AN ANCIENT CRAFT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 28, 3 January 1931, Page 8

AN ANCIENT CRAFT.

TRAINING OF HORSES.

The training of horses for racing is a craft at least 3300 years old, according to M. Bedrich Hronzy, Professor in the University of Prague, who has drawn his information from the study of Hittite inscriptions. Addressing the Academy of lnsiwiptions and Belles-Lettres in Pariß, Professor Hronzy said that an inscription ■of 1360 B.C. left by the chief riding master of the Indo-Aryan State ot Mitanni, of Mesopotamia, was a Rentable manual on the subject ot lioisetraining and management. Horse-racing is specihca ly mentioned in the document, which describes how the animals were first given a special reducing diet, accompanied by baths and gallops to induce sweating, while periodical purges of salt water and malt-water were also part or tfie treatment. .. Trotting and short sharp galloys over two or three furlongs were part of the regular training, which usually lasted about six months. Professor Hronzy declared that, in view of the methodical nature of the system described, there could be no doubt that it had been evolved as the result of long experience, ajind might have originated as early as 3000 B.C.