4. Many ailments are contracted from exposure and hardship or bad feeding; and owing to the animal being removed from under immediate inspection, such ailments gain ground before they are observed. Moreover, at grass the horse is more exposed to contagious and epidemic diseases.
5. Horses suffer great annoyance from flies in summer time, not having long tails like horned cattle to reach every part of their body; and wherever any superficial sore may be present, the flies are sure to find it out.
As to aged animals, it is sheer cruelty (practised by some masters with the best intentions and worst possible results) to turn them out to grass. Such creatures have probably been accustomed in the earlier part of their lives to warm stables, their food put under their noses, good grooming, and proper care. You might just as well turn out a gentleman in his old age among a tribe of friendly savages, unclad and unsheltered, to exist upon whatever roots and fruits he could pick up, as expose a highly-bred and delicately-nurtured old horse to the vicissitudes and hardships of a life at grass.
TRAINING.
RAREY’S SYSTEM.
The principle of this system is that of overpowering the horse that may in some instances have even become dangerous and useless, from having learned the secret that his strength gives him an advantage over his master—man. Unconsciously deprived of his power of resistance, his courage vanishes; the spirit which rose against all accountable efforts to subdue it, that would scorn to yield to overweight, pace, work, or any other evidence of man’s power, and which in the well-dispositioned animal causes him to strain every nerve to meet what is required of him rather than succumb, is by Rarey’s system subdued through a ruse so effected that the power which overwhelms all the creature’s efforts at resistance appears to originate and be identified with the man who can thus, for the first time, take liberties with him, which he has lost the power of resenting; and man thenceforward becomes his master. The method pursued by Mr Rarey in subduing such a vicious and ungovernable horse as Cruiser, is this: Placing himself under a waggon laden with hay, to which the animal is partly coaxed, partly led by guide-ropes, and stealing his fingers through the spokes of the waggon-wheel, he raises and gently straps up one fore leg, and fastens a long strap round the fetlock of the other, the end of which he holds in his hand and checks when necessary. The beast, thus unconsciously tampered with, is quite disposed to resent in his usual style the subsequent impertinent familiarities of his tamer; but being by the foregoing precautions cast prostrate on his first attempt to move, and finding all his efforts to regain his liberty and carry out reprisals abortive, worn-out and hopeless, he at length yields himself helplessly to his victor’s obliging attentions, of sitting on him as he lies, drumming and fiddling in his ears, &c., and is thenceforward man’s obedient and tractable servant.
There is no doubt that Mr Rarey’s plan of thus overcoming the unruly or vicious beast by mild but effectual means, is the right one to gain the point, as far as it goes; but breaking him in to saddle or draught, improving his paces, or having ability in riding or driving any horse judiciously, must be considered another affair, and only to be acquired through more or less competent instruction, and by practice combined with taste.
In training, the use of a dumb jockey[9] will be found most serviceable to get the head into proper position, and to bend the neck. Two hours a-day in this gear, while the horse is either loose in a box or fastened to the pillar-reins if in a stall, will not at all interfere with his regular training, exercise, or work, and will materially aid the former result.
I greatly advocate the use of the dumb jockey without springs, even with formed horses, who, being daily used to it, need no such adjuncts as bearing-reins, but will arch their necks, work nicely on the bit, and exhibit an altered show and style in action that is very admirable in a gentleman’s equipage.