WATERING
.—Upon the proper and confident mode of watering a horse, his health in some degree (but more particularly his condition) principally depends. During a journey in the summer, as well as in a stable in the winter, some attention is necessary to both the quality and quantity of water a horse is permitted to indulge in. There are fixed rules with systematic sportsmen, from which there is never the slighted deviation, but when circumstances may compulsively occasion a temporary variation: the most important of these are, never to let a horse drink cold water when he is hot; or to give him pump or well water, when river or rain water can be obtained. The difference of effect between the two may (particularly in the winter months) be immediately observed by those who chuse to make the experiment: hard spring water is frequently known, from its chilling frigidity, to occasion severe and dangerous fits of the cholic; and when it has not that effect, it never fails to check the circulation; producing such an instantaneous collapsion of the pores, that the coat, though fine a few minutes before, becomes as rough and staring, as if the horse had been exposed to the inclemency of the winter season. Horses kept for the sports of the field, and in a state of condition superior to those employed on more common occasions, are usually watered with a pail in the stable; but this should never be done till hay has been previously placed in the rack; and the act of watering should be instantly followed by the usual ceremony of substantial dressing, wisping, and brushing over, to prevent either of the two inconveniencies before described. The old and ridiculous custom of taking a horse to a pond, that he may have a gallop "to warm the water in his belly," seems to be nearly abolished with the more enlightened part of the world; and although the practice is persevered in upon the turf, it is to be observed, that those horses are restricted in quantity; and that they are walked for some time after drinking, previous to what is termed their watering gallop.