Nimrod's remarks on the condition of hunters, the choice of horses, and their management : reprinted from the "Sporting magazine" / by C. Tongue.
- Cecil, 1800-1884.
- Date:
- [1880?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Nimrod's remarks on the condition of hunters, the choice of horses, and their management : reprinted from the "Sporting magazine" / by C. Tongue. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![of this; and those who entrust their horses to them have too often occasion to repent of not having sent them sooner to their stables, to prevent their being hurried with their work and condition. If, then, time is so necessary in the hands of a training-groom, with a horse which is sure to have been in a certain degree of work and preparation previous to his arriving under his care, what chance can a hunter have to be in condition in November when he is taken out of a rich pasture in August 1 Ask a training-groom to look at a hunter that is fit to gOf and observe what he says. He will first feel his crest, and then laying his hand flat on his ribs, he will tell you, if he likes him, this horse is well: his flesh feels as if it had been taken off, and well put on again.” Now, as before a horse can be in condition his bad flesh must come off him, as certain as the horn at the top of his foot must find its way to the bottom of it, think what time it must take to accom- plish this change, if it is to be accomplished, without injury?* In proof of what I assert, look at all persons’ hunters in the month of March. They are then in condition, just as there is no further occasion for it, and with most of them it is all going to be destroyed by four months’ run at grass. Observe to a friend at the beginning of the season, whose horse has been at grass in the summer, that he is not looking well, but is sweating, and all in a lather as he trots along, and he will * This remark may apply to a horse that has lost his condition by having had a quantity of green succulent herbage; but if he has been kept upon dry hay and com, the muscle does not require to be taken off; exercise, and work will develop that substance to its utmost extent, if the material be of the proper kind. The reproduction of the horn of the hoof will apply to the reproduction of muscle. It may be observed by marking the hoof close to the coronary band that it takes about six months or rather more to grow to the extremity; a similar time is also required for the nails of the human fingers to grow out; and in all probability a similar term is necessary for the rcprodactioii of muscular substance. I shall hereafter ])rocecd to explain the elements from which muscle is formed, and it will then become apparent, that unless those muscles are composed of the most perfect materials the acme of condition cannot exist.—Ed.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28130479_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
