OVER-FATTENED STALLIONS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1077, 16 March 1911, Page 8

OVER-FATTENED STALLIONS.

; ■ THE TBOGIiNY .THEY LEAVE. "Weak foals," writes L. Ogilvy in the "Breeders' Gazette," Chicago, "aro all too common,-foals that cannot suck or that suck for a little while and then fudo . attay and die, not perhaps without a specific cause,.but often from a.condition that invites disease, harbours it and encourages it to work its will, ' The mares of the system under which they are kept aro blamed for-the want of vitality in foals when far oftener it should 1)0 laid to the stallion's account. Sluggishness is a poor attribute in a- stallion intended to produce horses that must perform hard tasks that tax their''.utmost endurance, succeeded by periods. , of idleness when . farm work is slack. Even if the. foals are raised they are lacking in vitality, and ,tho stallion's, faulty condition is tho •cause, of , much loss before tho colts aro fairly started. , ■ - "One of. the main advantages of Hraught Wood is an inherited disposition to, work at a moderate pace nml to submit to restraint from the collar and the bit without fractious fuming and '■fighting at the driver.' 'When careful cultivation has to "bo carried, on the team must take a paco that will. allow thd farmer to do careful work and not demand all of his attention for the control of his team. -Horses that fret and fight ah tho ..morning are tired out by heavy ploughing before night and are unsatisfactory, work stock. Sluggishness and docility must not be confounded any moro than vice and spirit. Spirit in the horse means a highly vitalised condition in which he, is anxious to be doing because ■ his high health calls for action. His docility causes him to exert himself along the lines the driver indicates. A sluggish condition on tho contrary produces a;sulky horse, for fatigue soon overcomes him and he is imalolo to work cheerfully. His fagged muscles only _reepond -for' a moment to his inert brain; he lags mare and more-and requires the constant stimulus of the whip. "Slugtrish■ricss is often the result of too much "fat; spirit is tho result of healthy condition of-a horse. . They should -rioyer be coafimnded.. Sluggishness is, caused, by : state 'of fatty degeneration. Condition / represents.' the highest state of muscular and mental activity the horse can be brought to for. the work required of hini. "But 'Cassius hath a lean and hungry look; I like him not' strike's a chord of responsivo humbug .in our weak nature. "We get the fat sleek goods wo cry for or we produce them ourselves; for I plead guilty to a loyo of rounding them out, filling the hollows and. thus levelling the heights. I love to take a dub and mako him look like a good horse., and to levsl up. a' bunch 'of stuff. by bringing tho ■weaker on and holding the thrifty ones tack just a little. Then when they, aro . ready I can fool myself by saying, "That ■was not such a bad horse after all; he just needed a little building and toning up.' . Tho fact is that many a feeder has the soul of the artist as much as he who ■works with jiaihtor clay along idealistic lines." The realistic,school does not appeal to him, and he should never be cn- : trusted with a, horse, certainly not with a "horse that is to be used for breeding. ■''I have seen good horsemen degenerate ! into mere fatteners until both their eye and touch 'had become so vitiated that "it had ceased to be 'a', case of.the niind perceiving ;what the eye saw ljut of. th-s eye . seeing what the mind had habituated lteelf to think of as a perfect horse. This was in reality. a. beast normally of 1600 pounds, but swelled with oily fat through every tissue that should be'fibrous until it weighed a ton or over. The real ton horse is scarce, and you can not fool Nature with a horso of 1000 pounds that has been made to weigh" 2000. On tho contrary you fool yourself and you reap the reward of self-deception in. lymphatic foals which reproduce.the condition that __ has become normal through senerations of ill-treatment of their sires."