earnest splits them. Where
there is deal and within reach of the horses' mouths,
iron hooping should always be fixed upon it.
Gnawing soft wood is a favourite amusement with
idle horses ; and anything that induces or allows

A PHILOSOPHER. 85

them to lay hold of wood should be studiously
avoided. The same holds good with regard to the
rack, if that is a wooden one.

I am a great advocate for roomy stalls ; but
there is a proper medium here : if too large, horses,
finding themselves so much at liberty, are apt to
get a habit of rolling; which with impatient
animals, sometimes ends in injury, from their
struggling to right themselves. Others, on finding
themselves thus ham-pered, have the sagacity to
lie still : in this case they are generally old
offenders. I had one who, when short of work,
was constantly found in the morning nearly on
his back, with his legs resting against the stand-
ing, of course considerably above his head. Here
he very philosophically waited till his groom came,
who laying hold of the fore and hind legs next the
standing, pulled the gentleman over. I often
thought he must have been in the West Indies,
and learned this mode of resting from the ladies
there, who, I believe, however, get themselves to
right without assistance. It was remarkable,
that this horse never got cast after a good day's
work. It was only when idle that he played some
pranks, at some time of the night or morning,
that got him, as Jonathan says, in *^ a fix." Had
he been a valuable horse, I should, of course, have
put him in a box ; but I had not one to spare for
a forty-pound hack, and he appeared so composed
G 3

86 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

and comfortable in his transatlantic position, that
it would have been a pity to deprive him of so
cheap a luxury.

Horses will be very commonly found to what
is termed " hang back in their stalls " the moment
the stable is shut and they find themselves alone ;
some will even do this when persons are present :
this is a habit that always excites the greatest ire
on the part of a groom ; the broom-handle or fork
usually corrects this attempt, accompanied by
swearing at the horse, and sundry condemnations
of always his eyes, and frequently the limbs also.
I have seen men insane enough to listen at the
door, or watch at a window till they found the
horse had committed this heinous sin, then rush
into the stable and chastise him as unmercifully
as undeservedly : we might, with as much justice,
punish a man because he moved his person to get
ease when we had placed him in a situation that
rendered his position painful : but if any man has
found he could teach the generality of grooms to
think before they act, he has been more fortunate
than I have in this particular.

The whole secret of a horse hanging back is,
that where the stall is much on the decline, from
the manger to the stall hind post, standing on an
inclined plane causes his loins and hind parts to
ache intolerably ; he hangs back in order, if pos-
sible, to get his hind legs beyond the gutter, thus

SOFT REPOSE. 87

diminishing by many degrees his standing up hill.
In crood and well laid stables horses are not found
to acquire this habit ; so the cause of it speaks for
itself, and ought to be immediately remedied,
which any common bricklayer may do, if he
pleases, in half a day.

Five feet eight, in the clear, I consider wide
enough for any horse's stall. If he is so fatigued
as to want to lie at full length, he ought to be
put in a box. This is, however, a position in
which horses never lie long together, unless
under very peculiar circumstances ; for it is, in
fact, a painful one to them, unless they have an
unusual quantity of soft straw under them, the
rotundity of their ribs creating an unpleasant
pressure.

It is a most mistaken idea that a wearied body
can rest comfortably on anything but a soft, yield-
ing substance. Rest it will, and sleep will come,
for jaded nature will rest anywhere, and almost
anyhow ; but if we lie on any unyielding surface,
it is only the most prominent parts of the body
that find support. These begin to ache from
undue pressure on them; the other parts from
having no support at all. Some foreign horses
sleep on bare boards. They live, and perhaps do
well ; but they would certainly be more comfort-
able with a good bed under them. And it must
be borne in mind, that these occupiers of bare

G 4

88 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

boards do not cross Leicestershire. Oftentimes,
when people say such and such a thing does not
hurt a horse, the animal would perhaps tell a
different tale, for in such cases it frequently hap-
pens that the kindness of the master to the animal
is about equivalent to that of a grazier or butcher,
who, when he tells you that this or that will not
hurt his cattle, only means it will not injure the
meat for the market.

We will now, for a short time, turn our atten-
tion to matters beneath the earth's surface.

Much has been said about draining stables.
Objections there are, of course, to every sort of
drainage ; but I shall describe what I consider as
the best. The drain should run just under the
centre of the stalls, and should be twelve or
fourteen inches deep, and wide, the lower part
rounded barrel-fashion. This causes the water to
run down much more rapidly than it would if the
bottom was flat, and leaves no sharp corner for
filth to lodge. The drain should have a very
considerable fall — nearly two inches to the
yard ; with this, and a bucket or two of water
thrown down it twice a week, it will be kept
perfectly sweet. The higher end can be stopped
up by a door, and the lower one should terminate
in a receptable for manure ; or, if that should be
impracticable from any particular cause, a cesspool
must be made, to be emptied when wanted. Thus

CLEANSING FEOM POLE TO POLE. 89

no current of cold wind can come up the drains ;
nor will the urine from the horses be lost, which
is a consideration, whether a man has land or sells
the manure. Water thrown on foul litter will
make it weigh, we know, but it will not enhance
its value as manure ; the liquid from the drain
will. Short drains are frequently made coming
from cesspools under the horse ; that is, from the
middle of the stall into the long under-ground
one behind him (where there is one) ; this is a
very bad plan : in the first place, it is impossible
to clean the short drains thoroughly, being only
able to get at one end of them ; and the other
objection is, it forms an angle, in fact, sharp cor-
ner, in turning into the longer one, which is cer-
tain to cause frequent stoppage, from filth getting
collected. Now, the long drain under the horse
being open at both ends, it can be thoroughly
cleansed in a few minutes by a very long pole or
two, or even three in succession if required, being
tied to each other till the requisite length is
obtained, and with a kind of coarse mop at the
end all filth can be got away, the drain, in fact,
washed.

The pavement of the stall should also be fre-
quently washed to sweeten it, taking the oppor-
tunity of a horse being out a sufficient number of
hours to let it dry thoroughly. This is not often
attended to, and greatly contributes to the offen-

90 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

sive smell of many stables from the whole of the
urine (as will sometimes be the case) not going
down the grate, and consequently getting between \
the bricks or clinkers, unless they are laid in very '
hard cement ; what must it then be in the case of
the common flint pavement ? the interstices there
become positively saturated with offensive matter.

I have mentioned twelve or fourteen inches as
a fair size for a drain. It may be asked if a larger
size would not be better. The reason why I pre-
fer the smaller is this, if the drain is large, there
being less fear of any stoppage, servants will not
cleanse them sufficiently often to prevent offensive
smells, whereas they are aware a smaller one re-
quires more frequent attention, and consequently
they cleanse them oftener.

Returning to the stable, we will look round
and see what more is wanting there. If we
should see that which in a badly organized stable
is sure to be seen, namely, all sorts of stable
utensils, and requisites, in holes and corners, oui
the window ledges, in the corn-bin (if one be in|
the stable), on the steps of the loft-ladder, and
various other imj^roper lodgments for them, the
want which will suggest itself at once is that of a I
good cupboard, or rather press at each end of the
building. Nothing looks more unstahleman-like
than forks, brooms, buckets, &c., standing about, i
Should it be at all dusk, or even by daylight, if

A SPECIMEN OF THE POLKA. 91

your attention is occupied, the chance is you
break your shin over a pail, and while dancing
with agony on one leg, you hop into the drop-
ping-scuttle, and out of that pop into the cold
stopping-box.

One of the first things desirable in stable ma-
nagement is rule: by rule I mean a regular way
of doing things; and this is a matter seldom
attended to sufficiently, unless the stable is under
the superintendence of a first-rate stud groom. I
do not merely allude to the important matters of
stable hours, dressing, feeding, watering, and so
forth, but to the minor details ; for, though such
things may appear trivial, they will at times be
found important to attend to : I will merely men-
tion, by way of example, two.

We will suppose a horse is going to be taken
out ; the groom takes oiF his head-collar, and, if
he is an ordinary servant, he lets it fall into the
manger : the horse is told to " come round ; " in
doing so it is quite likely the head-collar may
have lodged on the manger rail; if so, on the
horse turning, down it goes, and perhaps a hind
leg gets into it, or possibly a fore one ; the horse
gets hampered and frightened, if a timid one, and
then it ends as the case may turn out. Or sup-
pose it thrown down, and nothing happens at
that time, probably, from the same want of stable
rule, the groom never goes into the horse's stall

92 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

before his return ; the animal on reaching his
stable gets up to his manger as quick as he can,
and then the odds are much in favour of hia
getting one or both forelegs entangled in the
collar ; and here again it ends as the case may be,
depending on the quietude of the horse. Now,
if the man made it an invariable rule to fasten
the head-collar to the rack-chain, he would from
habit do it as a matter of course.

It is the same by the clothing, if they are care-
lessly thrown over the standing ; the chances are
they get down under the feet of the horse in the
next stall, and are torn, or at least soiled. This
would not happen if, on the man's return to the
stable, he took the opportunity of shaking, and,
if wanted, brushing them, folding them nicely
up, and depositing them carefully in the horse's
own stall.

From the same want of rule (but sometimes
from want of convenience to avoid it) we often
see a man hunting for his currycomb and brush,
or any article he uses, under the manger, under
the straw close to the standings, and in his
various other hiding-places ; all this at once
shows bad management somewhere, and looks
most unstableman-like.

There are a variety of little technical habits
as well as phrases in a stable, for the origin of
which it might be difficult to account ; yet the

GOING TO THE " PEESS." 93

non-observance of which gives the impression (and
such is mostly the case) that the groom is not a
workman ; for instance, it may be said that if a
hood is thrown over a horse's quarters, the posi-
tion of the ears of the hood cannot be a matter of
consequence ; nor am I prepared to say it is so ;
but if I saw them standing an-end on the horse's
back one bending forwards, the other backwards,
like a hare listening, I should doubt the man
being a finished stableman ; they look, as a sailor
would say, " more ship-shape," brought through
the eye-holes, and laying uniformly neat. All
things in a stable should be done not from a man
recollecting that he should do it, but from habit,
as naturally as he brings up his left leg to follow
his right, or vice versa. In fact, a horse that has
been accustomed to be attended by a stableman
will want to have little niceties done to him that
a hawbuck of a groom never thinks of doing.

The presses should be made so that all things
wanted can stand in them, or on shelves and pegs
also shut in. There will be a place for buckets,
forks, chamois, sponges, dressing-tools, mane-
combs, water-brushes, bandages, the men's strap-
ping-jackets, and sundry other articles in daily
use.

Anything like a shelf in a stable should never
be seen ; not even a sill to the windows. I need
scarcely say that nails or hooks in the walls are

94 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

absolutely inadmissible. A wooden peg or two
to hang a bridle on while the horse is being saddled
is a convenience, and not objectionable, if never
used for any other purpose.

Numerous accidents happen where utensils are
allowed to stand in the stable. Horses coming
in and out are almost sure to strike against them.
This frightens them : they run back, hit some-
thing else, or run against other horses and get
kicked. Should such a thing occur as a horse
getting loose in the night (no very improbable
circumstance, by-the-by, in a badly-conducted
stable), probably if he walked quietly about, or
even into another horse's stall, if used to each
other, no harm might happen ; but if in the dark
he gets kicking the buckets about the stable, as
Dr. Pangloss did the phials about his shop, he
(not Dr. Pangloss) gets frightened, frightens the
other horses, and they all get kicking and snort-
ing together ; and then, to use the doctor's pet
numbers, it is " two thousand five hundred and
thirty-eight " to one that some mischief ensues.

Having now got a tolerable comfortable stable,
that isj one not a bit too good for a hack, and
quite good enough for a hunter, I come to cer-
tain little adjuncts to it, convenient if only des-
tined for the first-named humble inhabitant, but
absolutely indispensable to the more aristocratic
tenant. The first of these are (in the stable)

A SOMEWHAT EXPENSIVE LESSON. 95

gates to fall back against the wall, and fasten
across from it to the stall-post at night. They
are a small expense and no inconvenience in any
jproperly proportioned stable ; and in one whose
jsix stalls contain, perhaps, a thousand guineas,
jthey are a safeguard that it is reprehensible to
jomit. For, though a properly -made head- collar
jcannot be slipped off, in case of fright or a horse
getting cast, some part of it may be broken, or
if the safety-shank collar rings I have mentioned
are used, the horse will disengage himself and
get loose ; and a broken leg from the other
horses in such a case is too serious a matter to be
risked.

As some proofs of the obstinacy (for I can
scarcely call it by a milder term to be an appro-
priate one) of some persons as to horses, and, fur-
ther, that the cautions I recommend are not quite
futile, a friend of mine, a good judge of horse
matters too, had two stallions that stood in his
hunting-stable, with no other safeguard than had
the other horses, namely, proper head-collars on
them. I told him tliat some night he would have
an accident. He laughed at my croaking, as he
termed it. But singular enough, in a night or
two, one of them did get loose, and worried a
valuable horse, so as to lay him up for the season,
and disfigured him for life. Any one would have
thought this lesson would have sufficed, but it

96 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

did not ; for a couple of seasons after, he kept
two other entire horses, sire and son, in the same
stable, one four and the other nine years old : for
the old horse he had refused, two years before the
time alluded to, 1000, not pounds, but guineas.
The young horse got loose ; and on the groom's
going into the stable, hearing an unusual noise,
he found the sire with his thigh broken. A vet.
was called in ; and I saw the horse in slings in a
loose box. But he could not be kept quiet;
his groans were piteous. He died frantic the
next night ; and on examining his body, it was
found that two or three of his ribs were also
broken. So the poor animal's sufferings while
they were pressed upon by the slings may be
imagined. The gates I mention would have pre-
vented all this.

The Saddle and Harness Room.

Something of this sort is quite a necessary
appendage to the most ordinary stable. No horse
appointment can be kept decently clean without
it; and multitudinous are the indispensable articles
of this kind wanted. If even a number of horses
are kept, it is true if a man does not object to
sore backs and wrung shoulders, the same saddle
and neck-collar may be made to do duty for more
than one horse ; but in mentioning what I hold

THE YOKE (not) EASY. 97

as indispensable to such stables as those I have
alluded to, and attempted to describe, of course
we do not contemplate such grievances.

I will mention a case where I found that one
neck-collar, though it had been made purposely
for a particular horse, was not enough ; a horse of
mine, that had picked up a nail, had been thrown
for upwards of two months out of work, and liad
been merely exercised ; being naturally a gross
horse, he had become, by the time he was sound,
very lusty. I wanted to join a party in a three
weeks' summer tour ; and this horse being a par-
ticularly good tandem leader, I took him, fat as
he was, knowing we should only go easy and
slow stages. For upwards of a fortnight all went
on well ; but then I found his shoulders began to
chafe; and, in fact, on coming in one evening,
they had become sadly scalded. I soon hit upon
the cause of this ; his flesh not being as firm as it
ought to be when he started, he had lost in size
considerably on the journey, and had got below
his usual mark ; consequently, though on starting
his collar was tighter than usual, it had become
too large for him, and then, as a matter of course,
wrung his shoulders.

If people are contented to ride or drive horses
in bridles and bits that do not suit their mouths,
of course a very few will do ; but if we want
horses to go pleasantly, each must have his bridle ;

H

98 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

for though a horse may go moderately well in a
certain bridle, a man with nice hands, and who is
particular as to how he is carried, will not rest
till he finds the bridle that exactly suits : thus,
even supposing we set out with a small stock of
horse appointments, if a man often changes his
horses, that stock will, in a short time, multiply
greatly. Whenever I bought a horse, if the
saddle he had been accustomed to be ridden with
pleased me I generally bought that also, if I
could : the same with his bridle : of the latter, I
should be afraid to state here how many I have
had by me ; but even of saddles, I have often had
at least thirty. I include my own, ladies', ser-
vants' saddles, exercising, and, perhaps, three or
four racing saddles, of different weights : latterly
I made it all but a sine qua non, but if I sold a
horse his saddle went with him.

Independent of this accumulation from circum-
stances, when we come to recollect that summer
or winter clothing has to be stowed away,
sweaters with their hoods, &c., old clothes for sick
horses, or those in physic, waterproofs to cover
clothes, if travelling, &c., it will be found that not
only is a saddle-room wanted, but a good-sized
one, if only, we will say, seven or eight horses
are kept.

And here, to save constant cleaning of spare
bits, stirrup-irons, or any thing made of steel or

HAVING AN EYE TO THE MAIN CHANCE. 99

iron, I will mention what some persons may not
know, if a box or small tub of powdered lime is
kept in the saddle room, and such things are buried
in it, they will keep, it may be said, ad infinitum^
without care, or getting rusty.

I need scarcely say a stove is indispensable ;
and here, with a neatly-concealed bed, is a very
proper place for one man at least to sleep. Here,
also, in small establishments, may be the corn-bin
— an article that I never wish to see in a stable,
for two reasons : it takes up room ; and the horses
learn its situation so well that they get anxious
and uneasy every time the groom goes near it. It
is sometimes made and used as a seat ; but it is a
bad plan : where a seat is desirable, it should be
one that falls down against the wall.

There must be boxes, as a matter of course^
wherever hunters are kept ; and there should be
one, in case of sickness, wherever horses are lo-
cated : it can always do duty for other purposes
when not wanted for its general one. And here
I must give a caution not always used : so soon as
a sick horse (I do not mean a merely lame one) is
removed from a box, it should be immediately
white-washed, and the floor well saturated with
chloride of lime, before any other horse is put
into it. These do not require to be in any degree
the same size as those used in racing-stables. As
places of quiet, unconfined, and undisturbed rest
H 2

100 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

for weaned horses, sixteen feet (or even less, if
necessary) deep, and eight feet in width, are all
that is required for the horses' comfort. Double
doors (that is, cut in two transversely) are useful
in case of sickness, where there is but one ; other-
wise, the single door is to be preferred. These
should be made to take off the hinges, that an
open railed one may be substituted in hot weather,
over which, of course, on the outside, an open
canvas should be stretched to keep out the flies,
which is a wonderful comfort to the animal : the
canvas costs, perhaps, three shillings, and will last
as many years. Under no circumstance s^ let the
door be what it will, should it open as I have
often seen it do, into the box ; for should a horse
be taken ill and lie against it, it cannot be opened ;
for even with hinges to lift off, in such a case they
would be inside : in fact the door must be split
or sawed to admit any one ; and even then, till
the horse is got up, it cannot be opened. Yet,
obvious as this must be, strange to say, in a very
large establishment, where there were six boxes
in a yard appropriated to them, they one and all
opened inwards. The master, however, had them
all altered the next day, when I had represented
their inconvenience.

