The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-29 00:00:00

THE ROMAN B 4 Tl] AS APPLICABLE
TO TRAINING RACEHORSES.

(BY THE HON. ADMIRAL RAMIS.)

The most wonderful discoveries have lately taken
place in every branch of science, and the most ex-
traordinary inventions and improvements in every
item connected with the luxuries and the comforts
of mankind ; general education has civilised and
enlightened the great working classes. The islands
are looking up; even our domestic animals have
improved in quality, and 20 per cent. in point of
size, from poultry and pigs to sheep, cattle, and
horses, owing tc care and attention in breeding
during the last century ; and nothing has retro-
graded but seamanship, emasculated by the intro-
duction of steam ; sailors are numerous, but seamen
are scarce. Lloyd's list of wrecks proves the melan-
choly fact, but there is one profession on a humble
scale which has made no progress, no improvement,
for 150 years ; I mean the training of racehorses ;
and at the same time I must add my testimony that
a more respectable or a better class of tradesmen do
not exist than the majority of English trainers, who
from being in constant communication with
gentlemen, imbibe liberal ideas, and prove them-
selves worthy of the highest trust and responsibility.
Thanks to Mr. Urquhart (to whom this country
is more indebted than to any living man) for the
introduction of Turkish alias Roman baths, a new
era has arisen, the present barbarous system of
preparing horses to race by drastic purgatives, hot
clothing, hot stables, and four and five miles sweats
will be ameliorated, and we may look forward with
confidence to a revolution by the aid of hot-air
baths, which will enable a trainer to bring his
horses to the post in first-rate condition without
subjecting them to a destructive apprenticeship.
There was always a difficult problem to be solved,
how is a trainer to prepare a horse to race ? alias to
get his inside clean and his muscles in full vigour
without the assistance of strong purgatives, and
gallopping long distances under a weight of heavy
woollen clothing. Ido not deny the necessity of
giving horses the strongest exercise, wisely adapted
to their age and condition. It is proved that you
can lighten a horse's frame as well by the operation
of a hot-air bath as by a four-mile sweat ; and the
question arises, which is the best practice to get
them into condition ? My belief is that a smart
two-mile or a three-mile; gallop with the horse
stripped, carrying a light weight, and a hot-air
bath afterwards, is more beneficial to a horse's
lungs, and, no doubt, to his legs and sinews,
than a four-mile gallop under heavy clothes.
Try it on a jockey ; let him take his usual walk
of nine miles under sweaters ; and the next time
walk half the distance, and then take a hot-air
bath ; I fancy he will find himself a lighter, a
stronger, and a wiser man after the second process.
Owing to the exhaustion of a four or five-mile sweat,
a horse is only fit to walk the following day,
and many horses are annually disabled by this
severity ; but after a hot-air bath a horse is fit and
ready for any task. I therefore pronounce the
hot-air bath a most powerful and valuable auxi-
liary ; with this assistance you may bring an infirm
horse to the post which would break down in two
orthodox four-mile sweats. With respect to the
sound horses, why should not we try to keep them
sound ? Is not prevention better than cure ?
The Roman bath invigorates a horse's frame,
gives increased action to his liver, improves his
appetite, cleanses the pores of suppressed perspi-
ration, and fortifies the skin from extreme heat
and cold ; the joints become more supple, the
sinews more elastic, and the heart, lungs, and
kidneys, being freed from fat, horses are able to
take the strongest exercise, without suffering from
internal fever. Rheumatism, sore shins, and cu-
taneous eruptions are speedily subdued by hot air.
Under this system no horse ought to be exercised
in heavy clothes. In my opinion, it is always
objectionable to give a horse a sharp or very long
gallop when he is clothed, and looking to hot air
as an agent, we may keep our horses sound for
thrice the estimated period of their present efficacy ;
the veterinary surgeon and the saddler will send in
diminished bills ; this will balance the expenses
of the bath, and will save large sums of money to
the proprietors of race-horses.
Of all animals in the world there are none better
endow ed by nature to endure ihe vicissitudes of
climate than a horse. From the burning deserts of
Arabia to the coldest regions of Europe, Asia, and
America, they enjoy the most perfect health and
vigour. Why are we, then, to treat thew in this tem-
perate clime like exotic plants ? If, from the day a foal
is dropped, he is never shut up with his dam in a close
hovel, except during a severe frost ; if the same
practice be adopted after he is weaned till he is taken
into the stable to receive his education, there is very
little risk of his catching cold, cough, or any disease,
all those indispositions arising from young stock
being confined in a close, unwholesome box, and
then being suddenly exposed to cold winds.
When the yearling colt is removed to a well-built
warm stable, you would suppose that, if he en-
joyed perfect health during his days of liberty, in
the open air, rolling on the wet grass, if this mode
of life agreed with him, and added daily to his
growth and strength, that as far as fresh air was
concerned, you would allow him all the advantages
which nature can bestow. From a life of freedom,
housed in an open box, inhaling pure, fresh air, he is
confined with his head tied up to a manger
stable, the windows jealously opened by day, as if
the air was injurious to his health, and care-
fully shut on an average of thirteen hours dur-
ing the greatest part of the year. As a foal he
roughed it in the paddock during the cold winds of
February ; 18 months afterwards he is clothed and
shut up in a warm, close room. Before the colt is
reconciled to his first lessons of servitude, a woollen
rug is strapped round him, to add to the naturally-
inflamed state of his blood : and to crown his mis-
fortunes, from having always had free access to
water, the trainer restricts him to two draughts per
diem ; it signifies nothing whether the weather is
hot or cold, the stable regulations, like the laws of
the Persians, are inviolable. The trainer drinks
ten times a day if his throat is dry, but he never cal-
culates that his horses may be more thirsty than usual
if the thermometer in his stable rises to 90 deg. It
has been proved over and over again that if horses
in a stable have free access to water they will
not drink as great a quantity as when water is
offered to them twice a day (excepting in sultry
weather) ; 'oecause the horses, having more sense
than their master, drink a whole pailful to lay in a
stock to meet the exigencies of feverish thirst, and
the interior demands which nature may require in
the long interval of destitution. This saves trouble,
but it is in direct antagonism to the principle of
training men to run or to fight, who are never
allowed to take a large draught.
Thus, the raw material, in the shape of a healthy,
well-grown colt, 18 or 19 months old, is introduced
to the care and tender mercies of the groom. After
the usual process of leading him about, lunging him,
backing him, his proud spirit bends to the yoke;
from gentle exercise he is abruptly called upon to
mend -his paces, and within 14 weeks he is tried
with older horses, from 600 yards to half a mile. A
trainer may justly complain and object to these
early preparations. He generally quietly ac-
quiesces, owing to a natural curiosity to find out a
trump, or to be enabled to select the wheat from the
chaff. As far as the early trials are concerned, the
experiment can now be made at half the risk of
destroying the colt, or, in other words, laying the
seed of future unsoundness, by using the hot-air
bath for absorbing his internal fat and superfluous
flesh, without having recourse to strong medicine
or long preparatory gallops.
At two years old the trainer considers it neces-
sary to clothe the unfortunate colt more warmly, on
the principle that he becomes more tender as he ad-
vances in age (a novel doctrine) ; and he is not satin,
fled until he makes the horse uncomfortable by a
flannel or a woollen hood when he goes out to exer-
cise. A showman thinks it right to dress up his
dancing dogs or his monkey at a fair, that is quite
admissible; but a hood makes a horse susceptible
of cold ;it is laying a trap for a sore throat. A
hood is excusable in a railroad van, for all other
purposes it is only good for trade. Ask a trainer
why he uses it ; you will receive an unmeaning
answer.

