Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece / or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding

by George Greenwood

All breeds result from natural conditions. The first axiom of the breeder is—est in equis patrum virtus—“Like produces like.” But the second axiom is, “The goodness of the horse goes in at his mouth.” The moral is, that like produces like only under like natural conditions. Turn out all the winners of the last ten years to breed on Dartmoor or in Shetland; what would be the betting about a colt or a filly so bred for the Derby or Oaks? The qualities of the race-horse—the accumulation of thousands of years—are lost in the first generation. Continue to breed him under these conditions, and the finest horse in the world, or that the world ever saw, becomes a Dartmoor or Shetland pony, worth £5 instead of £5000. Such are the changes worked by natural conditions; though with Mr. Darwin they count for nothing, or for next to nothing.

In the permanent fat pastures of the temperate and insular climes, the horse is built up to eighteen hands high, with a width and weight infinitely more than proportionate to his height, if we compare him to the southern horse. In the arid south, by no contrivance of man or “natural selection” can a horse of weight be produced; though you may breed the terse horse of the south in the north by keeping him on terse food.

Crossing not necessary. Crossing is only good where you wish to breed animals against natural conditions, as heavy horses on terse food, or Leicester sheep on the downs, or small Alderney cows on rich pastures. Then, the more the breed is crossed by animals bred under favourable natural conditions the better. No horse is so bred in-and-in as our thorough-bred horse and the Arab, and, of course, all pure breeds must be bred in-and-in.

The above effects of food and work are evident and well understood. We do not attend enough to warmth. But we do not sufficiently attend to warmth. We see that if the finest-coated Arab or thorough-bred horse is turned out year after year, he will get a winter coat as thick as a Shetland pony. But besides this, nature thickens his skin; the hide of the southern horse sells higher than that of the northern horse, because it is thinner. Change the skin of a horse for that of a rhinoceros, will he race or hunt as well?

Mr. Darwin does not seem to be aware that the horse changes his coat! or that there is any difference between his summer and winter coat! or that the new coat of the same individual comes thick directly he is exposed to cold. Warmth instead of singeing. Fine winter coats should be got by clothing and warmth, not by singeing and cold. Starvation itself is not more terrible than cold. Nature comes to the rescue of the out-door horse, but frightful enormities result from singeing horses in the winter, and leaving them to shiver in the stall inadequately clothed, to say nothing of the frightful figures which result.

No fear of cold from fine coats. Fear not your horse suffering from cold because he is stripped to work. Do not labourers strip to work? If a horse had a coat thick enough to keep him warm when at rest in winter, he could not hunt in this without being sweated to death any more than he could with four or five blankets on him.

Fire and water are equally disastrous to the horse’s skin. Allow neither singeing nor washing above the hoof, and even this only for appearance. For there is no more reason for washing the horse’s foot when he is kept in a stable, than there is when he is kept in a paddock. But there are good reasons for keeping his foot full of dirt in the form of clay in the stable. Stop foot with clay. Without it he fills his foot with the contents of the stall, which the shoe holds there. Now, which is worst for the foot, dirt or dung? Nothing can be more injurious to the frog than this.

But, alas! all is right, even with the master, provided that there is not a speck on the outside insensible horn; and perhaps that is oiled and blacked (!) when the horse is brought out, while inside, the soft frog is left night and day soaked and saturated with the most frightful horrors. Hence the most fetid thrushes, and hence the contracted heel; for the contracted heel is the consequence, not the cause of the rotted frog.

The clay should not be mixed up with any of the horrors which grooms are so fond of. Besides defending the frog from the highly injurious juices of the stall this gives a natural support to the interior of the foot which the artificial shoe deprives it of.

The sore ridge. Every joint of the backbone or spinal bone is surmounted by a spine. These are sharp and topped with gristle, and will not support weight, still less attrition. Hence the necessity of the wooden tree of a saddle, and even of a terret-pad to bridge the ridge. The old plan of fastening the horse’s clothing, taken from the Persians, was by rolling a long strip loosely round and round him; hence our name of roller for the stable surcingle. This avoided injury to the ridge: the objection is the trouble. The bridge or channel of our roller is never effective, and every stabled horse has a sore ridge. This is a great calamity to him as well as to his master.