When boxes are entered by a door on the
side, which is often the case, the rack and manger
should both be on the side of the entrance ; for

SOCIAL HABITS. 101

this reason : the horse, to feed with convenience
to himself, and to get in front of his food, will
always be found to stand nearly corner-ways in
his box ; so, if the food is on the side of the door,
his heels will be away from the person entering ;
if the reverse, they will be towards hira, which,
with some horses, would not only make some dif-
ference, but all the difference to the safety of the
intruder.

Many persons have quite a box monomania
about them, and fancy one to be all but indis-
pensable to the well-doing of a horse. I am quite
of a different opinion, though I do not affirm that
my own is the correct one ; but keeping a horse
constantly in a box I consider a mild degree of
solitary confinement. I think I may say all
quadrupeds that are not fercB naturcR are gre-
garious, and horses are naturally so, and confine-
ment in a solitary box deprives him of enjoying
one of the first impulses of his nature. Turn him
into a pasture, be the food ever so tempting, he
will leave it, and clear the largest fence to join
any horses he may see or hear near him. I am
quite sure that horses are happier, and, conse-
quently, do better in stables than in boxes, unless
they are made with open work at a height that they
can both hear and see their companions. Entire
horses, that is, those that are highly bred, must
be kept by themselves. They are so accustomed

H 3

102 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

to it, that they would generally savage other
horses if they could get at them ; but this, I am
convinced, arises in most cases from the mode in
which from colts they are stabled. I quite agree
that no entire horse, be he as quiet as he may,
should ever be trusted in a situation where he
can get at other horses ; but I am certain that if,
instead of shutting up half a dozen colts in what
is tantamount to a cell, they were in boxes, with
walls, say five feet high, and the upper part made
of iron bars, close enough not to let their noses
through, they would become as accustomed to
each other as a herd of deer or a pack of hounds.
It is not their nature immediately and at all times
to attack each other ; if it were, how could they
be gregarious ? which, in a state of nature, they
are. Even the wild ass, who is, by far, more
savage than the horse, is never found singly, but
in droves. They — the deer, the dog, or the
horse — would at particular seasons have a fight
occasionally ; but when they do, it is where the
female becomes the object of contention ; it is the
undivided companionship of her that rouses their
energies to fury and battle, not any natural
hatred or antipathy to each other. For the same
horses that might be seen with crest erect, tearing
each other like tigers at one season, would be
found herding sociably together, and knabbHng
each other in perfect friendship a few weeks after-

*^D0 AWAY WITH THE CAUSE," ETC. 103

wards. If their combats arose from natural
ferocity, or natural hatred, they would last all
the year round; and this we know is not the
case.

Why do we allow our dogs or deer to live in
sociality? merely because they are not of suffi-
cient value to induce us to keep them apart. And
why do these animals live thus socially, and, on
the whole, harmlessly with each other? They
have the same brute passions as the horse, and
certainly are by no means more kind or generous
in their natural dispositions than he is. The
reason why they do not attack each other, as our
entire horses would, when they meet, is, we en-
courage and habituate the one sort of animal to
live together in harmony, while we totally pre-
vent the other from doing so.

I have no hesitation in saying, that in doing
this we pursue quite a wrong system. Horses are
valuable animals, and consequently should be so
far securely kept apart as to prevent the chance
of their injuring each other; but it certainly
would be better for them, and ourselves, if we
so habituated them to associate as to do away
with the inclination to do the injury to each
other.

I have known men to send a couple of hunters
to an inn, in order to meet some distant pack of
hounds, and the order given was, " Mind and get

H 4

104 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

a couple of boxes for your horses ; " or the groom,
knowing his master's predilection in this respect,
would, as a matter of course, get them.

Let us see how far this proceeding, that cer-
tainly at first sight appears judicious, is, under
every circumstance, to be recommended.

If I sent horses where there was only a large
public inn-stable, I certainly should much prefer
the boxes ; not from thinking the solitude of the
box conducive to my horse's comfort or content
— and, by-the-by, either in man or horse, where
there is not content there can be little comfort —
I should prefer the box from the objections inse-
parable from such stables, nauiely, my horses
being constantly disturbed, and subject to the
door being open at all hours.

Now, my directions would be — "Get a two,
three, or four-stalled stable (as might be wanted),
and get your horses together, if you can." Let
us see what would be gained by getting separate
boxes. The horses, having travelled together,
know as well as we could tell them that, though
separated, they are in the vicinity of each other.
They also know well enough that they are in a
strange place. The consequence of being parted
is that, instead of resting themselves and sleeping,
they are anxious and fidgety, and keep knukering
(that is an apology for neighing) after each other
all night. In such a case '^a box to himself" is

LOOKING OUT. 105

not so great a desideratum to a horse that is to
meet hounds the next day as it is often considered
to be.

When I decry the general use of boxes, I beg
it may be understood, that I only do so when
alhiding to them made, as they mostly are, as
cells : that is, where the animal is debarred from
seeing or hearing anything to amuse him, or pass
away the time. The reader may smile, perhaps,
at the idea of a horse deriving amusement from
seeing passing objects, I will, therefore, beg to
make an observation on this subject, that, I think,
goes a long way in showing that I am not far
astray in considering that horses do derive amuse-
ment from such circumstances. Most people
Have, no doubt, frequently seen a dog looking out
of a window, and turning his head in the direc-
tion of passing objects, in fact, watching their
motions. He is neither forced, taught, nor told
to do this ; it is a voluntary act of his own ; of
course it amuses him, or, at all events, he finds a
gratification of some sort in doing it. If a dog
does so, why not a horse ?

The reader who might smile, as I above said,
at my opinion, may say he never remarked a
horse looking out of a window. I can't help that.
I have, many (not a drawing-room window, I
grant) ; but I never saw a horse shut up loose in
a box that had a window in it, that he could get

106 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

at, that was not constantly looking out of it : nay,
if a hole of three inches square only is left in the
door, my life on it, look in at it, and the first
thing that will meet your eye, is that of the horse
looking out of it. If it is a half-door, his head
will never be away from it, unless while taking
his food ; and when looking out, he will, as much
as the dog, follow with his eye, and even head,
every object he sees pass near or at a distance.
He is not made to do this more than the dog;
consequently, we have every right to conclude,
that he finds amusement in doing it ; and of this
we totally deprive him by shutting him up in a
box.

I always conceive a horse looks unhappy thus
shut out from the world. Look at him through
a key-hole, or in any way that he cannot see you,
there he will be found standing, his head drooping,
and looking, as I make no doubt but he is, melan-
choly and dejected.

I am quite ready to allow that to be loose I
consider an advantage, a comfort, and also an
amusement to the horse, giving him the privilege,
if in a large box, of moving about; and such a
home, I agree, is preferable to a stall, if the
animal can see his companions. But when he
cannot, I am sure the solitariness of a shut-in
box is much more than a set-ofi" against any
advantage it may otherwise hold out.

THROWING A LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT. 107

I may be asked, if I am not so strenuous as
many other persons in my praises of boxes for
horses, how I can reconcile with my ideas the fact
that the most valuable race-horses are kept in
them. I fairly answered such a question before,
by saying they were kept in them because, from
having always been so, it became in the end a
matter of necessity ; but it does not follow that
it is rio-ht. We lit our streets for centuries with
oil, and ridiculed the man who first proposed gas
as a substitute. However, we now find gas does
tolerably comfortably for us.

Eace-horses were first kept, probably, for the
amusement and triumph of seeing them win their
races. They were continued with a view to
putting money in their owners' pockets by win-
ning races. They are now pretty frequently
kept for the purpose of losing races, by which
their owners still put money in their pockets,
though very few of them keep it there. Of what
« the select," alias " legs," may do, I say nothing :
double irons in Newgate to tliem.

But we are not to bring race-horses forward
as specimens of sociability or good temper, either
to their own species or to us. There are few of
them we could trust to be walked side by side.
They will sometimes fly at each other at the
starting-post, and have been known to do so even
when running. Some will not run up to their

108 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

horses : some will swerve away from them : others
will not pass them. None of this shows the most
kindly disposition. I do not say that their being
kept solitary is the sole or absolute cause of this
ferocity, but I am quite sure it contributes to it.
All these things are tolerated in the race-horse.
How far treating him in a different way would
be beneficial or judicious, is not to my present
purpose ; but for whatever purpose we design
the horse, there can be no doubt but the better-
tempered he is the better adapted to that purpose
he will be.

I always reason, or at least attempt to reason,
from something like analogy ; and there is much
more of analogy between the disposition, temper,
and temperament of the horse and ourselves than
is generally supposed to exist. For instance, our
bed is a soothing luxury to the sick or wearied
frame ; so is the box to the sick or wearied horse ;
and so long as the debility attendant on either
remains, so long will the bed or box be welcome
and grateful to the feelings to a certain extent,
but no further; for the bed-ridden patient be-
comes tired of his monotony. And keep the
healthful in the same situation, he would become
nervous, timid, and silly, or morose and misan-
thropic, from want of community with his fellow
man. The bed and the box, under the same cir-
cumstances, have, I consider, analogous effects on

NECESSITY LEAVES NO CHOICE. 109

the spirits and temper where their constant use is
persevered in.

I am aware that I have digressed somewhat
from my present purpose in mentioning race-
horses. I only did so lest my not being enthu-
siastic in praise of keeping horses in boxes might
be at once conderamed because race-horses are
kept in them.

110 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

CHAP. III.

DirFERENT KINDS OF FOOD. — HAT. STRAW. OATS.— BEANS.

— BRAN. MALT. — BARLEY. — CARROTS. — CHAFF.

We have long since, we will say, on the judgment
of a friend, got what horses we want. We have
got what we conceive to be a comfortable stable
— a place for holding all the requisites for stable
use, and a room for saddles, bridles, harness,
clothing, and the etceteras. We have now an-
other most important thing to provide for our
horses' use, namely, something for them to eat.

We are told, on much better authority than
mine, though even I could form a tolerably shrewd
guess as to what would be the result of the ex-
periment, that " not e'en love can live on flowers."
Now, in speaking of love, the idea of flowers al-
ways suggests itself to the imagination ; — not that
we are told, that even in Paphian bowers they
ever stood in the place of any entremets intended
for the palate. Our little friend or foe (as the
thing turns out), who holds himself privileged to
appear before ladies sans unmentionables, sans
kilt, and, indeed, sans even an apology for one, is,
we are told, mightily addicted to playing with

ESSENCE OF ROSES. Ill

flowers; but I never heard that he ate them.
Now, horses do just the reverse; they do not
play with them, but they will certainly eat them.
Yet, upon my own authority, I venture to assert
they will no more live on them than the un-
breeched urchin who scatters them so profusely
in the way of young ladies and gentlemen before
they are married. These said flowers retain their
bloom the whole time the to-be happy couple
{queer e) are in church — nay, form a fragrant path
on their way from it ; but, somehow or other
(though it ought not to be so, I allow), by the time
seven o'clock arrives, the loving couple (for, as I
have said before, I like to draw conclusions from
analogy) begin to think, like the horses, that
something substantial, by way of provender, would
not be amiss, and that flower-totalism won't do.
" Provender ! " I think I hear some pretty pouting
lip, with a little — a very little — aiFectation, ex-
claim, ** Provender ! Has the monster ever as-
sociated with any thing beyond a ploughman and
his wife ? Has he ever dined at a table higher
than one where bacon and its concomitant horror,
cabbage, were the head and front of the offence?"
Yes, fair lady, he has, though, sooth to say, he
has dined on bacon and abomination, and, faute
cCautre chose, with a good appetite too. He has,
also, seen your lovely prototype take a tablespoon-
ful of soup at ten sips ; a particle of sweetbread.

112 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

the size of a nutmeg, discussed in atoms ; a fairy
slice from the breast of a pheasant, only partly par-
taken of, from having been helped so abundantly ;
half a whipped cream trifled with, and then an
ice, the only thing allowable to a lady with a
little affectation to declare a predilection for at a
dinner-table. Yes, I have seen this, and, per
contra, I have seen a woman of fashion, but with
no affectation, take a fair share of a beef steak, not
a bif-stick disguised in Verey's best manner, but
an honest tranche de hceuf, fresh from the common
gridiron — and, further, hide her petit and aristo-
cratic nose in a pewter containing double stout —
nay, more, I once saw a cigar in a very lovely
mouth, coming from the Opera. Yes, I have seen
these and many more strange things in my time,
in places, and with persons that many wot not of.
"But then these charming women, you know,
will do just as they please," so says the song. And,
while they charm and please every one, it would
be very hard if they were not allowed to please
themselves.

We will now positively return to the horse,
apologising for the gentle canter I have taken on
the hobby.

We were contemplating laying-in necessaries
for the inhabitants of our stable, and will very
shortly enter somewhat minutely into the quan-
tities required by each. But, before we do so, let

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 113

US see what different descriptions of forao-e we
shall want, and then say something of its qualities.
I believe if I mention — we will say for hunters —
hay, chaff, straw, oats, beans, malt, bran, carrots,
lintseed, and, at particular seasons, a very trifling,
addition of clover or lucerne, and oatmeal, we
shall have all that can be called into use for horses
in health. Barley, however, I have found occa-
sional use for with horses of particular constitu-
tions. We will first speak of

Hay.

This should, for all and every horse, always be
of the very best quality.

Of all the other causes put together that oc-
casion thick and broken wind, where one horse
gets into that state from any of them, or the
whole combined, nineteen become so from the
effects of bad hay, but supposing it to be good,
the proper or improper quantities given are all but
life or death to the horse ; in fact, eventually they
are so. The effect of oats being light, thick-
skinned, or taily, provided they are perfectly sweet,
may be frustrated by increased quantity ; but if
hay is not nutritious, being, as it is, of much
greater bulk, increased quantity is merely fillino'
the animal with what does him no good in quality,
but a great deal of mischief in quantity.
I

114 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

I have been frequently surprised at seeing many
men, who were in other far less material points
careful of their horses, careless, in an extraordinary
degree, in this most essential one, namely, the
quality of their hay. Nothing should induce me
to permit a horse to eat a pound of bad hay,
or, for a continuance, hay that is not of the
sweetest and primest quaUty. It is the first thing
I look at on going to an inn, or indeed to a
friend's house, if I have a horse with me. I have
frequently in the former case, if the hay was bad,
had my horse racked up with a little sweet straw,
and made him amends by adding a proper quan-
titv of bran and beans to his allowance of oats at
night.

I have been at friends' houses who grew their
own hay, and on remarking it was not quite the
thing, have been told, " No, it got a little wet in
making," or, " it heated and moulded a little in
the rick," and this by men who kept good horses.
So, because they greic it, it seemed their horses
must eat it. I would have sold it at twenty
shillings a ton, and bought other, rather than a
horse of mine should have touched it.

To bring the effect of bad hay still more strongly
before the reader, I will again mention the gentle-
man's gray horse before alluded to as having so
fallen out of condition. On seeing this falling off,
the first thing I did was to look at the hay. I

THE ELEVENTH HOUR. 115

found it not only bad, but literally offensive in
smell, and visibly mouldy, added to which, it had
all the appearance of being rowing, or aftermath.
There needed no further inquiry as to the cause
of want of condition ; and the first day I drove
the horse with his master, a few short hacking
coughs told me the vile hay had already begun its
usual effects, for the horse had always been since
I knew him most particularly clear in his wind,
and altogether, with the exception of very slight
thrushes, one of the most unequivocally sound
animals that had ever passed through my hands.
The owner expressed his fears that the horse had
taken cold. I had none on that point, but many
apprehensions on another. Had he been an in-
timate friend, I dare say I should have soundly
abused him, and his hay too ; but that not being
the case, I limited my anathemas to the hay. Some
good was then bought: the horse soon showed
— ay, in a few days — the difference of the two
by improved appearance ; and I trust the evil was
stopped in time. Had it gone on for two months,
if he did not eventually find he had a broken-
winded one, he would have had a greater share of
good luck than I, under such circumstances, should
hope for for myself.

But mistakes are sometimes made, even by
otherwise good managers of horses, as to what is
the very best quality. The first proof of its
I 2 "mt

116 THE POCKET AN'D THE STUD.

goodness is, no doubt, its fragrant smell ; but even
this might deceive us if we merely trusted to our
nose, for I have smelt hay very fragrant that had
been more heated than it should be to be for a
galloping horse. Horses like it, and I have heard
people say it fattens. I suspect its fattening
quality is chiefly that horses, if allowed to do so,
will eat a great deal of it, — no recommendation
to a hunter's stable. But we will suppose the
hay to be sweet, fragrant, and of a good colour,
showing it had been got up free from wet, and
not overheated in the rick. Now as to its quality
and substance.

It used to be a received opinion among grooms,
and, indeed, many others, that hunters should
eat none but '' good hard hay." Now, nothing
in the shape of sweet hay could be more improper
to give any horse intended for fast work than
such hay: nor, indeed, is it desirable for any
horse or beast.

First, then, for galloping horses, the great
desideratum is to get into them the greatest pos-
sible quantity of nourishment in the least possible
compass; consequently, whatever we give them
should, of course, be the most nutritious of its
kind. Of what does this "good hard hay'' con-
sist, and what constitutes its hardness? Its
hardness is simply this — there is a much larger
proportion of a kind of grass called '' bent " in it

A SALAD. 117

than there is in softer hay. Now, let any one
examine this bent, which cannot be mistaken from
other grass; I think they will find it about as
hard, and, in nourishing properties, about on a
par with the wicker of which a clothes-basket
is made, and about as easy of digestion. What
set-ofF there is against what I must consider as
tolerably forcible objections, I never yet found out.
Hay should, in a general way, grow on uplands,
although, I allow, bent, or bennets, as they are
sometimes called, generally do grow there, because
in very poor uplands they are the only thing that
wilL But '^ good upland hay " speaks for itself ;
it should come from good upland, not from sterile,
dry hills, where little but this bent will grow.

Long tangled grass (unless it is artificial grass)
is as bad as the dry bent, but, from another
cause, it is generally more or less sour, con-
sequently flatulent and not nutritious. This
grows on low swampy soil, and is only fit for
cows, and only the best sort for them. Real good
hay should (like that delightful adjunct to a
dinner-table, a really good salad) consist of
variety, all sweet and nutritious. Who would
touch a salad consisting of only the long green
lettuce ? Parmentier's salad vinegar, with Kitch-
ener's double relish added to its other sauce in-
gredients, could not make it tolerable.

It is quite a mistake that all soft hay is bad for

118 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

horses. Aftermath, which is soft, of course, is
objectionable, because the nourishment of the land
has been nearly exhausted by the first crop ; but
there is a look, independent of smell, in good hay
that it is easy to learn to distinguish : and, as I
advise by the purchasing the horses, if neither
master nor man are judges of hay, let some one
buy who is.

Another very great mistake that some people
make in hay is, as to its age. Some will fancy hay
cannot be too old : this is quite erroneous, for
however good hay may be, age will take away its
nutritious qualities. I remember saying this once
before a groom (but no stableman), when, to my
astonishment, he said, with an intended knowing
look, he did not want hay to nourish his horses.

