_Breeding._--Animals to breed from should be of good blood, sound and
compactly built, with good pluck and free from nervous excitability and
vicious tendency. A mare used to be put to the horse at three years old,
but latterly two has become the common age. Young sires begin to serve
in moderation at two. May is considered the best month for a mare to
foal, as there is abundance of natural food and the weather is mild
enough for the mare to lie out. Show specimens generally profit by being
born earlier. The period of gestation in the mare is about eleven
months. No nursing mare should go to work, if this can possibly be
avoided. A brood mare requires plenty of exercise at a slow pace and may
work, except between shafts or on a road, till the day of foaling.
To avoid colic an animal has to be gradually prepared by giving small
quantities of green food for a few days before going to grass. Shelter
against severe storms is needed. Succulent food encourages the flow of
milk, and the success of the foal greatly depends on its milk supply.
Mares most readily conceive when served at the "foal heat" eleven days
after foaling. A mature stallion can serve from eighty to one hundred
mares per annum.
Foals are weaned when five or six months old, often in October, and
require to be housed to save the foal-flesh, and liberally but not
overfed; but from the time they are a month old they require to be
"gentled" by handling and kindly treatment, and the elementary training
of leading from time to time by a halter adjusted permanently to the
head. When they are hand-reared on cow's milk foals require firm
treatment and must have no fooling to teach them tricks. Young horses
that are too highly fed are apt to become weak-limbed and top-heavy.
_Breaking._--Systematic breaking begins at about the age of two years,
and the method of subduing a colt by "galvayning" is as good as any. It
is a more humane system than "rareying," which overcame by exhaustion
under circumstances which were not fruitful of permanent results.
Galvayning is accomplished by bending the horse's neck round at an angle
of thirty-five to forty degrees and tieing the halter to the tail, so
that when he attempts to walk forward he holds himself and turns "round
and round, almost upon his own ground." The more strenuous his
resistance the sooner he yields to the inevitable force applied by
himself. A wooden pole, the "third hand," is then gently applied to all
parts of the body until kicking or any form of resistance ceases.
"Bitting" or "mouthing," or the familiarizing of an animal to the bit in
his mouth, and to answer to the rein without bending his neck, is still
a necessity with the galvayning method of breaking. Experience can only
be gained by a horse continuing during a considerable time to practise
what he has been taught.
Three main characteristics of a successful horse-breaker are firmness,
good temper and incessant vigilance. Carelessness in trusting too much
to a young colt that begins its training by being docile is a fruitful
source of untrustworthy habits which need never have developed. Driving
with long reins in the field should precede the fastening of ropes to
the collar, as it accustoms the animal to the pressure on the shoulders
of the draught, later to be experienced in the yoke. If a young horse be
well handled and accustomed to the dummy jockey, mounting it is not
attended with much risk of resistance, although this should invariably
be anticipated. An animal ought to be in good condition when being
broken in, else it is liable to break out in unpleasant ways when it
becomes high-spirited as a result of improved condition. It should be
well but not overfed, and while young not overworked, as an overtired
animal is liable to refuse to pull, and thus contract a bad habit. Most
bad habits and stable tricks are the result of defective management and
avoidable accidents.
_Feeding._--Horses have small stomachs relatively to ruminating animals,
and require small quantities of food frequently. While grazing they feed
almost continually, preferring short pasture. No stable food for quick
work surpasses a superior sample of fine-hulled whole oats like
"Garton's Abundance" (120 lb. per week), and Timothy hay harvested in
dry weather. The unbruised oats develop a spirit and courage in either a
saddle or harness horse that no other food can. A double handful of
clean chaff, or of bran mixed with the oats in the manger, prevents a
greedy horse from swallowing a considerable proportion whole. Unchewed
oats pass out in the faeces uninjured, so that they are capable of
germination, and are of less than no value to a horse. Horses doing slow
or other than "upper ten" work may have oats crushed, not ground, and a
variety of additions made to the oats which are usually the basis of the
feed--for example, a few old crushed beans, a little linseed meal,
ground linseed cake or about a wine-glassful of unboiled linseed oil.