If their predecessors quarrelled with fresh air,
and stopped up the keyholes for the pure love of
ammonia, which propagated the disease of roaring,
and made a great many horses blind, there was one
redeeming point—they took out their horses twice
a day to exercise, for eight months in the year,
which gave two opportunities for reventilating a
putrid stable. This practice was in vogue for many
years after I went to Newmarket, and highly ap-
proved ; it is now changed, because it disturbs the
domestic felicity of the trainer.

You would imagine that during the height of
summer the horses would be out at daybreak, when
the dew makes the grass pleasant to their feet, and
that the work would be over and the stables
made up and 'horses fed by 7 o'clock. Not at all.
Instead of exercising their horses in the cool of the
morning, and taking them out a second time at 6 30
p.m. to walk them an hour, when the stables might
be thoroughly cooled, the trainers consider it a
more judicious plan to commence work at 7 in the
morning, and to keep the horses out till 10 o'clock,
frequently the hottest time in the day, before the
breeze springs up. By this policy they evade the
trouble of saddling their horses a second time.
When oxygen is a scarce article in the stable,
and ammonia gets the ascendancy, horses suffer
from lassitude, loss of appetite, and a dull coat sig-
nificant of disease. This is expected, as a matter
of course, and parried with calomel and aloes.
When a horse's coat breaks in October, and race-
horses are deeply engaged, a cough is heard, and