" Then what the d — 1 do you give it them for?"
burst from me involuntarily. '' Perhaps you don't
want nourishment yourself. What do you say to
making half your dinner on sawdust?" I hope
I need not say he was not, or ever had been, in
my stables.

That new hay is by no means proper for horses
in work, is quite certain ; but a little even of this,
as an alterative, is by no means a bad thing.
Hay two years old I consider old enough for any
horse ; and supposing horses to be eating hay in
September 1848, that was cut in July 1847, it
will hurt no horse in common work, — in fact, I

'^ENOUGH AS GOOD AS A FEAST." 119

would prefer it to the older; but that cut in 1846,
I hold to be old enough for any race-horse ; every
day after this I consider it deteriorates in its
nourishing qualities.

We will now come to quantity, the desire for
which, in the animal, depends chiefly on habit;
for appetite, if in a state of health, depends greatly
on use — that is, if we call that appetite which is
in fact gluttony. A keen relish for what is eaten
is a sign of health ; eating enormous quantities is
sometimes the result of disease.

I have astonished a good many carters, horse-
keepers to coaches, and some grooms and coach-
men, respecting what I considered a proper allow-
ance of hay for their horses. Yet I am by no
means one of those who consider a fair quantity
prejudicial : on the contrary, good hay is a much
better thins^ in a horse's stomach than wdnd : and
if we do not give enough of the former for the
stomach to feed upon, it is certain to get filled
with the latter, which often leads to direful in-
convenience, and, indeed, danger. To come to
round numbers of pounds, I should say that
sixteen pounds of hay in the twenty-four hours
is sufficient for ajty horse fed on corn, as a
horse ought to be for fast work, that is, taking
the average per head in a stable of horses ; from
twelve to fourteen quite a liberal quantity for
hunters. In fact, take the stable throughout, and

I 4

120 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

hunting days intervening, twelve pounds I think
about the mark they will be found to eat.

Horses not intended for galloping or any fast
work, or, indeed, hard work of any sort, not re-
quiring any thing like the same corn as those I
have first mentioned, of course require a very
considerable addition to such allowances of hay
as I have mentioned, unless they are ponies or
galloways.

It is true, that in hunting or racing stables hay
is regarded as quite a secondary consideration.
As a means of nutriment it is, in fact, like tlie
small dinner-roll we use when sitting down to a
plentiful board, it is a portion of food proper to
be taken to prevent a too abundant use of more
stimulating fare : still that, like hay, should be,
and in such cases is, of the best and most nourish-
ing quality. Hay, if of the right sort, will keep
an idle horse as fat as corn.

I will instance a case, by supposing two horses
totally out of work. We will allow the one three
feeds of corn a day, weighing (which good com
will) two pounds and a half per quartern measure,
making (corn) seven pounds and a half; we vill
then allow fourteen pounds of hay, making a
ration of twenty-one pounds and a half of food in
the twenty-four hours; we will allow the other
half a truss of hay during the same period, aad no
corn : if both horses are of the same size, appetite.

SIMPLE FARE. 121

and constitution, the hay-fed horse (provided the
hay is only twelve months old, and of a sweet
and succulent quality) will, at the end of three
months, be found the fattest animal.

To give a lift to the character of really good
hay, in point of nourishment, I will mention rather
a curious specimen of stable management for many
years pursued by a venerable divine, a friend of
my father's. He kept his carriage, so had done his
ancestors (and judo^ing by the appearance of the
old landau, the same had passed through several
generations), a horse for his own two-wheeled
whatever-you-please-to-call-it (it is a rather long
but appropriate name for the article), a horse
for his own riding, one for his daughter, and
one for each of his two grown-up sons, making a
stud of seven working horses, independent of two
or three old pensioners, who luxuriated in idleness
on bruised oats, bran, and whatever the worthy
pastor thought would best suit their old gums
and constitution. He had plenty of grass land, but
no arable, and from the nature of the soil, and
good management in haymaking, the parson had
always by him the very sweetest and best hay in
the country. On this, and this alone, without a
grain of corn, the parson's working horses were
all fed. It is true his carriage-horses and his own
two never exceeded six miles an hour, but those of
his daughter and sons not only did, but frequently

122 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

joined a pack of old blue mottled southern harriers
in the neighbourhoood. These said hounds, I be-
lieve, were awfully slow coaches — so they had need
be for hay-fed nags to follow them : however, when-
ever I saw the parson's stud, which I frequently
did, the entire were not only in good flesh, but fat,
one and all. This eccentricity in stable feed did
not arise from parsimony (as his old pensioners
showed), but from finding that, with his work,
really good hay kept his horses in good condition,
so far as looks and also good spirits went.

Independent of improper quantities of hay, and
also of improper hay, being often given to horses,
much mischief is often done by giving hay at im-
proper times, than which nothing can be more
injurious (save and except giving bad hay) : but
as I think it always desirable to bring something
like proof of what I say when I can, I will now
produce an instance of the bad effects of giving
hay at improper hours, which will probably, and
indeed very naturally, bring more conviction than
anything I could say merely grounded on my
individual opinion.

Shortly after my taking the management of the
horses that worked a coach over seventy-five miles
of ground, on my going down by the coach, the
coachman mentioned rather a singular circumstance
respecting the middle stages of the journey, which
was that the horses going from that particular

A STAGGERING FACT. 123

change were frequently attacked by staggers, but
he hardly recollected one instance of its occurrence
elsewhere on the whole line of road : yet here scarce
a week passed without a case occurring. This,
of course set me thinkingr : it was not that the
coach loaded particularly heavily over this seven-
teen miles of ground, nor could it be the nature of
the two stages, as to pace, for one was a very hilly,
slow ten-mile stage, the other a dead flat-galloping
seven-mile ; the horses were a fair average of the
rest, and in average condition, the stable neither
too hot nor too cold. As I intended stopping at this
change all night, and the coachman waited here
to take the up-coach, I had him in, to question
him further on the subject of the staggers. I
then learned what he thought to be still more
extraordinary to be the case, namely, that over
either ground both he and his brother coachman
had found that the same horses that were so often
attacked were always so in going from this par-
ticular change, but never in returning to it. This
at once threw a light on the matter : it must be
their treatment the twenty-three hours they were
in this particular stable. I saw the horses treated
the whole evening quite properly, and the same
early in the morning ; but going into the stable
about two hours before time for putting on the
harness, I found the horsekeeper cramming the
hay into their racks as if he was provisioning

124 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

them for a week. On inquiring the cause of such
proceeding, he told me he " ahcays liked 'em to
have a bit in 'em ; it gave 'em strength to work
the stage." This, of course, was enough ; the horses
were always started with overloaded stomachs ;
that they had not always, instead of occasionally,
an attack of stao^o-ers was the wonder. I tried
what little rhetoric I was master of to convince
the man of the danger and absurdity of his prac-
tice; but as I found he would not be convinced, I
felt he would not be persuaded to obey my di-
rections as to discontinuing it. He promised he
would ; but I set a watch on him, found him out,
and dismissed him, and sent another man to take
his place : from that time we had no more staggers
from this change than from any other.

To conclude my remarks on hay, let me strenu-
ously advise all young horse-masters to be most
particular in procuring the very best money can
purchase ; they will find it a saving in the long
run, for without it those experienced in keeping
horses know perfectly well that it is out of the
power of the best groom to keep them in health,
and, consequently, in condition,

Oats.

Oats are, of course, a most important article in
stable management ; and these should be, as every

"MEDITAMUR AVENA." 125

thing a horse eats ought to be, of the finest quality.
It may be thought that the weight of oats is not
a matter of great consequence, nor, in fact, is it
to cart or common horses : but it is quite the
reverse to such as we are particular about as to
stamina, wind, and condition. Good oats ouo-ht
to weigh close on forty pounds per bushel ; for
we must recollect that, in the first place, horses
(excepting military ones) are fed by measure, not
by weight ; consequently, in giving light oats, we
actually rob the horse of his proper quantum of
meal, giving him husks instead ; and if we fed
him by weight, going on the principle that a
pound of lead and a pound of feathers are both a
pound, the principle would be a very bad one as
regards oats ; for, in that case, though the horse
got his pound weight, if he gets an undue portion
of it in husks, he is only filled with that which is
of no use to him ; so in every way light oats are
bad for choice horses.

Some persons, indeed many, object to black
oats. The only objection that I ever found to
them is, they are apt to be tally, particularly the
Tartars; but if they are neat, short, and round, I
think them quite as good as the white — indeed,
in one particular, better; as such as I describe as
good are generally thin-skinned.

Irish oats, that is, those sent to this country,
are often objectionable, as a large proportion of

126 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

them are kiln-dried, to give the look and feel of
old oats ; but when not I think them quite as
good as our own. People might infer that they
are not so from the fact that a much larger allow-
ance of them is made to horses in Ireland than
we give ; their feed being always half a peck,
whereas ours, in a general way, is only a quartern.
This extra allowance is not, however, made from
any acknowledged inferiority in the oats, but
from the want of nutrition in the Irish hay, which,
from the way it is treated in the making, is gene-
rally dry, tasteless, inodorous, and bad altogether.
Figuratively speaking, they know nothing of good
hay, or hay making.

In point of age, I should say that, for horses in
fast work, oats should not be less than two years
old ; after that I consider their farinaceous part
begins to shrink, and that, consequently, a greater
proportion of husk falls to the horse's share. The
objection to new oats is, first, that they are fla-
tulent; and, secondly, as is the case with new
oatmeal with hounds, they do not, as we say in
kennel language, " stay by them."

A proper stock of oats should always be kept
on hand — of course proportionate with the number i
of horses kept. This should be done that we may ]
not be taken short, and, consequently, obliged to i
buy at any price, or to put up with oats of a bad
sort : but then care must be taken that corn in !

A GOOD ALLOWANCE. 127

store Is frequently turned over, otherwise it is apt
to heat and get musty.

Next to having oats good, and of a proper age,
it is a matter of vast importance to give them
crushed or bruised to all horses : for this an oat-
bruiser is desirable, as they should be bruised
fresh and fresh, that is, I should say, once a week :
the advantage to the horses is very great. If
horses are delicate, they eat them better ; if
greedy, their bolting them is of less consequence :
and with all horses they digest better, and go fur-
ther in point of nutriment. Added to this, a
small quantity of sweet hay chaff should be
given. This obliges the horse to thoroughly
masticate the whole.

It is quite a mistaken notion with those who
consider a hunter the most expensive sort of horse
to keep (race-horses being out of the question) :
a hunter, take him all the year round, does not
cost more than any common well-fed and well-
worked hack — certainly not so much as a carriage-
horse. These gentlemen, like the gentlemen who
sit in front of, and sit or stand behind, the carriage,
are never off their appetite, or thoroughly on it 5
so nothing but the best does for them, and plenty
of it. The usual allowance of London carriao-e-
horses is three half-pecks a day, with beans when
(the coachman pleases to think them) necessary.

Stage-coach horses in full work and health will

128 THE POCKET AND THE STUD. 1

I
go close upon hiding away their half-bushel each, ;

with chaff; and for some old horses, beans with '

it : but they earn it : their exhaustion of animal I

power is great, and their consumption of hay is — i

or, at least, ought to be — a mere trifle. Doubt- i

less, from this allowance of oats in the stable, there \

is a little ** shouldering," as there is from the \

coach on the road : but where we cannot always I

be present, and must trust to subordinates, the >

only way is to make a fair, liberal, but not profuse ;

allowance ; and if things on that allowance are j

done well, it is bad policy to notice any little |

advantage those subordinates may drive on par- ;

ticular occasions. For instance, a coach-owner ::

whom I knew employed a horsekeeper on a par- i

ticularly fast stage — in coaching language, " both |

sides of the road " — that is, both going and coming, j^

The man's horses did well and looked well ; but I

he, like many horsekeepers, was partial to poultry, f

liked fresh eggs to eat, and his wife liked them to j

sell — in short, he had a very pretty little com-r

munity of the feathered tribe. His employer,!

with that shortsightedness that characterises many .

persons, desired the man to sell off his stock — '

partridge-breasted game, poles, and dorkings. ;

Going up the road some time afterward, he found

this had not been done : he dismissed the man on

the spot. His successor did not allow a feather

to flutter on the premises, but he had his ^^ pen-

"YE HAVE AS MANY APPETITES AS HAIRS." 129

chant ; " — he liked something more substantial : he
owned a pig, that he located at the next cottage,
and by Christmas had him a good fifteen score ;
and it was quite remarkable that the horses got
thin in precisely the same ratio the grunter got
fat: when killed he exhibited a spare-rib well
covered, while the horses exhibited only the usual
number, and those not covered at all. The
poultry-fancier was brought back, when, out of
pure devilry, he brought also back a lot of Malay
fowls in addition to his old stock, and turned
them down before his master's face : notwith-
standing this, the horses soon showed who had
the care of them.

Cart-horses (a description of animal that, among
most others of a domestic kind, I have had the
pleasure of entertaining at rack and manger) I
always allowed two bushels of oats per week,
which, if the master achieves that rather difficult
task of making them do a fair day's work, is not
too much, with chaff (and when the work is hard,
beans), which they take as a kind of whet to
their appetites for hay (as some persons do oysters
before dinner) ; of hay, cart-horses will consume
half a truss in the twenty-four hours, and, if the
carters are not well watched, even more : for
nothing short of absolute exhaustion of the masti-
cating powers ever yet convinced a carter that he
or his horse had had enough.

k

130 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

We now come to the kind of horse I will sup-
pose the reader about to keep, namely, a mo-
derate-sized one, for moderate work, in harness,
or for the saddle. For such a horse, four quarterns
of corn, and a truss of hay in four days, are quite
sufficient ; if a horse merely to ride for an airing,
three quarterns are enough, with perhaps a trifling
addition in that case to his hay. Straw is an
article somewhat expensive in London; in the
country we reckon little upon it, as farmers will,
in some places, supply it to have the manure in
return, in others for the manure and a small com-
pensation : but we will look at the thing alto-
gether as it stands in London, and take the horse
as eating four feeds per day. We will take oats
on an average at twenty-four shillings per quarter,
hay at four pounds ten shillings per ton, and
straw at thirty shillings. In stating these prices,
I reckon on their being laid in at a cheap season
of the year, bought for ready money, and at first
hand. Persons who have no room for storage of
provender must, perhaps, pay something more
in some places than the prices here set down.
I have said nothing about beans, bran, or an
occasional malt mash ; neither have I men-
tioned carrots, these being occasional additions
that it would be impossible to reckon on so as
to mention a price or weekly sum as the cost of
keep.

COST OF KEEP. 131

s. d.
Seven peeks of oats per week, at ] /. 4.9. per quarter 5 3
Seven stones of hay, at Al. \Qs. per ton - - 3 Hi

One hundred-weight of straw, at \l. \0s. per ton - 1 6

10 81

Thus we see a moderate horse is, with good
management, to be kept for. say eleven shillings
a week, so far as feeding goes. Horses working
harder, or larger horses, must, of course, get
more ; but as, reckoning corn at a fair average,
it will cost about two-pence farthing a quartern,
if five feeds or six become necessary, there can be
no difficulty in any person calculating what his
horse's provender ought to cost, if kept in the
owner's stable ; and, allowing a horse to get the
topmost quantity of oats that private horses ever
eat — that is, six quarterns per day — the keep
only then comes to about 135. 4c?. per week as to
forage.

Since the first edition of this book was written,
of course variations have taken place in the price
of provender ; but as the prices I have quoted
are only fair remunerative ones to the farmer,
and we cannot see into the effects time may
produce on prices, I let those mentioned stand.

It may be said, and with great truth, that
horses belonging to ladles particularly, are gene-
rally badly managed, and the owners much im-
posed upon. First, ladies cannot go into their
K 2

132 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

Stables to see how things are done : neither is it
at all necessary ; and, indeed, setting aside the
impropriety or inconvenience of their doing so, as
ladies' stables are generally managed, they are
not the most agreeable places in the world. But
ladies have often honoured me and my stables by
walking into them without feeling any inclination
to use their smelling bottles, or finding a French
slipper soiled from the visit. We will presently
see whether a lady may not have her horses kept
in a proper atmosphere, and in proper condition,
though she does not go into their stable.

The next reason to be assigned for the mis-
management and imposition practised in ladies'
stables, and in those of persons not knowing
much about them, is, they do not know what
their horses should consume. I know they do
not, and one of the objects of this work is to tell
them so. Those who flatter i^e by reading it
now will know; and a tolerably liberal share of
abuse I should get from their servants if they
knew I had told this.

I must do servants the justice to say that many
really demand more provender for stable use than
is necessary, from a mistaken idea that they
cannot stuff horses too much. Now, the fact is,
it would do a horse for mere park-riding as much
mischief to give him six feeds of corn a day as it
would be detrimental to one doing full work to

ADJUNCTS. 133

allow him but three. Where a man, from mis-
taken kindness, fights for what he conceives to be
his horses' due, I should rather applaud than
blame him ; I should merely use precaution to
prevent bad eyes, asthma, or broken wind (the
almost certain effects of repletion and obesity)
coming into my stable.

Notwithstanding my fear of this, and having
named what I consider, under ordinary circum-
stances, a fair allowance of provender for horses,
I am aware I have to mention beans, malt, bran,
and carrots as adjuncts to such feeding: with
some horses these are absolutely necessary, but
are little additional expenses, easily calculated,
whether in occasional or daily use.

Beans.

