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Remarks on the Condition of Hunters, the Choice of Horses, and Their Management, by Nimrod
Remarks on the Condition of Hunters the Choice of Horses and Their Management by Nimrod Author:Nimrod General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1831 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: LETTER II. OBJECTIONS AGAINST TUBNING HUNTERS OWT TO A SUMMER'S RUN AT GRASS. -- PHYSIC. My principal objections against turning hunters out to a summer's run at grass, as far as relates to their legs, consist of three. The first is, the great risk we run of injuring their legs by the work we are obliged to give them, when heavy, to get rid of the load of flesh which they have accumulated at grass. My eyes were opened on this subject by witnessing the progress of a stable of hunters belonging to a friend of mine, with whom I was on intimate terms. He was a heavy man, and generally had a stud of five or six hunters, which he was in the habit of turning out for a summer's run in strong feeding land. The consequence was, they came up overladen with flesh about the last week in July, or the first in August. When in the stable no man's horses were better looked after, for he was a good judge of such matters; but towards the end of September, or the beginning of October, I always found that out of these five or six horses he had two or three lame ones. On questioning him as to the cause of their lameness, I was generally told they had thrown out a bit of a splent, got a blow on their legs, or some trifling reason was assigned. It, however, too often happened that they were either obliged to go through the process of blistering, perhaps the operation of firing, and then not fit to ride till after Christmas. I, however, soon found out that it was the work these horses were doing, before they were fit to work -- the galloping under this load of flesh- that destroyed their legs ; and the example before my eye...« less