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OLD TIME NOTIONS OF TRAINING Queer Doses Forced into the Unlucky Horses in Preparation for Racing, Not long ago our Newmarket correspondent ejaated from an aid authority various observations as to the training of horses, and among them was advice that the bit should be rubbed with tile before being put ia the horses mouth. This, however, is as nothing to what I find in "The Classical Farrier." by William .Merrick Farrier, 17S!»; for instance, the follow ing statements: "To prepare him the horse for a race give him neither hay nor oats, but bread made of half barley and half beans, baked in large and thick cakes: let them be rather stale than new; three pounds at noon and three pounds at night is sufficient in twenty-four hours. Instead of hay give him wheat-sheaves an thrnshed, with the ears upon them. . . on the fifth day. after he has stood three hours on the bridle, take a pound of fresh butter before it :.e washed or salted, and mixing with it twenty-five or thirty cloves of braised garlic make ratjr heme swallow it in balls as big as large walnuts, with a quart of white wine, keeping him afterward with his head lied up in the bridle pretty high for three hours: then feed him as before on bread and wheat -sheaves, but moderately of the last, because you are not to fatten him. Continue to even is.- li i tn every day. giving him every fifth day his pound of hatter made up with garlic into balls." Many further instructions follow, but this one. at any rate, i- worth i|iioting: "Two nights before the match lie should be put in the muzzle all night, and about two in the morning give him three pints of sack, wherein twenty or twenty-five new-laid eggs are beatea. Then tie him up to the rack for two hours, after which put him to a gentle gallop, then to a full speed as long as his wind will allow it." The unfortunate horse was eventually to be given water, "but it must now lie as hot as he can drink it" possibly the difficulty of digesting so mi ny eggs might render this precaution a wise one; but as to eggs, he was not yet finished with them. "On tin day of the match give him his Farmer quantity of sack and yolks of rgga well beaten together two hours before he is to run, and he mast be tied up to the rack si hours before you -ie him his sack, and on thai day and the preceding ho is to eat but half his allowance of bread at each meal, and but half the wheat -sheaves you were accustomed lo give him. . . The rider must lean a little forward to prevent the wind taking too much hold upon his body .... and he is to spur near the flank with little strokes, localise strong and great stroke ■ rather hinder than augment his speed." "Vigilant" in LaadHM Sportsman.