I These are an article of food, that were in much
greater vogue formerly than they now are; in
fact, our grandfathers considered no horse could
work without them. Many certainly cannot, yet
many in certain work would be materially injured
by them. Of the latter I should instance horses
doing very fast work, but of short continuance.
With such they are heating, and by no means un-
likely to produce fever and indigestion ; whereas,
to horses having to undergo long-continued
fatigue, and particularly if exposed to inclemency
K 3

134 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

of weather, I think them quite necessary. To in-
stance, I would not indiscriminately give them to
four horses going over a four-mile galloping stage,
which they might be allowed only fifteen minutes
to do it in : but over a twelve or fourteen-mile
stage the thing is different. Here they want
something, in stable phrase, to " stand by them : "
their work is slow, but it is a long draw on the
animal spirits and powers, and sheer bodily
strength and stamina are wanted. Champagne,
could they afford to drink it, would be a pleasing
and efficacious exhilarator to men in training for
a quarter- of-a-mile race; but the coal-porter (or
whatever they call him), with a barge-load of coals
to carry into store, wants Barclay and Perkins's
strongest double stout to support his continued
Herculean labour. To hunters facing, as they
formerly did, cold early mornings, and then kill-
ing their fox by hunting him down, beans were
quite necessary to help them from a dozen to
twenty miles home again., But now, when we
courteously wait till the sun is near his meridian
before we disturb our fox, and then do not give
him a chance of getting us twenty miles from
home, they are by no means necessary. Such
horses as, from delicacy of constitution, are apt to
pass off their food quickly, require them ; and they
are of great benefit, in a general way, to old liorses,
whose blood flows more languidly than that of

STIMULANTS. 135

young ones, consequently want such a stimulus.
Horses on long journeys really require beans;
and, in fact, if horses are accustomed to them,
they cannot work without them. Two things
should, however, be strictly observed in giving
beans; first, that they are bruise! (not ground),
and, secondly, that they are not given just before
a horse starts on quick work : nothing is more
likely to produce colic. Late in the day, and
night, if on a journey, is the proper time to give
beans. There is, however, a third precaution to
be observed as regards beans, — they must be old,
if given at all. New beans are worse than use-
less ; they are absolutely dangerous in the extreme.
Old beans I consider to be to the horse what
sound old port or ale is to the man : new ones
are tantamount to drinking sweet-wort or port
while undergoing its manufacture, and, conse-
quently, produce the direct opposite effect to
that we seek in giving them to such horses as we
judge may require them. I should say that in a
general way, half a quartern, split or bruised, is
3nough. Certain work and certain constitutions
nay require double the quantity, but more than
■,hat I should say would be injurious. I have,
lowever, I remember, mentioned, in something I
lave before said of beans in another work, a case
vhere I gave considerably more, but it arose from
the following cause. Some years past oats were

136 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

for some months at an enormous price, and in the
particular neighbourhood where I then resided
they were nearly sixty shillings a quarter. I had
a strongish stud, and, contrary to my general
practice, had run out my stock of oats, but had by
me an unusual stock of old beans, so, during the
three months oats kept at this killing price, I fed
my horses on them without oats ; but then the\
had bran in such proportion as I considered broughl
the mixture to an equivalent to corn ; and T mus
say my horses never did better. It was, per-
haps in point of healthfulness, similar to drinking
brandy diluted with water in lieu of sherry with-
out it.

In by-gone days beans were given to race-
horses when in training, and perhaps they were
proper enough under the circumstances in which
they were given : four-mile races, and those in
heats, were then in vogue, and horses that ran
such were not usually colts ; such stamina as en-
abled horses to endure long fatigue was then
wanted, and, doubtless, beans contributed to thisi
But if a trainer could, in a general way, keep twd
and three-year old colts in health, giving thenJ
beans in any quantity, he must have some mode
of counteracting the usual effects to be expected
from their use that I know nothing of. Still i
case may occasionally be found where beans maj
be useful even to a colt, and certainly often to old

MATERIAL MISTAKES. 137

horses. If given at proper times, and, of course, in
proper quantities.

Bran,

If fresh and perfectly sweet, though not an
article of great nutriment, is one without which
a stable of horses cannot be kept for a continuance
in common health, Currie is an excellent dish.
Why do we eat rice with it ? Certainly not to
improve its relish, but that the condiment would
be too exhilarating to the stomach without this
corrective. Bran, after a day of unusual excite-
ment to a horse, such as a severely contested race,
a steeple chase, match against time, or an un-
usually fast thing with hounds, would perhaps
save his life, by preventing fever or inflammation of
the lungs or stomach. Nothing, in short, is more
grateful to a horse, if we find him at all feverish
in the evening, and it is then a safe and good
thing to give either in lieu of, or in addition to, his
usual food at night ; and here is one of the cases
where the judgment of the groom or master is
called into play. Distress to the horse arises
from two causes, each producing, in the first
instance at least, two different results ; the one
excessive languor and depression, the other rest-
lessness and fever; — the former caused by long-
continued fatigue, where the frame and spirits

138 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

are completely exhausted ; the other, where over-
exertion for a short time has produced distress of
the lungs, heart, and abdominal vessels. In the
first case, it is nourishing and invigorating re-
medies that are wanted to re-animate the flagging
and exhausted system ; in the latter, soothing
and sedative ones, to allay irritation, and bring
back the agitated and distressed parts to the
usual state of quietude. I have seen terrible
mistakes made in the hunting-field with horses
that were dead beat ; and many a horse in such
a state has been rendered incapable of coming out
again for weeks, or, perhaps, for the remainder
of the season, from the (formerly almost con-
stant) use of the lancet on such occasions. People
have got wiser of late years in this respect, and
have learned that when nature is pro tempore
exhausted, exhausting it still more is not precisely
the way to accelerate recovery. I always carry,
when hunting, and indeed at most times, a lancet
about me, and it has at times been of use to my
friend's horses ; but when requested to use it, I
have much more frequently recommended a quart
of ale, with some spice, and a couple of glasses of
spirits in it, if a public-house was at hand, and
the horse then being got to the first comfortable
place of rest that could be had, and either given
or drenched with some well-made gruel. There
are cases, however, where copious bleeding, and

A CRISIS. 139

that done without hesitation, is absolutely neces-
sary ; and in such I have used the lancet as freely
as any one. To instance, where, from great sudden
exertion, we find the horse stop, his mouth
dry and hot, the action of the heart greatly
accelerated, and the abdominal vessels in a state
of flutter, the animal beginning to stagger, shiver,
have a frightened look, and the eyes hot and
bloodshot, here bleeding will probably stop stag-
gers and inflammation going on; and bran tea,
or a bran mash, if he can be got to eat it, is all he
should be allowed till we find the pulse begin to
beat with its usual pulsation. It will probably,
shortly after, begin to beat feebly and slower than
usual : in that case, we may consider that life is
pretty safe; and then nourishment may, and,
indeed, should, be carefully and gradually given.
Laudanum, in cases of this sort, is a very dan-
gerous article in the hands of an ordinary groom ;
he has perhaps just learned enough to know that
it is a sedative ; so it is, given at a proper time,
and to prevent inflammation taking place ; but
where it actually has done so, it is usually as
improper to be given, as it would have been
judicious when we only feared its coming on ; our
friend bran must then be the sedative.

Bran is also most useful Avhere we find water
hard, or a horse subject to be aflected by it;
indeed, it is always a safe precaution to use it

140 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

where we are not certain of the nature of the
water ; a few handfuls stirred in will render hard
water safe and innocuous, even to delicate horse?.
Bran, properly given before physic, will, in (I
may say) all cases, prevent gripes, if the physic
be good ; but not if merely given as grooms often
give it, namely, for twelve hours only before the
ball is given. I always give it for two days and
nights prior to this ; some corn with it the first
day, but none the last : in this case the horse is
half physicked before the ball is administered ; and
five drams of good aloes will go as far as seven or
eight if otherwise treated, and for many horses is
quite enough, and six I should say enough for any
ordinary horse, if properly prepared. I have
heard many persons say a horse does not recover
from a dose of physic for some days ; in such a
case it is not so much the evacuation that he does
not recover from, but the having really suffered
while the medicine was in operation, which he
certainly w^ill have done, and severely too, if not
properly mashed prior to taking it. So far fron
a horse being depressed by medicine, if properly
given (and lie wanted it), he will feel himself the
lighter and more cheerful after its proper opera-
tion : in short, bran is of far greater importance
than is often given credit for being ; for if corn
puts a horse in vigour, bran keeps him in health,
and, by preventing disease, plnys its full part

AN ANALOGICAL CASE. 141

in promoting and keeping up that condition the
other more strengthening food has brought him
into.

¥

Malt

I have alluded to, as a useful occasional article
for stable use ; and made into a mash after a long
day, or where we think a horse feels chilled and
uncomfortable, it will sometimes be taken by
horses shy of a bran one, and in such cases is a
most nourishing and consoling supper ; it is also
most useful where horses are recoverins: from
illness ; in short, in any case where we should
like a basin of gruel with a fair allowance of
sherry in it, in preference to more solid food : so,
in a similar case, a malt mash will be found as
soothing and comfortable to the stomach of the
horse.

i

Bakley.

This is an article but of very rare use in an
English stable, though many Easterns use it en-
tirely as stable corn ; it is, however, by far too
heating for our horses ; possibly in hot climates,
where horses sweat profusely, its heating qualities
may be carried off through the pores of the skin.
I have occasionally found it useful to horses who.

142 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

from weak constitution or a nervous temper, are
apt to be more loose in their bodies than we might
wish.

When I had the management of my father's
horses as well as my own, he had an old fa-
vourite that I fed wholly on barley, that is, as corn
feed. I tried him repeatedly on oats with beans,
but a few days showed the change both of con-
dition and spirits; so barley he ate till the day
of his death, which did not occur till he had carried
my father thirteen successive seasons, and was
twenty-four years old. He went at that age as
well as ever he did in his life, had not the vestige
of a windgall on either leg, never was lame, nor
had an ailment of any sort. He was suddenly
seized with paralysis of the spine, died, and was
buried with all due honours.

I believe that barley soaked in water and then
left to sprout is a good thing to bring horses out
of work into condition, but I never tried it.
Barley, like all stable corn, must, of course, be of
a sufficient age, and bruised.

Carrots.

Having had so many horses of all sorts under
my care, I have used carrots in large quantities ;
still I do not mean so as to the quantity given
each horse. Towards spring, when horses have

CARROTS. 143

been many months highly fed on corn, they are
extremely serviceable, indeed necessary ; in winter
I used them very sparingly. They used to be
given to race-horses in far greater quantities than
they are now, having formerly had the character
of being good for the wind ; but I suspect the
only merit they can claim in this respect is, that
they keep the body cool and properly open, by
which they conduce greatly to health and con-
dition, and consequently to clearness of wind.
About the same thing may be said of their claims
to producing a fine coat; whatever conduces to
health does so, consequently carrots do. But I
must here add a caution, for, if given too freely,
they are apt to produce eruption on the skin.
To any one who has been in a racing stable,
or in any well-conducted one, it may seem almost
useless to say that carrots should be sliced in
pretty long slices ; but I have seen them given
by those calling themselves grooms cut cross ways ;
this is really dangerous, as horses are extremely
fond of them, and, if at all greedy, would be apt
to bolt pieces of them whole, which would be
quite likely to cause some of them to stick in the
throat.

Some persons give carrots with the corn, think-
ing it tempts horses to eat their oats, if of delicate
appetite ; so they might, if perfectly minced,
otherwise they will pick them all out, and the

144 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

groom may eat the oats if he pleases, for depend
on it the horses would not ; but if we were to
make minced meat of them, I should still con-
sider it a very bad plan to give them with oats ;
for should the horse get accustomed to such a
mixture, he would afterwards refuse his corn
without it ; for this reason I always gave them as
separate food ; and, if bought at a proper season
of the year, by the ton, in the country they are
by no means an expensive one, — though they be-
come extremely so when a London coachman can
persuade his employer that they are necessary for
his horses, buys them by the bunch, consumes two
of those in his own family, and, if he is delicate
as to conscience, gives the third to his horses ; if
not, they of course all go the same way. Carrots,
if kept in a dry place in sand, will keep a long
time, or in sand they will keep out of doors, if
covered with straw, and then banked up with
earth.

ChafFc ,

We must be not quite inattentive even to a
small item in stable feeding — the produce of hay,
namely, chaff. This is rather a plebeian term, as
connected with racing or hunting stables, and, I
believe, in the time of even our fathers was but
little used in such establishments ; it is, however,

CHAFF. 145

a most wholesome and necessary adjunct to corn
for all sorts of horses ; it prevents them boltlnc
their oats, causes proper mastication, and, further,
gets horses that are gluttons out of the habit of
wasting oats by throwing them out of the manger
in their greediness to get at them. I need scarcely
say chaff should be fresh, that is, not laid by lono-
after being cut, and of the very best of hay ; I
have sometimes found a little cut from pure clover-
hay coax horses to eat their corn if mixed with it,
wlien off their appetite : in a general way, I should
say a little chaff should always be given with corn,
unless on the morninsr of huntinsr.

t

146 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

CHAP. IV.

STABLE ECONOMY. HOW TO SET ABOUT IT. EVILS OF

IMPROPER DIRECTIONS. — THE RIGHT SORT OF INSTRUC-
TIONS. INGENUITY OF SERVANTS. — CHOICE OF A GROOM.

ORDINARY COST OF KEEP. TABULAR STATEMENT.

VETERINARY SURGEONS. WHEN TO BE CONSULTED.

ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES.

Useless prodigality in stables seldom arises, on
the part of London stablemen in particular, from
the amiable weakness of fondness for their horses.
There is a kind of general, and, one would think,
intuitive hatred on the part of all servants — or,
at least, of nineteen out of twenty — to any thing
that they conceive borders on economy, so far as
their employer's pocket goes, in the stable or out
of it. The lady of the house would find, if
potatoes were sixpence a pound, and bread and
meat unusually cheap, the demand on the potato-
merchant would be enormous ; but if bread hap-
pened to be ruinous, only hint at the vegetable
being used in greater proportion as a partial sub-
stitute, a potato would no more be eaten than a
sand wash-ball.

LORDS AND COMMONERS. 147

I have had pretty much to do with stablemen
and boys of all sorts and grades, from the riding
exercise boy to the stud-groom and the wearer of
the tier-on- tier caxon, and I must say I never
found that any fanatical feelings of religion could
be laid to their charge. Still I have seen in-
stances where the researches of the two last-men-
tioned functionaries have been deep enough to
carry them on to one particular parable, which
appears to have taken a firm hold of, and made a
lively impression on, their imaginations; and,
singular enough, but so it is, the researches of
many hay, straw, and corn dealers appear to have
reached precisely the same point, for " Take thy
bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty," is
pretty generally understood by both parties.

Never having been so situated in life as to
warrant my giving two hundred a year to a stud-
groom, or, in fact, keeping a stud-groom at all,
it follows, as a matter of course, that my horses,
in every way, cost me less keeping than those of
the man who did so. Not that they ate a grain
of corn less than Lord Plymouth's; but I will
answer for it, by their condition, they ate all
that was paid for. Nor would I allow them to
be less comfortably lodged, or the stable in any
one particular less in perfect order; but I will
answer its being done by proportionably fewer
hands. I detest badly made, badly turned out.

148 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

or shabby appurtenances to a horse ; I would not
have any of them on or about him a bit behind
those of the noble lord : but their first cost, and
still more their time of duration and keeping in
order, would be found very different items in the
amount of proportionate expense. All this, pro-
bably, is a matter of very minor consideration
with a man who could afford to keep twice the
number of horses he does if he could use them ;
but it is one of serious import to one who, like
me, always kept as many as he could afford, and,
if the truth must be told, sometimes more.

Why this great difference should arise in keep-
ing the same sort of animal in precisely the same
state can easily be answered, by saying it arises
from the different position of the owners ; but to
answer it more in detail — it is caused by the
different effects produced by "^o," and " Ito;'
This I got far enough in the classics to under-
stand as a boy ; of course I understand it as a
man ; and I doubt not those I employed somehow
learned to understand it also, though I never gave
them the chance of trying the difference of the
effects of the two.

It will be remembered that these sheets are
not intended for those who only look to the stud,
but for those who consult the healthful state of
the *' pocket and the stud." It may be said that
among some of these the " Eo " would do more

A FRIEXD IN NEED. 149

harm than good. I am aware it would. Here it
will be very proper to say " Ito ; " but let it be to
some one who understands what he is about —
not in one case in a thousand to a servant, but a
friend, and let it be quite understood that his
directions must be obeyed.

Some servants would, I know, be in open
rebellion at this ; such as study the parable
unquestionably would. " We arn't going to
stand two masters:" — *^then pray ^o," would
often settle the matter ; if not, get others.

I am willing to allow that no servant has a
right, as it is called, to " stand " two masters ;
nor need he ; for if his legitimate master or mis-
tress knew nothing of stable duty, or, as with the
latter, cannot look into it, he will, so far as duty
goes, have but one to be directed by, as, in such
a case, the master or mistress would do well to
merely order their carriage or horses when they
want them and interfere no further. With such
a friend to direct, even ladies need not be im-
posed on, as they generally are, or have their
horses as improperly treated as is commonly the
case.

Should, however, a master know only enough of
stable business to be able to see that it is done,
when told by somebody who knows better hoio
it should be done, he had much better candidly
tell his servant, " Mr. So-and-So says such a

L 3

150 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

thing should be clone," than to give directions
that are absurd or useless ; or, if they should be
judicious, to pretend they are the result of his
own judgment, for servants are quick-sighted
enough in these particulars ; and if they are worth
having, though they will evade obeying useless
directions, will obey proper ones, come from what
source they may : and the next best thing to being
able to direct yourself, is letting your people know
you act on the judgment of one who is. They
will then know it is useless to attempt to reason
or argue — a talent that some have in great per-
fection, and are very free in using, if permitted
to do so.

If a servant who knows his master understands
but little of horses refuses to listen to directions
from one deputed to give them (who, of course,
nmst be competent to do so), depend on it the
refusal has its origin in one or all of the following
causes: — ill-temper, idleness, self-sufficiency, or
an intent to plunder. Most servants will kick at
first in submitting to what I recommend their
masters to do. I neither blame a servant nor a
horse for kicking if they are imposed upon, and
with either would be the last to give them reason
to do so. I have had both kick stoutly ; but I do
not mind a little larking under certain circum-
stances— it keeps one alive. Now some horses,
figuratively speaking, like some servants, will

LESSON TO KICKERS BIPED AND QUADRUPED. 151

kick just over their traces when called on to
work, by way of experiment, to see how the thing
will do. It may be very right and very proper
to stop your coach and extricate them for a time
or tvro ; but they are cunning enough, and ex-
pecting this, will often try the same trick on
again, and would then be constantly at it. The
next time my gentleman makes a rocking-horse
of his trace, lay the double thong well on to his
ears. Let him take his entire side of the coach
alorg for a mile, with the trace chafing his thigh ;
the chances are, if he gets the opportunity, he
wil] kick himself back into his proper place, and
not get on his hobby again. I must apprise those
reacers who do not know it, that double-thono^Ins:
a hearse over the ears is one of the severest appli-
cati)ns that can be made with a whip, and one
thai never should be resorted to but on extreme
occasions, and where we are quite certain it is
filly merited. So in any commands we give,
01 in any reprimands we may use towards any
ptrson, justice, good feeling, and, indeed, common
seise, demand that we are quite sure the command
is proper, and the neglecting or disobeying it does
n(t proceed from its impropriety, or the impossi-
biity of its being carried into effect. Nothino*
phases a subordinate more than to receive a
conmand that he has the opportunity of showing
to be absurd or unreasonable. It authorises

L 4

152 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

hesitation in obeying, and discussion on the pro-
priety of any that may be subsequently given.

