The extraordinary attachment of a horse to his stable, especially if it contains many comrades, may be exemplified by the following anecdote:—
Some years ago a brown thorough-bred mare became gradually afflicted by a spavin on each hind leg, which, on due consultation, were declared to be incurable except by firing.
To undergo this painful prescription she was led from a stable where she had been residing by herself to the cavalry barracks at Hounslow, about a mile off, where she was placed in a stable full of horses for a day or two to undergo a preparatory dose of physic.
By men and ropes she was then cast, fired, and in the course of two or three days, as soon as she could bear moving, she was slowly led back to her master, who, with kind intentions, turned her into a small field of nice, cool, luxuriant grass, about one hundred yards beyond his house.
After eating a few mouthfuls the poor animal raised her head, snorted, looked first on one side, then on the other, snorted again, stretched out her tail, trotted up to a stiff post and rail fence, which she cleared, and then passing unnoticed the loose box in which for many months she had lived, forgetting and forgiving all the sufferings that had been inflicted upon her, with raw, bleeding legs, she galloped along the hard macadamised road to the cavalry stable, to re-enjoy the society of the dozen horses which only for a few days she had had the happiness of associating with.
In constructing a stable the main object should be to secure to the lungs of the horse pure air, and to prevent the hay in the loft above him from being impaired by foul air.[F]
By a simple shaft or chimney, and by other well-known modes of ventilation, both these advantages can be obtained; and yet they are, comparatively speaking, of no avail, if beneath the straw bed on which the horse lies there exists a substratum generating and emitting gases of a highly deleterious composition.
A stable may be well ventilated and well drained, the forage may be of the best description, and yet all may be impaired by an atmosphere unfit for respiration; for if foul litter beneath be only covered, as is often, and in many stables is usually the case, by a layer of white straw, (like a dirty shirt under a suit of fine new clothing), distemper and disease must be the result.
Although therefore it should be the secondary duty of a good groom to clean his horse, his primary duty is to clean his stable; for as, in a fast and long run across a deep country, it is undeniable that the healthiest lungs must triumph, it follows that a clean horse out of a dirty stable cannot live with a dirty one of exactly the same character and cast out of a clean stable.
But as it is always easier to preach wisdom than to practise it, so is it infinitely easier to prescribe clean litter than to maintain it. Indeed, it is almost impossible to keep straw under a horse perfectly pure; and accordingly, throughout the United States of America, and even in New York, horses are often made to lie on bare boards, on which they appear to sleep just as soundly as in a state of nature they would sleep on ground baked hard by the sun.