Indian pulses are to be avoided on account of the danger of Lathyrus
poisoning. A seasoning of ground fenugreek or spice is sometimes given
to shy feeders to encourage them to eat. A little sugar or molascuit
added to the food will sometimes serve the same purpose. Newly crushed
barley or cracked maize, even in considerable proportion to the rest of
the food, gives good results with draught, coach, 'bus and light
harness horses generally. Boiled food of any kind is unnatural to a
horse, and is risky to give, being liable to produce colic, especially
if the animal bolts its food when hungry, although it generally produces
a glossy coat. Too much linseed, often used in preparing horses for
market, gives a similar appearance, but is liable to induce fatty
degeneration of the liver; given in moderation it regulates the bowels
and stimulates the more perfect digestion of other foods. In England
red-clover hay, or, better still, crimson-clover or lucerne hay, is
liberally fed to farm horses with about 10 lb. per day of oats, while
they usually run in open yards with shelter sheds. Bean straw is
sometimes given as part of the roughage in Scotland, but not in England.
In England hunters and carriage horses are generally fed on natural hay,
in Scotland on Timothy, largely imported from Canada, or ryegrass hay
that has not been grown with nitrate of soda. Heavily nitrated hay is
reputed to produce excessive urination and irritation of the bladder.
Pease straw, if not sandy, and good bright oat straw are good fodder for
horses; but with barley and wheat straw, in the case of a horse, more
energy is consumed during its passage through the alimentary canal than
the digested straw yields. Three or four Swedish turnips or an
equivalent of carrots is an excellent cooling food for a horse at hard
work. The greater number of horses in the country should have green
forage given them during summer, when the work they do will permit of
it, as it is their natural food, and they thrive better on it than on
any dry food.
When a horse has been overstrained by work the best remedy is a long
rest at pasture, and, if it be lame or weak in the limbs, the winter
season is most conducive to recovery. The horse becomes low in condition
and moves about quietly, and the frost tends to brace up the limbs. In
autumn all horses that have been grazing should be dosed with some
vermifuge to destroy the worms that are invariably present, and thus
prevent colic or an unthrifty or anaemic state. On a long journey a
horse should have occasional short drinks, and near the end a long drink
with a slower rate of progression with the object of cooling off. In the
stable a horse should always be provided with rock salt, and water to
drink at will by means of some such stall fixture as the Mundt hygienic
water-supply fittings. Overhead hay-racks are unnatural and are liable
to drop seeds into a horse's eye.
LITERATURE.--For riding, &c. see RIDING, DRIVING, HORSEMANSHIP, and
HORSE-RACING. For diseases of the horse see VETERINARY SCIENCE. The
literature about the horse and its history and uses is voluminous, and
is collected up to 1887 in Huth's _Works on Horses, &c._, a
bibliographical record of hippology. See also, besides the works
already mentioned, various books by Capt. M. Horace Hayes, _Points of
the Horse_ (1893, 2nd ed., 1897); _Stable Management and Exercise_
(1900); _Illustrated Horse-breaking_ (1889, 2nd ed., 1896); and _The
Horsewoman_ (1893) (with Mrs Hayes); E. L. Anderson, _Modern
Horsemanship_ (1884); W. Day, _The Horse: How to Breed and Rear Him_
(1888); W. Ridgeway, _Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse_
(1905); Major-General Tweedie, _The Arab Horse_ (1894); J. Wortley
Axe, _The Horse; its Treatment in Health and Disease_ (1906); R.
Wallace, _Farm Live Stock of Great Britain_ (1885, 4th ed., 1907);
Sydney Galvayne, _The Twentieth Century Book of the Horse_ (1905); C.
Bruce Low, _Breeding Racehorses by the Figure System_ (1895); J. H.
Wallace, _The Horse of America in his Derivation, &c._ (1897);
Weatherly's _Celebrated Racehorses_ (1887); Ruff's _Guide to the
Turf_; T. A. Cook, _History of the English Turf_ (1903); _The General
Stud-Book_ (issued quinquennially); and the _Stud-Books_ of the
various breed societies. (R. W.)