To prevent such an unpleasantness on the part
of a lady, or one unaccustomed to horses, the
mode can be prescribed in very few words. We
will, of course, suppose that the horses and their
accompaniments are wished to look as they should
do for the purpose for which they are wanted.
The first thing the owner should do, is to learn
what proportion of work it is reasonable to expect
from horses in their different capacities, and the
mode in which, and times at which, such work
should be called for. We will, of course, suppose
they are to have a comfortable stable, comfortable
clothing, and the man to have a proper time t( do
his business, and all that he requires in reasoi to
do it with ; the next thing is the proper and
liberal allowance of provender of different s^rts
that is necessary to keep up the required condi-
tion. Having learned this, and that the horsts
are in good health at the time the man takes 10
them, there can be nothing unkind, unreasonabh,
and still less overbearing, in her addressing hir
servant in something like the following strain : —
" I give you charge of my horses in good healh
and condition. I shall only use them in such a
way as authorises my expecting them to be kqjt
so. I make such an allowance of provender as I
am told by those who perfectly understand su5h

LESSON THE SECOND. 153

matters Is fully sufficient. I shall take care that
your situation is made a comfortable one to you ;
and so long as you do your duty by me and my
horses, you will keep it. But remember, that as

I cannot go into my stables, my friend Mr.

will do so for me, and you will attend to what he
says as if it came from myself. Provided my
horses look well, you will find that no unnecessary
interference with you will take place ; but if, on
the contrary, I am told they are neglected, or,
what is the same thing, look as if they were so,
the same day you go, unless I am told by compe-
tent judges that you are not to blame. And I
never break my word."

With such an exordium, no good servant
would be afraid to enter on his charge, and
doubtless would do his duty; while one less
well-disposed would be afraid to neglect it.
He might try " the kicking over the trace ; " but

if he found that on the first attempt Mr.

pulled him up, he would find it would not do, and
would probably compliment his lady by saying
that " Missus had learnt what's what ; and if a
man wanted to gammon her, he had got the
wrong (some quadruped he would mention) by the
ear."

Here, I trust, I have shown, as I intended to
do, that even a lady may have her stable and
horses attended to without being imposed upon.

154 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

and without making a stud-groom of herself : but,
as I said from the beginning, she could not do

this without the Mr. ; and I know some

gentlemen to whom he would be all but as great
an acquisition as to the lady, though perhaps it
would be difficult to persuade them that such is
the case. They do without him, it is true, con-
sequently they pay for it.

If a man is positively determined, right or
wrong, to go his own way to work, of course he
must do so, and he will find, independently of his
stud being badly done by on that account, the
eifect of his giving improper or injudicious di-
rections will be that he will get no servant to live
with him that is fit to go into a stable. A good
ordinary strapper would not live in his service ;
for I must say this for stablemen — there are
many that would in certain ways ill-use, neglect,
and impose on their master, but would not allow
their horses to be treated in the same way. I
had a carter, the most confounded thief in the
world, where anything for his horses was to be
got at, and his ingenuity in many ways was first-
rate. For instance :

He had been seen several times bringing a sack
with something in it from under the granary, which
stood on stone staddles. No notice had been
taken, supposing it was something he had put
there for a temporary period out of the way;

AN EXCUSABLE THIEF. 155

but he o-ot " bowled out " at last. It was found
he had bored a hole in the floor under the corn.
In this he had a bung, which went up close, and
only looked like a knot in the wood till closely
inspected. I did not do as some hasty masters
would have done — " draw his cork " (as the
fighters say), and then turn him away ; but, for
example sake, I got a constable, and talked of
transportation, and probably should have given
him a day or two of peculiar temperance in the
villao^e cao-e, but for the fellow's coolness and in-
genuity. On my calling him a thief, he indig-
nantly replied, '' Noa, dang it, I beant no thief;
I never took nothing off your premises : " and I
suppose, seeing this made some impression, he
added, with a grin from ear to ear, " You'll have
it all back again, you know, measter." He was
in ordinary cases a very honest fellow, and I am
sure would not have taken a piece of bread for
himself if he had w^anted it.

To a man obstinately bent on acting on his
own judgment it would be useless to say much,
otherwise, much as I deprecate permitting servants
to give their opinions, I should, in his case, re-
mind him of a quotation — " Fas est ab hoste
doceri," or, in more vulgar phrase, " Never refuse
a light from any man's candle." Anybody'' s advice
that is good is better than that dictated by your
own judgment, if that happens to be bad; and, in

156 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

such a case, the recommendation of a good servant
is not to be despised. But there is' one serious
consideration to be discussed here. Is the groom
that such a man would take competent to give
advice ? for I should be led to fear that want of
knowledge of horses would also comprehend the
same want as regards the qualifications of a groom.
And we may fairly infer the sort of servant he
would get would be a shade or two behindhand
in point of knowledge, if compared with such
men as have charge of studs at Melton. Of their
opinion I should be always happy to avail myself;
but then it must be remembered that they are
selected by those who know perfectly well what
are the duties of a stud-groom, and only keep
them to save themselves trouble — not because
they are incapable of giving proper directions
themselves. These grooms know this, and though
highly respectable men, it has no small share in
contributing to their strict attention to their
duties and their stud. Such servants are a great
addiiaon to the expense of each horse, we know ;
but they effect a very considerable saving in the
long run, when compared with valuable horses
being under injudicious management, whether
that proceeds from master or man, or both.

Such men are not wanted, of course, by persons
who keep three or four ordinary horses for or-
dinary purposes. Such would not warrant the

LIKE MASTER LIKE MAN. 157

expense ; but for them, r^niess their master wishes
them to be always in some trouble, and himself
also, a good servant is required. And then,
unless he has (at least, occasionally) over him an
eye that can see, and a head and tongue to direct,
the chances are he will sooner or later become a
bad one. If the master happens to fall short in
the first two qualifications, the less he uses the
latter organ the better ; otherwise, should the
servant be a middling one, their joint acts would
only make bad worse : should he be a good one, he
will leave his situation. So, under each and every
circumstance, it will be seen that the only way
for a person to have his business tolerably done,
if he cannot, that is, if he is not qualified to direct
himself, is to avail himself of some one who is.

Numbers of persons are deterred from keeping
horses from conceiving the expense of them to be
much greater than it really is, or, at all events,
need be, if they are properly managed. Such
persons often expend in omnibus, street-cab, and
job cab-hire about twice as much as would %eep
them a well-appointed Brougham or Clarence for
their family use.

A friend of mine, who lives in pretty good style,
with the exception of not keeping horses, when
speaking on the subject, and enumerating the
probable expense of only a single horse, among
his other items set down the forage of the horse

158 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

at a hundred a year ; tliis being, in hct, quite as
much as any three ordinary horses could be got
to consume in value.

I make no doubt there are persons who are
cheated out of such a sum as my friend con-
templated, and that such a sum is consumed in
food— but not food for the horse. The baker and
butcher, I consider, in such a case get an honest
two-thirds, and the horse as little of the remainder
as possible to keep him in decent condition. All
this imposition arises from the same cause as that
which will always occasion such persons to lose
money by their purchases when they make them
on their own judgment, that is, undertaking the
management of what they do not understand.

In some proof of this being the case, a physician
has lately told me, that for the keep, shoeing, little
repairs of clothing, head-collars, and the supply
of chamois, sponges, mops, brooms, &c., all of
which are paid by his coachman, the bills, re-
gularly amount to three hundred a year. This for
one pair of horses, I must say, exceeds anything
I ever heard of in point of imposition on the
part of a servant ; still the master has paid it
during the six years this coachman has been with
him. The gentleman allowed he thought he was
paying too much, and asked my opinion. I
thought he was, by more than two hundred a year ;
but being only a mere acquaintance, I thought it
no business of mine to put him right, for the

PRETTY PICKING. 159

doing of which I should very probably have got
no thanks. I did suggest jobbing his horses. "Oh,
he had tried that, but he found the horses looked
bad, and had always something the matter with
them." I asked if the same coachman fed and
drove them. " Yes, he did." I smiled, but said no
more than it was odd : but I did not think it odd
at all : and if the worthy physician had thought
twice, he would have seen the folly of supposing
this rogue of a coachman would for a moment
tolerate his master's jobbing horses, by w^iich if
they were done justice to, coachee could make
nothing; whereas, by the other plan, he cleared
annually what many a nobleman's son works six
hours a day for in a public office. Now had the
physician jobbed a coachman with the horses, he
would have found he saved, to say the least,
150/. a year by the change of his mode of pro-
ceeding : but he perseveres in his old plan ; and
so he may for me: it is quite useless to take
trouble for friends without thanks ; it is folly
to do the same thing for acquaintance; but I
trust this fact shows how needful a counsellor is
to any man in any matter of which he is not
himself a competent judge.

The cost of keep must a good deal depend on
the description of horse kept, and the quantum
of work he is expected to do. Of the feeding of
race-horses I need say but little here. Generally
— and, indeed, sometimes injudiciously — the

160 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

quantum given depends on what they can be got
to eat : this quantum is, however, sometimes in-
fluenced by whether they are fed at the trainer's
expense or the owner's, and sometimes much more
by whether the horse is a favourite with the
stable or not. I say sometimes, because, in justice
to trainers, I must add there is seldom any fault
to be found with them as to stinting horses ; how
far, in the long run, they contrive to starve the
owners, is another affair. As some little insight
however, for the totally uninitiated, I will merely
say there are some delicate, nervous race-horses
that can scarcely be coaxed to eat a peck a day
(and generally speaking, that peck is thrown away
on such horses) ; others, that are good, fair, hearty
horses, will, on an average, eat a peck and a half;
while many gluttons will take, without any
trouble, half a bushel a day.

Hunters, like other horses and men, vary, of
course, in their appetites ; but, to make the quan-
tum of oats they consume something like definite,
I believe it will be found — at least, I have always
found it so — that, taking into account hunting
days, when a mash as the last feed supersedes one
feed of oats, — the day after, when some will eat
but little, others perhaps none, — occasionally a
day or two of indisposition, — a frost, when a dose
of physic is better than a bushel of corn, — and
other contingencies, — in a stable of horses durins:

PRACTICAL TESTS. 161

the hunting season, five quarterns of oats per day
a horse, with occasionally a few beans, is as much
as you will get them to eat on an average of seven
consecutive months.

To show the difference between practically
knowing the expenses of a stable, and listening to
being told by interested persons, what they " must
be, at least!'' I will just take a pair of sixteen-hands
carriage-horses, and see what their expense, not
*' must be," but should be ; and here I show no
presumption in saying I care not what all the
grooms or coachmen in London may say — I know
I am right; not from any talent, ingenuity, or
peculiar mode of treatment ; not reasoning upon
even the best theoretical principles, but on the
broad, plain, homely facts of experience and prac-
tice— that not arising from having had the man-
agement of any one or two classes of horses, or
those under one or two different situations or cir-
cumstances, but from having had the direction of
all sorts — race-horses, hunters, carriage-horses,
hacks, machineers, and cart-horses, — and at one
period all at the same time; what I say, therefore,
on the subject reflects about as much credit on me
in point of intellect as we should attach to the
man who had been all his life emptying coal- wag-
gons telling us how many sacks went to the chal-
dron, and the chance of our being in error would
be about equal.

M

162 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

It will be remembered I am now taking a pair
of horses that are quite as expensive to keep as
any used for private purposes, for I allow each
six quarterns of corn per day. No two hunters
living eat as much, take the year throughout : for
though the name of a hunter to some persons con-
veys an idea of great expense — and though hunt-
ing is expensive, it is not the keep of the horse
that makes it so — a good well-worked 40Z. cover
hack costs quite as much, and more than you can

get some hunters to cost you.

^ £ s. d.

Two horses, six quarterns a day each, at 1 Z. 4^.

per quarter, say - - - 41 0 0
„ 14 lbs. of hay per day each, at

41. 10.9. per ton, say - - 20 10 0

„ Supposing straw to be scarce, 1 cwt.
of straw per week, 1/. 105. per
ton, say - - - - -3180
„ Shoeing both, lO*. per month, 28

days* 6 10 0

„ Wear and tear of chamois, sponges,

brushes, &c. 6^. per week - 16 0

„ Wear and tear of clothing and

head collars, 6c?. each - - 2 12 0

£"75 10 0

* Shoeing and occasionally altering will come to some-
thing more in London, where they charge 55. a set : but as
in the country they charge but 45. — indeed, in some places
less, — I think the 61. 10s. a fair average. I take the same
thing into consideration as regards keep, not supposing a
horse all the year in London.

PUTTING THE SADDLE ON THE RIGHT HORSE. 163

Now I strongly suspect that, let any lady turn
to her accounts for all I have mentioned, she will
find her pair of carriage-horses have cost her a
little more than this, unless she limited them very
much in every allowance ; in which case I infer
they cost her quite as much, from frequently
being in the veterinarian's hands, and never in
first-rate condition either.

Veterinary surgeon's bills are items no one can
give an estimate of, depending, of course, on the
good or bad luck people have with, or rather on the
management of, their horses. For I am no little
sceptical on the matter of luck; at least I can
only say when things have occurred to me that
many persons might attribute in their case to bad
luck, I always, or at least mostly, could, in some
particular or other, trace them to some blundering
act of stupidity or culpable inattention of my
own.

However, as in other persons' cases we will
call it bad luck, whenever it comes in the shape
of a horse falling lame or amiss, go i/otir self with
him ; or, if in a lady's case, send some friend with
him to the best class of veterinary surgeons : it
will be the least expense in the end. If you
allow your man to take him where he likes, he is
sure to have some friend, a common farrier, who
will be sure to make the horse worse ; probablv
in some way blemish him without there being any

M 2

164 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

occasion for it, and do it clumsily if there is, he-
sides keeping him twice as long under treatment
as he would be kept by such a man as Mr. Field,
or any other first-rate practitioner, and end by
sending in a bill three times as long for doing so.
Next in point of annoyance to a groom or
coachman sending for a friend in the shape of a
farrier to see and of course attend a sick or lame
horse, is the groom taking him in hand himself;
I mean in this case, of course, an ordinary groom.
It is true by his doing so, no farrier's bill is incurred ;
but in nine cases in ten, the horse comes off even
worse than in the hands of a village practitioner,
for he has most probably had experience in cases
similar to the one he may be called in to see, and
after having done a great deal of mischief to a
few score of horses in such predicament, and done
no good to a few score more, he may possibly, if
an old man, have at last hit on some nostrum or
practice that has done good, and in such a case
his subsequent patients derive benefit from his
having at last blundered on the right plan ; but an
ordinary groom has not even the advantage of
having had these few scores of fortunate animals
to practise on, and probably can only say in defence
of what he may do or contemplate doing, that,
" when he lived with Mister or Captain such a
one, he had a horse taken just the same way ; he
knows what Mr Field did to him, for he saw it

VETERINAKY GROOMS. 165

all." Now, in the first place, a man may safely bet
any odds that the cases were not alike, further
than each horse was sick or lame. Next he saw
the horse get balls. He might just know enough
to detect by the smell that these balls contained
aloes ; but of the quantity, or what might be com-
bined with them, he knows no more than he does
whether aloes are a gum or a vegetable root. He
might see a horse both physicked and bled for
(we will say) the same disease as that under
which the one labours that he intends to cure,
but he never dreams that physicking and bleeding
might both be proper in one stage of a disease,
but certain death in another. One that among
hundreds of instances of this kind have come
under my personal notice, I will mention.

A friend, on sending a horse from Dublin to
London, had requested me to give him a stall,
that the horse might rest for a day or two before
going the last hundred and odd miles, on his road
to London (for a journey from Holyhead, which
was the route he came, was no joke before the
railroad was completed). Prior to starting from
Dublin, a veterinarian had very properly re-
commended a dose of physic, fearing, from the
full habit of the animal, some attack on the bowels
during the journey ; this the groom, who thought
he knew everything, had neglected, or rather
omitted to give. Shortly after arriving at my

M 3

166 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

stable, the horse was taken exceedingly ill ; and
on my going to see him I found him suffering
under inflammation of the bowels, and this know-
ing groom with a physic-ball in his hand, which
he was preparing to give. I remonstrated against
so preposterous an act. The groom was obstinate,
saying, " that if the horse wanted physic six days
before, he wanted it six times as much now ; "
but I was as obstinate as he, and it ended in my
soundly swearing no ball, at least physic-ball,
should the horse get. The man swore he would
do as he liked with the horse while under his care,
and again prepared to give the ball. I settled
this by ejecting the fellow from the stable, locking
the door, and just remarking the horse was not
then under his care. I immediately sent for a
veterinary surgeon, told him the story, and, not
being nice in his selection of terms, he said to the

man, " Why, you d fool, if the horse had got

that ball, he would never have wanted another ;
he would most likely have been a dead one before
morning." What a treasure in a stable such a
prescribing groom must be ! yet many such there
are in high repute with masters who know no
better than themselves.

I do not mean that a man who knows what he
is about need send his horse on every trifling
ailment to any veterinary surgeon ; but it is the
cheapest plan for the man who does not.

A PROMISING PRACTITIONER. 167

But in sending to a professional let me strongly
recommend the most eminent that is to be had be
applied to ; if the case is a trivial one he will not
make it serious by ignorant treatment, and if
serious, of course all his skill will be wanting;
and as if in corroboration of the soundness of my
advice on this point at least, a circumstance
occurred only a short time ago, which I will men-
tion here.

I had, within the last month, occasion to put a
horse at livery for a few days, where the owner of
the yard has about twenty horses working in street
cabs. Observing one of them in a coach-house,
and o:uessino; illness to have caused him or rather
her to be placed there, in accordance with my usual
habit I went in to see what was the matter; to
enlighten me on the subject an ostler came and
informed me the mare was " mortal bad : " this I
had sense enough to see, without his assurance of
the fact ; but as the acme of professional informa-
tion, he farther told me she was " bad of her in-
side : " now, as the unfortunate beast was blowing
away like a steam-boiler, my veterinary knowledge
went far enough to draw this inference also.

'^ Why, man," said I, " the mare has inflamma-
tion of the lungs ; I don't see that anything
proper has been done to relieve her ; does any
veterinarian attend her, — I suppose not ? "

" Oh yes," said my informant, *^ a young man

M 4

168 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

attends her that master has a great opinion of."
Well, he deserves it, thought I ; observing, " I
suppose he is going to do something for her im-
mediately ? " " No," says the ostler, " he has given
her some balls, but he says she is sure to die ; so
he won't do nothing else." *' He is quite right,"
said I, " as to her dying, for die she most cer-
tainly will under her present treatment." So ended
our conversation.

A friend of mine, one of our most eminent
and, I believe, most experienced army veterinary
surgeons, called on me next morning, and, on
going to the stables, I showed him the mare,
as a living proof of the ignorance of common
farriers. Nothing had been done: he was told
the same story I was, and also of the prediction of

the mare's dying. " Die be ," said my friend,

"so she will, and that very soon, if nothing is
done for her ; but if I had her under my care, I
would insure her life for half a sovereign." Not-
withstanding the ostler told his master this, in-
stead of sending for some man of sense, he took
the word of the young man who stood so high in
his estimation. The consequence may be anti-
cipated : — a useful animal was lost through im-
proper and want of proper treatment.

