The horse should stand loose. A horse should have a loose standing if possible; if he must be tied in a stall it should be flat. A horse cannot stand up hill without muscular exertion, and the toe constantly up, and the heel constantly down, induces ruinous distress to the back sinews.
No galloping on hard ground. Do not let your groom gallop your hunter on the hard ground in autumn; and my last word shall be a petition on this subject to master as well as man—to deprecate a piece of inhumanity practised, indeed, as much by ladies as by gentlemen—the riding the horse fast on hard ground. I pray them to consider that horses do not die of old age, but that they are killed because they become crippled, and that he who cripples them is guilty of their death, not he who pulls the trigger. He who cripples the horse kills him. The practice is as unhorsemanlike as it is inhuman. It is true that money will replace the poor slaves as you use them up, and if occasion requires it they must, alas! be used up. But in my opinion, nothing but a case of life and death can justify the deed. If the ground is hard and even, a collected canter may be allowed; but if hard and uneven, a moderate trot at most. One hour’s gallop on such ground would do the soundest horse irremediable mischief. Those who boast of having gone such a distance in such a time, on the ground supposed, show ignorance or inhumanity. Such feats require cruelty only, not courage. Nay, they are performed most commonly by the very horsemen who are too cowardly or too unskilful to dare to trust their horse with his foot on the elastic turf, or to stand with him the chances of the hunting-field. And such is the inconsistency of human nature, that they are performed by persons who would shudder at the sight of the bleeding flank of the race-horse, or who would lay down with disgust, and some expression of maudlin, morbid humanity, the truly interesting narrative of that most intrepid and enduring of all gallopers, Sir Francis Head. But compare the cases. In the case of the race-horse, his skin is wounded to urge him to his utmost exertion for a few seconds, from which in a few minutes he is perfectly recovered, and ready, nay eager, to start again. In the case of the wild horse of the Pampas, he is urged for two, three, or perhaps five hours, to the utmost distress for wind, as well as muscular fatigue. He is enlarged, and in a day or two he is precisely the same as if he had never been ridden. But in the case of the English road-rider, though no spur is used, unfair advantage is taken of the horse’s impetuous freedom of nature, his sinews are strained, his joints permanently stiffened, he is deprived at once and for ever of his elasticity and action, and brought prematurely a cripple to the grave.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
April, 1861.
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