—is a term applicable only to the act of propagation between a HORSE and MARE: when the mare is stinted, and will receive the horse no more, she is then said to retain, (the masculine semen,) and considered safe in respect to conception, and the future production of a foal.
RHEUMATISM
.—That horses are afflicted with pains similar to those of the human species, is long since established beyond all power of controversy and contradiction. Dr. Darwin fixes its seat in the tendinous coats of the muscles, and attributes the pain to inspissated mucus left upon their surface; acting in the motion of the limbs as some extraneous substance, exciting extreme irritability and symptomatic inflammation. Horses are not only constantly liable to, but frequently attacked with, this disorder, which is more or less violent in different subjects, according to the state they happen to be in at the time of attack; and in some degree the cause by which it was occasioned. Professional judgment, deliberate examination, and nice discrimination, are all truly necessary to distinguish and decide upon this disorder. It is no uncommon thing for hasty and rash practitioners to look at such cases superficially, to embrocate, blister, and even fire, horses for a LAMENESS, when the cause of such defect has originated in the local pain described. Some horses are so much and so severely affected, as to be almost or quite unable to move, unless forced from their position; others, after standing in their stalls for two or three days, will suddenly fall, as if totally exhausted, and lay in extreme pain, with their legs extended to the utmost, take their food as they lay, and never attempt to rise, till compelled so to do by force and powerful assistance; in which state some horses remain for a month or six weeks before they are perfectly relieved, when they become repossessed of all their faculties, and are never known to experience a relapse. Repeated bleedings, strong spirituous stimulative embrocations, great and constant frictions, (after hot aromatic fomentations,) upon the parts affected, covering the extremities with flannel rollers, and giving cordial invigorants internally twice a day, are the only rational and scientific means of obtaining certain and expeditious alleviation and cure.
RIBS
.—The ribs of a horse are too well known to require description; it being only applicable to observe, that the conformation of the carcase in a material degree constitutes one feature of the complexion requisite to the standard of beauty. A horse should have a round barrel (or body) to be handsome; if he is flat in the ribs, he is then said to be flat carcased, is generally tucked up, high in the hip-bones, hollow in the flank, and commonly a bad feeder, particularly after a little hard work, which prevents his being held very high in estimation.
RIDGES
.—The transverse wrinkles (or bars) across the roof of a horse's mouth are so called. In all matters of emergency, accidents, or sudden indisposition, when a farrier cannot be expeditiously obtained, or a fleam procured, an incision across the fourth or fifth ridge with even a common penknife, will always prove a very convenient extemporaneous substitute for a more plentiful evacuation.
RIDING-SCHOOL
—is a convenient receptacle, with every accommodation for riding in the winter season, and where the young of both sexes are taught to ride by proper masters. Of these there are many in the Metropolis of much celebrity; among the most eminent are Captain Carter's, near Grosvernor Square; Mr. Cowling's, Moorfields; Mr. Jones's, Royal Circus; Mr. Astley's Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge; Mr. Hall's, Piccadilly; and Mr. Davis's, in Edgware Road; at most of which horses are completely broke and bitted for purposes of every denomination.