169

CHAP. V.

THE DIFFERENT VALUE OF DIFFERENT HORSES. THE BEST

JUDGE OF A HORSE. CASES IN POINT. — THE PRICE OF

PERFECTION.

In making so wide a distinction as I do between
persons who understand horses and those who do
not, I feel myself called on to give some little
explanation of what I mean, otherwise I may
unintentionally give offence where and when I by
no means intend to do so; for understanding a
thing or its reverse are only relative terms as to
how far the knowledge or the want of it is con-
cerned. There are certainly some men who do
not know a good-looking horse from a brute —
thousands that are no judge of a good sort of one,
or a good goer.

An uncle of mine went a good deal further.
He said that, provided two horses were both
black or white — or, as he termed them, red, —
and about the same size, he could see no difference
in them. My discernment as regarded his medals
or black-letter volumes I dare say was about the
same thing.

There are, perhaps, few men exactly like my

I

170 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

revered uncle as regards horse affairs ; but there
are thousands who perfectly know a handsome
one when they see him, a goer when they see
him move, and a pleasant one when they ride ;
nay, further, can ride him very well, and yet want
that particular sort of knowledge that alone can
enable them to manage well, and without use-
less expenditure. These are very ticklish gen-
tlemen to handle ; here the most candid friend, or
the veterinary surgeon, sometimes gets into a
dilemma.

We will say a gentleman shows a horse to a
friend, or a veterinary surgeon, with something
about him amiss, that it is at once seen will take
a considerable time under the immediate care of
the vet., and then a winter's rest to make all sure.
Formerly a winter's run implied a straw-yard,
and the occasional luxury of a meadow, wet as a
bog in open weather, and hard and rough as a
heap of stones in frost. This saved keep, it is
true ; but the expense of getting such a horse
again into condition was more than that of — as
we do now — hovelling him comfortably, and
giving him hay and oats. So the expense in one
way or the other for keep must be considerable,
before the horse is fit for use; then comes the
veterinary surgeon's bill.

The owner will, in the first place, possibly ask
if it is probable the horse will come up sound ?

QUESTIONABLE VALUE. 1^1

and gets the perhaps candid and just opinion thf.t
he will. He may be asked the probable expense ;
this a first-rate man will generally pretty accu-
rately tell you. The owner, then, perhaps, cal-
calates, or gets the information, that keeping in
the rouofh on corn, and six weeks in the stable
physicking and getting into condition, will be,
say 14Z. or 15/.; vet.'s bill (medicine, keep, and
firing), we will say 12/. Here we get 27/.
Well, the owner may say — and, I will answer
for it, does say — it is a good deal of trouble and
money; but he is a very valuable horse, so it
must be done. As probably neither the vet.
nor friend may know the qualifications of the
animal, they cannot contradict the assertion as to
its value, nor is it their business to inquire into
the matter ; but there is one thing by no means
improbable in such a case, which is, that they not
only do not know his value or merits, but cannot
for the life of them see either the one or the
other.

Now let us look into the fact of this horse really
being, as represented, " very valuable ; " my life
on it, the great reason the owner has for asserting
that he is so is, that he gave a great deal of money
for him. Well, he comes up realising all that
was promised, perfectly sound, but perhaps a good
deal scarred, if the remedy was effectually applied.
The owner, not likinsj the look of this, or for some

172 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

reason, wishes to sell him ; now " pussy jumps
out of the bag" — 40Z. is all he can get for him
as a blemished horse. He will now be sure to
find fault with the vet. or his friend, or both, for
advising him to take all the trouble and expense,
and then to find his horse only worth 40Z. Here
is just shown the difference between his really
being a valuable horse, or merely one for which a
considerable sum had been paid. The friend and
the vet., of course, took the owner's word as to
his value ; and supposing what they were told
could be borne out, their advice whs judicious,
for 211. would be very little consideration in get-
ting a really valuable horse upright; and such
horses as have gone under Sir Bellingham Gra-
ham, Lord Plymouth, or Forester, would not be
brought down to quite 40Z. because their legs
were a little disfigured. But such horses are
really of known value ; the value of the one in
question probably only existed in the opinion of
the owner. Supposing, on being accused of hav-
ing given interested or injudicious advice, the vet.
or the friend — beginning to suspect how the thing
stood — should take the liberty of asking in what
the value of the horse consisted, and found out
the truth, it is by no means improbable they
might say, — " Hearing you say he was a valuable
horse, and judging only by what we could see, we
of course thought he was one of known character

A STUNNER. 173

and qualifications ; " finding he was not this, they
come down with the stunner^ " Why, my good
sir, he was never worth more than about 50/.
before he was lame. "

Kespecting the value, it would take a good
folio volume of many hundred pages to enable
the most experienced in horses, and a clever
writer to boot, to enable him to give any idea of
the different value of different horses ; for when
once men indulg-e in whims and fancies about
them, there is no judging what they will give to
get possession of a horse they fancy, or what they
will sacrifice to get rid of one that does not meet
their wishes ; hence the great fluctuation we often
see in the price asked for and given for the same
horse ; for in some men's hands his qualifications
would be of no recommendation, while in those of
another person they would be beyond all price ;
as an instance of which I bought a mare for my
father, and knowing the qualifications he mostly
prized, — namely, being very handy, and a stand-
ing jumper, — I rode her best part of a season for
him, and made her one of the most perfect stand-
ing leapers in the kingdom, and, as a dealer
would say, as " handy as a fiddle, '* though no
powers could make her fly her fences ; the conse-
quence of her qualifications was, that several
others of the same mind as my good father often
tempted him to part with her at a high figure,

174 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

but (figuratively speaking) no money would have
bought her; in some proof of which he rode her
thirteen seasons. Now, had she got into my
hands, I would have sold her for forty pounds
rather than ride her, unless it had been in a very
close cramp country with harriers ; there she
would be as a hunter beyond price, but I no
more like such a country than I do the kind of
hunter fit for it: it is only, in my estimation,
better to hunt there than not hunt at all.

The fact is, the value of a hunter is nominal,
but not often definable ; it is only to be defined, in
one way : if half a dozen known good riders to
hounds would each give a hundred and fifty or
anv given price for the same horse, that price for
the time being is his value ; but it in no way fol-
lows, because an owner may set a given price on
his horse and may find a purchaser to give it, that
such is his value ; the price set on him arose from
his owner's estimation of the qualifications the
animal possessed, and the price given was from the
purchaser's estimation of them being the same as
the owner's ; probably no other man would have
given half the money — many would not perhaps
ride the horse if they were paid for doing it.

Now the value of a race-horse is definable, be-
cause it depends on what he can do, and not (as
in the case of the hunter) how he does it, if he
does it, — that is, if he can win : it matters not

VALUE VARIABLE. 175

whether men are sportsmen or not, or fond of
racing or not, the horse that can win money is
valuable in all men's eyes who have any thing to
do with racing, and that value depends on the
class of horses he can run with and heat, that is
if all is meant fair^ for we might be very much
deceived in the value of a race-horse if we judged
by the price he might be bought or sold at, at
particular times ; five thousand might be offered
for a horse 'prior to some great event coming off,
in which he might be thought to be more than
dangerous, yet after winning the race easily, the
same party would not give one-fifth of the sum
for him : why this would probably happen racing
men know well ; to those who are not, it is of no
consequence whether they know it or not.

Many horses that are kept for use are to be
valued, and that nearly as closely as any other
useful article. Cart horses can be valued to a
great nicety by any man accustomed to the buy-
ing and selling of them ; so can good, fair, useful
thirty or forty pound harness horses for other
work ; even carriage horses can be estimated when
they are a fair useful sort, worth we will say
from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and
fifty the pair ; beyond this their price is almost no-
minal, for what a pair of singularly beautiful well-
matched horses, with extraordinary high, grand,
and fashionable action would bring, depends on the

176 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

purse, inclination, or folly of the purchaser ; such
a pair would be a little fortune to an owner, if the
young and beautiful wife of a rich old man took
a fancy to them ; the fortunate owner would not
only get a heavy addition to his purse, but the
good will of the lady, by making the old gentle-
man evince to the world the fervour of his adora-
tion by the price he paid to gratify her whim.

But to return to the supposed case of the valua-
ble horse before mentioned; it is true, in one
particular the owner acted as I recommend, in
taking the advice of two experienced men. He
did so ; but he must recollect that he acted on his
own judgment ^rs^, by telling them he was show-
ing a valuable horse. They therefore recom-
mended what was judicious to do with such a
one, but not, perhaps, what was advisable to do
with the one in question. Probably, had they
been allowed to form their own estimate of his
value, they might have thought, and perhaps have
said, they did not think he was worth a heavy
expense, and would have recommended a few
days' rest, and putting him up for sale, when
they might estimate him at about the 40/. The
owner would probably think them rogues, fools,
or mad, to thus undervalue his hundred-guinea
nag ; I would, however, back such men to be
pretty near the mark.

It is a common idea that an owner is the best

EEL ATI VE VALUE. 177

judge of the value of his own horse. If the words
value "to him" were added, there would be much
truth in it; but without these two additional words,
I beg leave to give it as an opinion that a very con-
siderable number of owners know nothing at all
about the value of their horse. Selling, or makino-
the attempt to sell, will tell them the truth ; buy-
ing does not even afford a hint on the subject.

When I say this, I must, however, state it
depends a good deal on where and of whom he
buys ; if he buys of any person in a private way,
of course each makes his bargain, and no matter
whether the thing purchased be a horse or an
article of jewellery, it may be bought and sold at
(in mercantile phrase) fifty per cent, below or
above its value ; but if a stud of well-known
horses are on sale, and on the day of the sale a
number of persons who know the qualifications of
each horse are present, a man purchasing one of
them will in a general way get the horse at some-
thing like his value, that is, supposing the stud is
for some particular reason to be bona fide sold,
and the owner a gentleman ; but if, as is frequently
the case, a stud is advertised, and the owner merely
has this done to get rid of objectionable horses
then the chances are a buyer gives far more than
the horse's value, by getting hold of a roarer, a
lame or thoroughly b.id one.

But supposing a man is not thus unfortunate,
N

178 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

but, on the contrary, gets one that persons who
know the horse tell him, and tell him truly, is
cheap at the price paid, he may still get him too
dear, that is, he may be dear, to him : for unless
he has had forethought enough to consider the
kind of country the horse comes from, he may find,
Avhen he gets him into the one he hunts, that he is
not worth half the money.

Now, let us take the thing in a diametrically
opposite point of view, and we shall see where
the owner is the best judge of his horse.

We w^ill suppose a man has more hunters than
he wants, and wishes to diminish the number;
of course his wish would be to sell those that
he, for some reason or other, liked the least ;
but rather than keep them all, he determines to
sell any (say) three of them, — a sensible re-
solve enough, if a man is not of great wealth, and
happens to be one of those who are tolerable
hands at making hunters. The man of wealth
has no occasion to part with anything that he
likes. The man who is not a horseman and
judge of horses, never should part with one that
carries him to his satisfaction : the man who is,
always should, if he gets his price ; for, only give
him spring, speed, and stamina, he can make a
hunter, as a carpenter can make a table if he gets
the proper w^ood. We suppose the person wanting
to sell to be one of these, and a gentleman looking

GOING ON HIS OWN JUDGMENT. 179

at his horses is one of the sort who could eat his
dinner very well on the table when made ; but if
the table was wanting, so far as his own ability of
making one goes, would be reduced to taking his
soup on his knees. He may be a very clever man,
probably more so than the other, but not a car-
penter (of hunters) more than of tables.

On looking at the supposed horses on sale, our
buyer sees a good-looking brown horse, about his
cut as to size and strength — asks his character.
The owner, as a gentleman, gives a true one.

'' He is a very fair horse indeed, an excellent
hunter in any country but one like mine, a re-
markably fine fencer, and very handy, but not so
fast as 1 could wish here : his price, 150Z."

Our buyer candidly says, that only hunting
occasionally, he does not wish to give quite so
much.

In the next stall he sees a particular splendid
grey, who looks a fortune ; he looks at him, but
modestly says, —

^'I am afraid I need not ask any questions
about him : he is beyond my mark.''

" Yes, you may," repHes the owner, good-
naturedly smiling, " so far as price goes ; I ask
100/. for him. I tell you fairly lie is one of the
few horses I have had that I could not make a
hunter of. He cannot live a distance with hounds
if the pace is good ; and he is so nervous, that he
N 2

180 THE POCKET AND THj:. STUD.

becomes quite confused where the fences are big.
He would be a delightful hunter with harriers ;
but as Elmore is coming to look at my horses, he
will buy him for harness."

A stall or two off, he sees a plain bay horse,
with rather a large long head, a little low in the
crest, with wide, bony, and somewhat ragged
hips, a meanish tail, and, moreover, not seeming
particularly amiable as to temper in the stable.
Our buyer does not much relish the looks, but
wishing to be well carried, and at a lowish figure,
he says, —

" Would that horse carry me ? "
He here observes a certain laconic side-smile on
the countenance of the groom — a kind of smile
as if in anticipation of something to smile at.

"I have no hesitation in saying," replied the
owner, " he can carry you or any other man in
any country and with any hounds."

"What do you expect for him?" "Three
hundred ! "

Of course, this was a floorer.
" Now," said the owner, ''if you would permit
me to point out a horse to you, I think I could
put one into your hands that would suit you in
all respects : it is this chesnut. I took him in
exchange from a friend of mine. He has three
failings, neither of which, I should say, would be
objectionable to you in the country where you

FAIR RETALIATION. 181

hunt. He Is particularly pleasant to ride, very
safe, and handy at fences, goes a fair pace, and
will go on till nightfall. But, like the brown
horse, he is not as fast as I like them here, and
he does not like wide water: independent of
which, he is a size less than I usually have them.
I should say in Surrey he w^ould be perfect ; and
I will take 100/."

" Caveat emptor," " ne crede," and many other
trite quotations, are things very useful to bear in
mind when purchasing, but with very timid or
very suspicious persons are very apt to lead them
into error, by inducing them to turn a deaf ear to
all the seller says of his own property. That
every man may be apt to sound the praises and
soften off the failino-s of his own, is natural
enough ; how far this is done, of course depends
on the conscience and respectability of the man.
To show that we should not always reject the
recommendation of a seller, I will mention an
anecdote of Beardsworth, when he had the large
repository at Birmingham.

A gentleman came to him saying that he was
authorised to mention a friend's name who assured
him that on his doing so Beardsworth would
recommend him a good buggy-horse : the little
man showed him two, either of which he said
was capital in single harness ; the customer's
suspicious disposition took alarm at the strength

N 3

182 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

of Bearclsworth's encommms, and he declined
both. " Have you nothing else you think would
suit me?" says the buyer. " I really don't know,"
says Beardsworth : " there are plenty more ; look
round and please yourself." The gentleman did
so, and found a mare that struck his fancy.
"Will this mare suit me, Mr. Beardsworth?"
" I really can't say," replied he ; " I recom-
mended what I knew would, because I have often
driven both; but pray choose for yourself." " Did
you ever drive this mare, Mr. Beardsworth?"
" Never," said he. ^' Did you ever see her in
harness?" "Often," said the little man. The
gentleman bought her, drove her, and felt cer-
tain Beardsworth had wanted to get off two of
his own, instead of this capital mare, who was,
moreover, twenty pounds less in price than either
of the others. On the Wednesday, that is, the
second time he drove her, he came into Beards-
worth's establishment with a long and ireful
countenance, and abused him for selling him a
mare that had kicked his gig to pieces. " Did I
tell you she would not kick?" said Beardsworth;
" I recommended you two that I kneio would not ;
you kicked at my recommendation. I told you to
please yourself; I hope you have done so. I told
you I had often seen this mare in harness ; so I
have, and always saw her attempt to kick : if you
had asked me if I had seen her go quietly in har-

HESITATION. 183

ness, I should have said no. Perhaps next time
you will follow your friend's advice in taking
mine ; if you do, I will try and suit you."

There is a certain feeling of vanity in man that
is not confined to the breast, which is generally
pointed out as its locality, but runs, like the
nerves, over every part and particle of the body ;
so, touch it wdiere you will, it is capable, like the
string of a harp touched by the scientific finger
of a master, of producing harmony ; but when
the careless and rude finger of truth is applied, it
often gives back a twang that seems to jar to the
very pedals.

The description of the hunter seemed to bode
his suiting our buyer ; but the not being objec-
tionable to him and liis country appeared to carry
witli it somethino' borderino; on a latent hint at
inferiority that he winced at. He felt the truth
of the thing, would have owned it to himself, but
to have it, as it were, forced on him by another,
though done without any intentional offence,
made it no more palatable than Pistol found the
leek, or the persuasions that induced him to swal-
low it. He even thought of dashing at the tln^e
hundred-pounder at once; but, as he was a sensible
man, the thought merely flitted across his brain,
so he compounded with good sense, good manners,
and a little mortification, by asking if he might
take the liberty of sending a brother-sportsman to
N 4

184 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

look at the little horse, and to ride him. Both
permissions being granted, he took his leave ; and
next day the friend came. He and the seller
were at home at once ; they saw what each other
was in a moment.

'' Take him into those meadows," said the
latter, " put him at any fair fences you like ; if
you get him into one, I shall forgive you."

The horse answered all that was said of him.
Both agreed he Avas all that could be wished for
the proposed buyer. His friend made his report,
and recommended him not to miss the horse.
He promised he would not ; hut it did not do.
The " him and his country " still jarred like the
string touched by truth ; and then the buying a
horse on a friend's trial and judgment had a want
of independence about it that chafed him ; and
again the horse was not a wide brook jumper.
True, there were no wide brooks to jump where
he hunted. He was not quite so fast as his
present owner wanted — this seemed like putting
up with something inferior. No ; he would
choose for himself, and see if he could not, by
giving a little more, get nearer perfection. He
tried: went to a dealer, gave 150/., got one that
he was told was perfection itself This he had
no great opportunity of finding out : but the first
day, after one burst, he clearly ascertained he was
a lame one. He would have consulted the interest

TATTEKSALL'S " TO WIT." 185

of the pocket more by taking his friend's recom-
mendation, and have made a better addition to
the stud,

I cannot here pass over a little anecdote of one
of my most esteemed friends, — a man of business,
but one with whom Fate was either blind or in one
of her wayward moods when she gave out the
ticket of his destiny. Instead of ever looking at
a ledger, he ought only to be asked to look at the
rent roll of a princely estate (his own) ; instead of
having to calculate profit and loss, he ought only
to have to calculate what his heart would always
prompt him to do, or how to serve his friends. I
have often seen him at his desk, never on his saddle
■ — that is, with hounds; but I am told, when he
can steal a day from the former, he sails away in
the front rank on the latter.

He was some time since in want of a horse ;
and a stud being advertised at Tattersall's, I met
him there, and found he intended buying one
from it. He allowed he did not know the horses,
so I took the liberty of hinting it was somewhat
hazardous buying under such circumstances ; but
as he said a friend, who had hunted where the
stud came from, had told him what to buy, I said
no more. He did buy one, whose shape and
make was certainly not perfection. However, I
saw him take away the new purchase, and thought
no more of the circumstance.

186 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

"Walking with an acquaintance an hour after-
wards in Hyde Park, I saw some one coming up
Rotten Row, at a o-ood or rather bad huntinoj
gallop. " Well," said I to my companion, " that
gentleman has got a brute under him at all events."
When he came nearer, lo ! it was my friend on the
new bargain. He came up. " How do you like
your mare ? " " Not at all ; she is lame behind, I
am sure, from her manner of going." "Just trot
her fifty yards, and let us see," said I. My com-
panion and I agreed she was sound enough ; but her
hind legs seemed as if nature never intended them
to help her along. I told my friend she was sound ;
but as she was bought, I did not wish to put him
out of humour with her, by telling him I thought
her an awful beast. " But," said he, " she is a
roarer." " Oh ! your humble servant," said I,
^^ go back to Tattersall's : she was sold as a hunter.
If you find that, notwithstanding her noise, she
has been regularly hunted, you are fixed ; if she
has not, return her." He did so, and somehow
got out of her: it will be seen by this, that,
though it is very judicious to take the advice of a
friend, we should consider what friend, and whether
his advice is worth having.

187

CHAP. yi.

DIFFERENT MODES OF KEEPING HORSES. — CHAQUE PAYS,
CHAQUE MODE. — THE KIND OF HORSE BEST SUITED FOR

DIFFERENT CARRIAGES. ON SINGLE-HORSE CARRIAGES

AND PAIR-HORSE DITTO. THE PROS AND CONS OF

KEEPING CARRIAGE-HORSES AND HUNTERS AT LIVERY.
— JOBBING OF HORSES. — SUMMARY OF THE WORK.

When using the term "stud," our ideas are
chiefly led to the coutemplation of the hunter's
stable. I only mean it, as used in these sheets,
to allude to horses in general ; but, be the stud
what it may, it is composed of horses used more
or less as animals for real use or business, or for
pleasurable purposes. Of course, the horses used
for the park and street are for use, but not used
in the light in which I contemplate the term.

Now, there are two opposite ways in which
horses may be kept ; and both will answer well if
in all particulars the system is adhered to. There
is the rough and ready plan, and there is the plan
that brings out horses in fine condition ; but the
person is unreasonable as regards his servant and
his horses, if he thinks he can combine both. If

188 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

a lady merely wants a pair of animals to drag a
machine on wheels about, so as to convey her
free from wet or cold wherever and whenever she
is disposed to go out, and cares nothing for their
appearance, the rough plan will do, provided they
get plenty of corn ; and such horses, with a good
tough coat on them, and waterproof-cloths across
their loins, will stand inclement weather, and be
no more hurt by it than the cart-horse. But then
their pace must accord with their appearance and
treatment; for the cart-horse, hardy as he is,
would very soon get under the doctor's hands if
he was subjected to heats by fast work, and then
to stand while his waggon was loaded and un-
loaded; for though a long coat will keep off a
certain degree of rain from the pores of the skin,
and a dry one will keep out the cold air, a long
coat wetted with sweat is anything but likely to
prevent colds, if horses are afterwards to be kept
loitering about at doors. Such horses, of course,
in point of keep, will cost just as much as those in
good condition, and, after all, confer anything but
credit on their owners. If a lady thinks the
term " my carriage " sufficient, no matter what
that carriage may be, well and good. I can only
say I consider the difference between such equi-
pages as Lord Anglesey's, Lord Sefton's, and many
others, and that of some that we occasionally see,
is much greater than between the latter and none

CUTTING A FIGURE, 189

at all. In fact^ if I had ever owned such a turn-
out as I have seen some ladles sport, and wished
to make a morning call, I should have desired the
cortige — men, horses, and vehicle — to stop a few
doors off, lest I might be suspected of owning
them.

Here is just the difference between the pride
of the generality of foreigners, particularly French-
men, and Englishmen. A Frenchman on a wretch
not worth twenty pounds will make him (if he
or spurs can make him) curvet and prance so
as to attract all eyes, and thinks him, next to
himself, an animal to be admired by all beholders.
An Englishman on such a creature would pray no
one might see him so mounted. Not so Monsieur.
With him a horse is a horse, with this exception ;
if the finest horse England ever produced was to
walk quietly along the Boulevards, his rider would
think they cut no figure at all ; but give him one of
Batty's cast-offs, or any creature that would dance
about, making a fool of both horse and rider, he
would be thought the ne plus ultra of horses.

With their equipages, unless it be with the elite
of fashion, they are still worse. A cabriolet is a
cabriolet, though it be a machine that has been
in use twenty years, since it was only worth four
pounds, and would be spoken of with all becoming
pomposity. An Englishman who has never been
much at the country chateaux of Frenchmen

190 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

can form no idea of the monstrosities the remise
there can produce, — but still it is the carrosse de
Madame,

It is quite true private individuals of moderate
means are not called on or expected to keep such
equipages as the nobility or persons of great
wealth, yet still may want a carriage for their
families ; and one that will pass without obser-
vation of any sort is here quite appropriate : but
as most persons wish to make as decent an ap-
pearance as their means permit, and as my object
is, as far as I can, to further their object as
regards their horses and their appliances, I only
beg the masters of such equipages to believe me
when I assure them that taking care their ladies
are not in inclement weather all the morning
shopping, that they under such circumstances
curtail the length and number of their morning
visits, do not order the carriage at eleven and
keep it waiting till one to take them out, or at
one in the morning and keep it till three to bring
them home, will just make the difference of having
an equipage that is at least creditable, or one that
would occasionally induce a cabman to call out,
'' Who wouldn't keep a carriage ? "

It Is true we see the most splendid equipages
out in the most Inclement weather ; but what are
they doing ? Taking their lords or masters to or
from the House, to dinner or a party, bringing

THE CARRIAGE. 191

their ladies from a villa to the town-house, or
to a party or the theatre : they then go home
and are dried. There are other horses and other
harness, if wanted, to fetch their owners back;
but we do not see such owners starving their
horses and servants, cheapening bonnets or silks
at half-a-dozen different shops. Many hundreds
who do, if they were going to ten different ones
close together, would not, if they lived two hun-
dred yards off, walk there, and, knowing they
should be three hours, order their carriao-e to
call for them at a certain hour, for the world.
What, lose letting the ten shops see they kept
a carriage ! Oh, the delight of " Put those things
into the carriage ! " or " William," beckoning their
servant into the shop, '•' put this in the pocket of
the carriage ! " Pleasant and salutary all this, for
clipped horses.

I have in my eye a family of a certain grade,
and, from the animus of each member of it, pretty
accurately guess what would be done should they
perpetrate a carriage of any sort. If they wanted
to go to dinner at seven, it would be ordered to the
door at five, to be seen there I If wanted to oo
shopping, which it certainly would be two hundred
and fifty days a^year, it would be ordered at two,
to go at half-past three ! Would it not be " to and
again," as people describe our canine friend in a
fair ? Would not the tablets to write on, nnd the

192 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

" tablets of the memory," be taxed to rake up
all and every person they ever spoke to, and to
find out their residence, to make a call in the
carriage ? Would not Thomas be taught to give a
regular " Londonderry " at the door, only some-
what longer and louder? As the boys say, "Would
not he, though ? "

All this, we must say, is a very plebeian and
petty sort of pride and affectation, evincing bad
taste, bad tact, bad education, and at once show-
ing a being totally unused to such appliances : it
is something like what a deceased acquaintance of
mine, one of a firm of our most eminent brewers,
was in the habit of doing. He had purchased a
magnificent white marble chimney-piece for one
of the sitting-rooms at his country-seat : this
said chimney-piece had two large bulls' heads,
elaborately carved. These our man of malt and
wealth was constantly in the habit of seizing by
the horns whenever any stranger happened to be
there; and as the act was accompanied by the
address of '•' Ah ! bully, bully ! " in a voice some-
what of the Stentorian order, it never failed call-
ing the attention of every one unused to it to the
desired point. Then came a full statement of
what it cost ; and the purchaser no doubt thought
he must look of great consequence in the eyes
of his hearers. In some, perhaps, he did ; but
extremely little in those of some others ; for it

THE BROUGHAM. 193

spoke plainly of the parvenu, and of one who
piqued himself more on the pocket than the stud,
or any thing else.

Whatever weal or woe to the community one
of our Ex-chancellors may work, whatever may
be the laws or customs he may adopt or abro-
gate, and whatever may be the share of praise
or censure that may follow, I really consider
the public are under very considerable obli-
gations to him for bringing in that truly com-
modious carriage the Brougham. Of course im-
provements have been made in the original : I
do not mean Lord Brougham, for he cannot he
improved. Now this remark I really consider a
hit, and a stroke in politics beyond the usual
wont of Harry Hieover ; for each party may
apply It as suits their own ideas of the just-
ness of its application. The general utility of
the carriage, however, cannot be disputed ; and
if we miss many of the more imposing equipages
that formerly graced our streets, we also miss,
from this substitution, a host of turn-outs that
reminded us of No. 527 with the plate off.

The only objection that may be alleged against
the Brougham is, that, with some ladies, the
families grow too numerous for it ; but so fcir as
a couple of darlings go, they can be squeezed In,
and, as papa does not as yet feel the pinch of
them, he bears it cheerfully. Two more, however,
o

194 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

require the getting of anotlier carriage to hold
them. This is still bearable, and pa good-hu-
mouredly calls the omnibus a Clarence. A couple
more bring calls for cash that make it necessary to
abandon the Clarence, and somewhat decreases
the good-humour. Pa, however, must have some
means of locomotion, so he now gets a gig. This
lie appropriately enough calls his " sulky ; " but
next year a seventh blessing puts down the sulky,
brings on the sulks, and pa, striking his forehead
in despair, now cries, " God send me a hearse ! "
For whom he invokes it, is best known to himself;
but if it is not wanted for some one else, I strongly
recommend him to use it for himself: I should in
such a case.

Before getting to this extremity, and while
keeping some other sort of carriage, let us look at
the pro and con as to keeping it and the horse or
horses at livery. Here the expediency of doing
so or not does not only arise from the considera-
tion of the horse, but as regards the man. If he
is wanted to wait at breakfast, and confine himself
the whole morning to the house, it is quite clear
he cannot have anything to do with the equipage.
If only wanted occasionally, then he can both
drive and take charge of it. So far as merely the
driving it goes, there can be nothing objectionable
in any man doing that ; but I must say I have
always considered it as extremely bad taste and a

DOMESTIC CONSIDERATIONS. 195

very poor affectation to see a man in a footman's
livery carrying a tray about a drawingroom,
who we know was strapping at a horse some time
the same afternoon. When living in this mediocre
way, superior women-servants are far preferable.
The horse or two horses can be kept, we know,
cheaper in private stables than at livery ; but if
you devote a man exclusively, to one or even two,
he will altogether cost as much as the horses ; so
the question merges into this : Wliich is preferred
— keeping the carriage and horses at home, and
having a coachman ; or sending the equipage to
livery, and keeping a footman only? I should
say, in a family in this position of society, the
latter is by £av the preferable plan.

The difference between the expense of keeping
a single-horse carriage, and one that always re-
quires two, is very disproportionably great, that
is, if both are done even in tolerable taste ; for it
is by no means the mere additional expense of the
extra horse that occasions it, but it arises from
other causes.

In the first place, a regular pair-horse carriage
requires a regular coachman ; this gentleman holds
himself as far above the mere driver of a single
horse, as does the valet over the teaboy, requires
twice or three times the wages, more clothes, and
more allowances of all sorts; independent of which,
as they have generally made some ladi/ happy,
o 2

196 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

they require suitable accommodation for their
families, and it is quite correct and reasonable that
master or mistress should in some way (probably
in all ways) be put to a large expense, because
the loving pair think proper to have a large and
charming offspring. Then a regular coachman
will usually no more dress a horse, wash a carriage,
or clean a set of harness, than he would sweep the
Mews his stable is in ; he would be held as a low
fellow by his brethren of the whip, if he did so.
The other ladies of the clique would not visit his ;
she must be a low creature also, to permit her
husband to do these things ; for the Duchess of
Sutherland, though most undoubtedly at the height
of aristocracy, must not suppose she has all the
aristocracy to herself; her coachman's lady, who
uses silver teaspoons, would no more associate
with one who used Britannia metal, than her lady-
duchess would with her seamstress, and most un-
questionably would give herself ten times the airs
towards an inferior.

Secondly come the horses. It is true, we see
very fine ones driven in single-horse four-wheeled
carriages ; still to look well, they are not required
to be of the high and superior stamp of those where
a pair are used ; and beyond this, supposing a man
gives a hundred for a very superior horse for his
Brougham, if that horse was well matched, the
pair would be worth something like three times

A LITTLE UNDERMINING. 197

that, and should an accident happen to one of them,
and consequently a match be wanted for the other,
fifty pounds or more beyond his fair price would
be asked, when it was understood for what he was
wanted, particularly if the purchaser was known
to be precise as to getting an exact match.

For such horses the coachman will have every
appliance of the most expensive kind, whether
necessary or not. The term will may sound sin-
gular as applied to a menial ; but if from indolence,
affectation, habit, a disregard of expense, or all
these causes combined, people will allow menials
to become, in effect, masters in their vocation or
department, they will find that if the term will be
not used in speech, its effect is carried out in the
end, and such will probably always be the case
more or less in the establishments of the wealthy
or fashionable.

The idea that horses will not be done justice to
at livery, is, in a general way, a very unjust and
fallacious one ; for I have no hesitation in saying,
that, provided you apply to a respectable person in
his line, and he knows your horses are to remain
with him, they have a fiir greater chance of being
well done by, than if left to the care of half the
{soi-disant) coachmen in London. The carriage,
harness, and horses will be properly attended to,
for this simple reason — it is the master's interest
they should be in order to keep your custom, and
o 3

198 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

to get that of others by your equipage being well
turned out ; and he saves nothing by allowing his
men to be idle. If the horses are not done justice
to as regards feeding they will show it ; and he
will lose both them and his character. If your
horses look badly from your using them unfairly,
it is your fault ; and for his own sake he will
shortly tell you that you do so, and will not be
very nice as to whether you take them away or
not, for, in fact, keeping them will injure more
than benefit his yard. Send for a known respect-
able man ; agree by the quarter, or half-year, or
year, for your horses, at a price that will enable
him to feed them properly as regards your demand
on them as to work ; put them under his charge ;
pay the stableman who takes care of them libe-
rally ; and your horses will have every justice ;
for it must be borne in mind that, though the ma-
jority of helpers in dealers' and livery yards are
scamps unfit for private families, they are first-rate
stablemen, and your horses Avill be under the eye
of a man who knows how to treat them — an ad-
vantage that it is by no means certain they would
derive from being overlooked by the generality of
masters, setting aside ladies.

There are two ways of doing most things,
namely the right and the wrong; this, on the
broad scale, is a sensible enough remark, or rather
saying ; but though one way may be either right

THERE IS A PRICE FOR ALL THINGS. 199

of the reverse, there are gradations as to how far
we diverge from the line, be it the right or wrong,
and in accordance with this we shall generally
derive advantage or disadvantage to ourselves and
others from our conduct. This is, in nine cases in
ten, brought fully to our conviction. As regards
servants, be they our own or those of other persons
acting for us, though I quite concur in the opinion
that paying for services with too lavish a hand
only renders those serving idle, arrogant, and per-
haps impertinent, the paying Avith a niggard one
is infinitely w^orse ; particularly so when we have
only the conscience of those serving us to depend
upon as to the manner in which they do this ; and
in few cases, are we more dependent on this, than
where our horses are under the care of the servant
of another, or indeed of our own, if we trust
wholly to him ; but supposing our horses to be at
livery, we will say the master was anxious to do
them justice, but we should not do him justice if
we did not pay his servants reasonably and libe-
rally ; for let him watch as closely as he will, the
horses of the niggard will not get the same atten-
tion as those of the liberal man ; the former may
change his livery stable from Belgrave or Portman
Square to Whitechapel or Blackwall, he will find
it all the same : and it is very proper it should be
so ; men of all sorts have a right to be fairly paid
for their attention and labour, and he wdio from
o 4

200 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

folly and affectation pays too much, and he who
from parsimony pays too little, will both suffer in
some way for it ; the first by being ridiculed, the
latter by having his horses more or less neglected :
the medium will generally produce a proper line
of conduct in those to whom it is applied.

There are many persons who are great advocates
for the abolition of all douceurs to servants. I
am not ; and can only say if a livery-stable-keeper
were to propose as a rule of his yard that no fees
or rewards were to be given to his men, his would
be the last stable I would send my horses to. True
I could, and most certainly should, under the rose,
break through his novel, and to some persons
perhaps tempting, regulation ; but I should be
quite sure it would not be the best sort of stable-
men he would get under such a system, and with
horses, ignorance is as bad as roguery, in many
cases much worse ; a rogue we may in most cases
guard against, but a fool we cannot, as we never
can guess what he may take into his head to do ;
u clever rogue can be bribed into doing a little
extra for us ; so indeed may the fool — if he knows
how ; if, however, he does the extra service wrong
we are in a worse predicament than ever, and if a
situation is such that a man can derive no advan-
tage by strenuously striving to please, we may
fairly reckon on meeting a very sorry workman, for
none but such would fill it.

COUNTRY SPORTS AND LONDON MEN. 201

This much observation has taught me : Take a
hundred horses kept in the private stables of the
generality of persons, and a hundred kept in the
best livery stables — more rough coats, impo-
verished looks, colds, coughs, cracked heels, and
other sickness from bad management, will be
found, by three to one, in the former than in the
latter.

I should say just the same thing by a man
keeping a hunter if he lives in London. Many
persons do this and send their horse down the
night before to meet any of the hounds within
twenty miles of town. This is done by some
from a very mistaken motive of kindness to the
horse; and from the same mistaken notion that
they are consulting their own interest by having
the horse when in town under their own eye, and
under the care of their own servant. We will
look a little at this. In the first place, under such
circumstances, so far as his stable treatment goes,
for three days out of the four, that is, the day he
goes out of town, the hunting day, and the day of
returning — if sent such a distance — he is scarcely
under their eye at all, or at all events only under
that of the servants. Then comes the query, " Is
their eye of any great advantage to him when it
is over him?" and the care of their own servant
is not always a guarantee that the care is of the
very best sort. In fact with the ordinary run of

202 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

London grooms, I will answer for it that it is not.
And supposing that it was, how can a horse,
situated as he must be in London, ever be fit to
go with hounds ? The most proper thing that is
done with him during the week, is the preparing
him by his twenty miles' walk the day preceding
hunting ; and against this we have to set the very
improper act of dragging a stiff and tired horse
home the day after hunting twenty miles along a
turnpike road, in lieu of one hour's gentle walk on
turf, just to stretch his legs and conduce to recover
his appetite. If he is brought home, that his
owner may have him to ride in the p|irk the inter-
mediate days, the idea is unreasonable ; probably,
in fact almost to a certainty, if there was anything
of a run, a horse thus treated through the week
will refuse his corn at night, and quite as probably
the next morning. Five hours on the road, with
an empty stomach, and aching limbs, is not a very
proper preparation for a show-off in the park: and
where is he to get a gallop to prepare him for the
next hunting day, unless he be sent to some of
the places stated to be for the exercise of hunters
close to town, where their feet and legs are
battered to pieces in the spring and autumn, and
smothered with mud if sent there in the winter ?

It is all very well to send a horse to Banstead
downs in the morning, take a canter with the
harriers, and trot him quietly home afterwards.

FOX-HOUNDS AND STAG-HOUNDS. 203

The horse would be the better for the exercise
twice a-week, and his master too ; but to expect
one to be bottled up in London, and really go
with fox-hounds, or the Queen's, is out of the
question. I will venture to say there are more
horses killed, injured, and lamed, and consequently
more falls from those sent down to hunt under
such circumstances, in proportion to the number
out, in one season, than occur with all the de-
termined riders in Leicestershire in half a dozen.
And so it must ever be where horses are expected
to go without their wind, stamina, and muscles
being properly braced up by proper treatment.

When I say with fox-hounds, or the Queen's,
or, I might add, any stag-hounds, I must remark,
I consider that to a horse not fully and properly
prepared for hunting, it makes a great difference
to him whether he goes with the former or the
latter. With fox-hounds a horse in most cases
gets a little trotting or cantering before a fox is
found or goes off; this gives him tiaie and dispo-
sition to empty himself before he is called upon
for the full exertion of his speed and lungs. With
stag-hounds he has no chance; the deer-cart
arrives, all is quiet, the deer is uncarted, and in
a few minutes the hounds are laid on and a sure
burst takes place, for which a horse ought to be
as well prepared as for a steeple chase. Distress
must follow this, and unless the rider has con-

204 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

sideration enough for his horse to nurse him when,
it does, some fatal or bad results must take place,
and either immediately or gradually show them-
selves by debility and loss of condition.

But beyond this with fox-hounds, — though the
man who can only get one day a week fervently
prays that may not be a blank one, — such
an event is of vast relief to the horse, for his
condition may be quite good enough to enable him
to bear fatigue, though such as to render severe
calls on his lungs an almost certain prelude to
fatal results. Not so is the case with stag-
hounds, whose great recommendation to many
men is the certainty of a run. I had seven suc-
cessive seasons of stag-hunting ; it is true I only
hunted one day a week with them, and this be-
cause they only hunted that one day in my part
of their country ; but then my nags were always
up to the mark for them, if even the Hendon
deer were uncarted, as I could always get two days
a week with fox-hounds, and had harriers within
reach, independent of the then King's which
always hunted one day a week in Windsor Park ;
so the want of proper exercise and practice was
no excuse for me or my horses if we went badly.
And if such was the case, which doubtless it
was more frequently than for my credit it ought
to be, what can be expected where neither man
nor horse has as good a chance ? Candour compels

LIVERY STABLES AND LIVERY SERVANTS. ,205

me to allow that when I had the best of it, I de-
served little credit; and when the worst, that I
did my part like a regular muff.

Let us now look at another plan ; and see,
setting aside being well carried, how, in point of
actual money, the thing would work. I am
alluding to keeping a hunter at a hunting-stable
at livery or at home.

We will say a fair horse, with average runs,
will carry a man three times a fortnight — which
a good wear-and-tear horse will do on the
former plan. If the distance is such as to bring
you to the Queen's stag-hounds, or to any fox-
hounds out of the reach of the omnibuses, your
man must be out nine days a fortnight, paying for
your horse, of course, sixpence a feed for oats, and
the usual charge for hay ; compare these expenses
to what you would have to pay at a regular
hunting stable, — the balance in your favour would
not be a fortune. At such a stable you have but
the one expense, your horse is taken wherever
the fixture may be ; there is no blunder in mis-
taking places — so sure as the hounds are there,
so sure is your horse. He has had his proper
exercise, or a sweat, if wanted. If a frost sets in,
without your troubling yourself about it, he gets
a dose of physic ; and if ordinary exercise cannot
be given, artificial means are resorted to, to give it.
You have the advantage of a stud-groom over

206 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

your horse or horses, without keeping one. In
fact, you ride a horse in condition, and equal to
his task, instead of one to whom that task must
be a labour of more than ordinary or necessary
severity ; for I consider that unnecessary which
could be remedied without any material additional
inconvenience or expense, or of perhaps any.

It is extraordinary what very fallacious ideas
many persons entertain as to the different expense
of keeping a horse at home or at livery, and also
of the profits of a livery-stable-keeper. Taking the
price of forage on an average, his profits are much
smaller than people imagine ; in fact a man could
barely live in London if he confined himself to
livery horses.

People are apt to compare the cost of what a
horse would eat in their own stable, and then
calculate that nearly all the difference between
that and the livery charge is profit to the owner
of the stables. It is true a horse can be well fed,
we will say, for twelve shillings a week, and his
owner, bargaining by the year, gets him kept at a
p'uinea. When we come to calcuhxte that in a
good situation the rent of a yard perhaps makes
the weekly cost of each stall at least half a crown,
the weekly wages of the man who has the care
of him three shillings a horse more, we have
now seventeen and sixpence; then come stable

PROFITS OF LIVERY CONSIDERED. 207

utensils, use of clothings occasional bandages, &c.
And though I have the " esprit de corps " about me
quite strong enough to make me at all times uphold
the character of sportsmen and men fond of horses,
they are not absolutely immaculate, and such
things have been heard of as livery bills being
left unpaid. Only twenty pounds loss of this
sort takes a good deal of bringing up out of livery
profits.

It is true the hunting livery-stable-keeper
charges a higher rate of livery and his rent is less ;
but against this we must consider he has to keep
more men for the same number of horses than the
London man has, he has the loss of time of his
people taking horses to cover, and though some
horses are summered at his stables, many are
not ; so, like Shakspeare's apothecary, he has a
'^ beggarly account of empty boxes" several
months in the year. Still I should say he does
far better than the London man, of the small-
ness of whose profits we may draw an inference
from the fact, that there is not, to the best of
my knowledge, such an establishment in London
as any large one appropriated solely to livery
purposes, which unquestionably there would be
if the profits were large. And further, I never
heard of any one man who had accumulated much
money as a bare livery-stable-keeper. As job-

208 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

masters many have, who only took horses to livery
as being better than vacant stalls.

I can conceive few things so unpleasant as
telling persons anything that looks like assuming
to oneself superior judgment to theirs. It is never
grateful to their feelings, and there is something
diabolical in willingly saying what can be con-
sidered as mortifying to that little amour propre
that actuates us alL I have friends whom I value
highly, who are always in some dilemma with
their horses ; in fact, they are a constant source
of loss, and anxiety, and annoyance to them. I
am sure to hear of their grievances, and I as
surely and sincerely condole with them. Some of
them have every feeling of liberality and kindness
to do all that is right and proper, do nothing
perhaps glaringly wrong ; and if they were to ask
what they did wrong, unless I could watch all
that was done, and under all circumstances^ I
probably could not tell them. But vv^here things
for a continuance go wrong, it is not chance or
fate that usually brings it about. With others in
the same predicament, it might be no difficult task
to point out where they erred. But then, in
telling them of one error, the same want of know-
ing how to do right would probably only change
the error, so that one might be as bad as the other.
There are persons, who, if they inquired in what
their bad management consisted, could only be

*^YORK, you're wanted." 209

fairly answered by being told, in everything. You
are cheated in buying, buy a bad sort, manage them
badly, ride them badly, and drive them badly, and
the people you employ can do no better. Now, this
is that kind of sweeping charge that no man could
make up his mind to make. It would be true
enough, though, as regards some people: let us hope
there are but few in such a case. But wherever any
man finds a constant something amiss with his
horses^ if he is one of the best judges in England,
I should say, consult Avith another ; sowiething is
wrong, and, figuratively speaking, the physician is
wanting. You may have tried various remedies ;
but somehow you take a wrong view of the case
— thousands are in this predicament with their
horses.

It matters not what a man undertakes to manage ;
if he does it badly and wishes to do better, there
are two qualities of which he must lay in an
abundant stock before he can do this ; viz., good
temper, and diffidence as to his own knowledge
of the matter in question. Many will very
patiently learn or be taught to do that which they
have never before undertaken ; but to bear to be
told they must, to do right, do that which they
have not done, and leave undone the greatest part
of what they have done, it is not merely a bitter
pill but a regular nauseous bolus, unpleasant to
swallow, and apt to produce irritation when down.
P

210 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

If a man manages things tolerably well, but has
certain errors of opinion or want of knowledge on
some points, a little well-timed flattery as to his
general way of doing things will induce him to
listen to hints as to where he errs. But where,
as is sometimes the case, every thing is done wrong,
it would be difficult to decide as to whose task
was the most unpleasant, that of the adviser, or
of him to be advised. A man may very soon get
into a right way of doing most things if he has
only to ask what he should do and is then will-
ing to do it ; but if he has also to learn how to
do it, the case is hopeless. The only hope such
a man has is, that when he is too old to want
horses, experience may have taught him how to
manage them : — about as encouraging a prospect
as that of the generality of writers who depend
on writing for support — that they may get
bread when they have no teeth to bite it ; but
then the lucky dogs escape all the horrors of in-
digestion.

We will now, however, look at the stud under
another sort of management, and see how that
will work as regards the pocket.

There is another mode of keeping the carriage
and horses, that is, jobbing them ; the advantages
of which, as of most things, depend on the peculiar
circumstances in which persons are placed. In a
'general way it is by no means the most economical

MAKING THE MOST OP ONE's TALENT. 211

one. Its pleasantness depends, in a great measure,
on the turn of mind, or rather pursuit of the person.
Some men job hunters ; agree for price, and the
number they may choose to have placed at their
disposal. So far as my particular turn goes, I
should derive no more pleasure from riding
Tilbury's horses during a season, than I should in
riding a post-horse to Hounslow by way of an
airing. I have been accustomed to own nice
ones, had (I hope a pardonable) pride in them,
and, I am free to confess, in their condition, and
sometimes performance. Now I cannot conceive
anything flattering to this little harmless vanity
in riding such a horse, the property of another,
and under the management of the servant of
another. But the feeling of having made a horse
the clever animal he is, and bringing him into the
condition he is, does go somewhere towards show-
ing you know what you are about. I am quite
willing to allow that making a hunter, brlno-incr
him out in king's plate condition, and riding him
well (supposing the latter to be done), is no great
matter to be vain about ; but if a man's mind and
talents are not framed to the performance of great
achievements, it would be hard to deprive him of
enjoying the little triumph attendant on the per-
formance of minor ones.

We should have been sorry to see John Kemble
sing a comic song between the acts of *^ Hamlet."
p 2

212 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

Now, I certainly could not play Hamlet, but
I fancy I could manage " Jim along Josey.''
Well, it is better to be encored in that than
hissed in Hamlet. So I have always fancied
I could manage condition in hunters. In this
cast of character I have been applauded — I hope
I shall be encored.

Families who have a great deal of night work,
and only intend to keep a pair of horses for their
carriage work, would perhaps do well to job ; for
this reason — as I said before, horses cannot stand
all sorts of usage — not that there is any cruelty
in night- work, but if horses are witched to be
in blooming condition, they cannot stand it ; so
the job-master keeps horses for all purposes —
gives you one pair for the day, and a pair of old,
seasoned, hardy ones for night.

A lady who keeps a pair of horses, if she is to
trust herself and them to the sole guidance of her
coachman, had better job ; for though she will
have a round sum to pay the job-master, she will
always have a pair ready ; whereas her coach-
man, by one means or other, will contrive to get
as much out of her pocket as the job-master, and
she may not always be able to have her carriage,
if coachee has a friend coming to see him, or wants
to go to a ■party.

From what I have said I trust I have borne
out my assertion, that whoever undertakes the

RECOMMENDING TO A JOB. 213

management of their stud, if they manage it badly,
must suffer in the pocket so long as the same
management exists; this refers equally to the
buying, managing and using it, be it for what
purpose it may.

But to return to the jobbing of hunters, which
is sometimes done by masters or managers of fox-
hounds ; its advantages and disadvantages depend
so much on circumstances, that it is impossible to
decide which, in a general way, preponderate. If
we are well acquainted with the habits, judgment,
mode of riding, and management of any given
person, it would be no difficult task to recommend
the best mode for him ; that is, under ordinary cir-
cumstances. If a man is careless about the ma-
nasfement of his horses, is too indolent to attend
to them, or has not good judgment in his manage-
ment, he has but three plans to adopt, by which
he has any chance of having his stud fit to go ; he
must either engage a first-rate stud-groom and
keep his horses at home, send them to a hunting
stable, or job them. To such a person, I should
be tempted to recommend the latter; for he would
then be sure of always having a given number
of horses ready and fit to meet hounds, which
mio-ht not be the case on either of the former
plans ; but when a man engages to keep you a
certain number of horses for your use he will, of
course, use every exertion to place trusty men
p 3

214 THE POCKET AXD THE STUD.

about them, and to see that they do their duty ;
a respectable man as a stud-groom, will probably
do nearly the same. But if a master is a careless,
unfair, or, to say the least, injudicious rider in
the field, the best stud-groom that ever had a horse
under his care cannot keep the stud going, the sick
and the lame will make a fearful array against the
sound and hearty ones. With such a customer as
this, no doubt, whoever lets his hunters on a job,
calculates and charges accordingly ; such a man
must pay for his folly in some way, either by
giving a considerably greater sum for the use of
horses than the same number would cost another
man, — or, if in his own stables, losing by the
lamed and maimed he sells out in order to get
others fit for the field.

If I mistake not. Count Segur went further in
the jobbing system than most private individuals,
and I believe Tilbury supplied him with horses.
I never had the honour of any further acquaint-
ance with the Count than an occasional nod, but
I have seen him " go," and go he certainly did,
and, as a sailor would say, go ahead he did,
and more than once over his horse's head I have
seen him go ; but the Count was not a man to be
dismayed at such a contretemiis ; he got up,
shook his feathers, and, like a true good one,
away he sailed again. We ought to cherish such
in these omnibus and railroad times, to keep up

AN ORTHODOX SPORTSMAN. 2] 5

emulation in the field at home, and to show the
illiberal and uninformed the fallacy of their ideas,
that true pluck and high courage only exist where
roast beef is at a premium. A Frenchman is no
fox-hunter: he does not, nor as yet cannot, enter
into the spirit of it ; but those must have remained
at their mamma's side all their 'lives, who would
attribute any failure in anything on the part of a
Frenchman, or indeed any foreigner, to any lack
of personal courage.

I have said that I would as soon ride a post-
horse an airing as a job-hunter with hounds : such
is my feeling ; but I am quite aware it is not that
of a true sportsman, or true fox-hunter. I doubt
my being either at heart; for the man who makes
the great pleasure of hunting to consist in riding
fine or neat horses, with as neat bridles and sad-
dles, does not show, in the first rank, as a true
sportsman. Now, our truly orthodox writer in the
" Sporting Magazine," Acteon, is every inch a
sportsman, every half-inch a fox-hunter ; his heart
and soul are in his hounds and their hunting ; he
would ride in a balloon, if he could see his hounds
hunt, or would ride a butcher's hack rather than
not see hounds at all, and, in truth, few men can
screw a queer one across a country better, or as
well as he can. All those who know him, only
wish him a stud as good as he could ride, a pack
as good as he could hunt : and if I could com-

216 THE POCKET AND THE STUD.

mand my fate, it would be, that I could hunt
with him ; for if not so true a sportsman as he,
and if fond of what I have been often quizzed
about, shining coats on my horses and neat appur-
tenances, I do still hold my head above those who
merely hunt if it does not interfere with a party
in town. I love fox-hunting; but I love nice
horses, and cannot enjoy the one without the
other. De gustibus non est disputandum : if the
truth of this quotation is allowed me, I have
courage to again say, I do not like riding post,
and such I hold to be riding job-horses.

Mr. Tilbury's (whose name I have mentioned)
horses do well, because they are well done ; the
job-master's carriage-horses do the same from the
same cause ; so will your hunter or other horse,
if sent to proper places to livery. They will, of
course, do equally well at home, if equally well
managed, either by the master or stud-groom.
But a person may candidly say, " I cannot
manage well myself, nor can I keep a stud-
groom." This is precisely the sort of person for
whom I have written. It will be found I have
not done so altogether with a view to instruct
any one how to manage; for to learn this pro-
perly requires years of experience : but the
one short (not flattering I allow, but honest)
advice, do not manage at all, is very easily
learned. It is singular, if among a man's ac-

PARTING ADVICE. 217

quaintances he does not know one to whose judg-
ment he can trust ; if a man really does not know
such a person, then I should say, " Send your
horses to livery at once." If, however, a man
will not do this, really has no one he can consult
with, or does not choose to do so, and cannot
manage for himself, I can only say, in such a case
I can give no more advice than I have ; and it
is one in which "the patient must minister to
Jnmself. "

I am, however, not left without a further piece
of advice to give my friends, and (with permission)
my readers also; for though I have had much ex-
perience and practice in the matters on which I
now write and have written, it in nowise follows
as a matter of course that I have turned that ex-
perience and practice to the best account ; conse-
quently, those not conversant with such matters
may remain still somewhat astray in the manage-
ment of them. For though a man may manage
tolerably or very well for himself, he may not
have tlie talent or tact to write so as to make
others do the same thing. Still I hope some hints
may be gleaned from what I have said, or rather
written, that may be useful. If, however, any
owner of horses cannot manage them himself —
cannot glean from what I have said, or the better
advice of others, sufficient knowledge to do so —
I can only bring forward the wholesome bit of

218 THE POCKET AND THE STUD,

advice to which I allude — namely, if he finds that,
for some reasons or other, he cannot act so as to
prevent the stud making greater demands on the
pocket than the pleasure of it compensates for,
as a pis oiler, he had better at once pocket the
stud.

THE END.

LoNnoN :

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