coughing runs like wildfire through the stable.
What is this owing to ? The stable temperature
charged with ammonia, the warm clothes, flannel
bandages, hoods, and deleterious physic have won
the battle ; every horse's skin impregnated with
suppressed perspiration was susceptible of dis-
ease, and they have caught what the trainers
have so studiously engendered. I have known
more horses coughing in a stable at Newmarket
than in all the cabs from Hyde-park-corner to
Somerset-house, simply because the cab-horses
stand for 14 hours in the open air, and race-
horses are shut up for 21 hours in a hot stable. The
laws of nature cannot be defied with impunity.
The trainer now has a lucid interval. He turns
the sick horses into open boxes from a temperature
of 65 to 40 ; the cold air invigorates them, the
fever is checked, the cough ceases, 'and the horse
gets well in a week. Woe to the invalids if they
are still confined to the warm stable. They erY
be on the sick list for months. But the racing
season is over and the money is lost. Again the
trainers fall back to the ancient system, and all
experience is lost upon them.
It is not to be wondered at that these horses
suffer from catarrhs, and that their legs fail. If
you talk to a trainer he will say, " I must keep 11.11,
windows shut during the night or the horses will
be ill. They must be warmly clad, or they will
catch cold ; they must be well physicked ; or they
will fly to pieces when I put them in hard work,
and they must have hard work at any risk, other-
wise they won't stay a distance. If their legs shoal
symptoms of weakness I must support them
with plaisters, elastic cloths, and flannel ban-
dages." The answer is simple. If miss
Nightingale, of undying fame, and our cleverest
doctors insist upon the windows of a hos-
pital containing patients with every dis-
ease being kept open night and day, why are
trainers to be more learned than they? If the fresh
air at night is not salubrious to a healthy horse
why do you strip a horse labouring under violent
inflammation and turn him out in the cold air as
the only means of saving his life ? Every year tells
the same sad tale of coughs and illness ; they are
considered as dispensations of Providence—no fault
of the trainers. It is their kismet, like the fatallists
of the East, who have great contempt for drains to
carry off the filth of their cities, and thereby patro-
nise the plague.
Warm clothing is useful after a long, severe race
(a dead heat), and the horse is required to run a
second time ; then a trainer thinks it advisable to
discontinue its use. He will, walk his horse stripped
in a cold wind ; and there he stands with his coat
dry and wiry, the heat driven back to his lungs
and heart. An American trainer covers his horse
up with clothes, and moves him about till he breaks
out in a profuse sweat. This brings the enemy
to the surface ; the heart and lungs are relieved,
and if the horse dries up well after he is rubbed
down he is fit to run for his life when the Eng;
lish trainer's horse :is suffering from interne'
fever. An Affghan trooper comprehends this
theory, and acts upon it after a long, fatiguing
march ; to a common English groom it is a para-
dox. He will clothe his horse when he ought to
be stripped, and he will strip him when he ought
to he clothed.

If horses be free from organic diseases, water, hot,
tepid or cold, variously applied, and hot.air bathe,
will cure every complaint incidental to the equip°
race; cold wet linen bandages, covered with oilskin
and woollen cloths, will cure sore throats more
readily than mustard poultices or blisters, and leave
no mark. Fever, influenza, and colic may be sub'
dued by cold wet linen sheets round the body, ant:
the evaporation carefully guarded by blankets till
the patient perspires profusely an d the disease conies
to the surface ; then drench him well with cold
water when you strip him; let him drink cola
water, rub him well dry, and keep him in a molt
well ventilated stable. This water system is chest'
and simple, and acts promptly on the disease with'
out impairing the horse's natural vigour, and there
are no bills to pay. If the horse's constitution is
like iron he may recover by the aid of medicine in
the last stage of debility.
My training theory is that no racehorse should
be clothed beyond a linen or cotton sheet, either in
the stable or at exercise, excepting during a cola
winter, when a simple rug may be allowed both
indoors and when his work is confined to a straw
bed during a frost, It is an outrage on comni°
sense to say that an old horse is more tender than
a sucking foal. The hot-air bath, by cleansing
and opening the pores of the skin, restores its tone
and reinstates the animal in his original puritY:
despise the changes of the weather, the trainer
having exerted all his ingenuity to make him tender,
helpless, and susceptible. As the hot air stimulates
the action of the liver physic will seldom be required,
and then in very small doses. When a yearling
conies into the stable fat and fleshy, instead of giving
him extra slow work and keeping him out four hours,
it saves 4 great deal of trouble to physic him well.
Extra physic is less troublesome than extra work,
and it is supposed to be all the same thing in the end'
From the 15th of March to the end of the racing
season the horses should be exercised twice a elsi'
and kept out altogether four hours, instead of the
present system, from two hours and a half to three
hours at one interval. They should always Nice
access to water,or according to the American systerar
it should he offered to them in small quantities Si'
seven times in the course of the day. Most horses
you cannot feel too highly when they are in strong
work, and my belief is that no three horses require
exactly the same food and the same exercise.
A stable should be built on brick arches, u tiless
the foundation is chalk or limestone. Rooms ahon,'
17 feet in height, with large windows, ventilateu
near the ceiling by hollow or perforated bricks
no mangers to the stalls or boxes ; large whin
wooden basins hooked on to staples in the weal')
the corn, the said basins to be taken away all;;
washed when the horses have fed, and in every ste"
a fixture for a water pail. There are three appen'
dages necessary to a perfect establishment—a d°!:
mitory for the lads, who should not be allowed "."
sleep in the stable, because when the night :tit is
cool they will shut the windows ; a Roman bath'
thirdly, a weighing machine, to register clver.9..
horses's weight after each operation of the hot 01:
and after every public race or trial ; a wooden re':
ing over the floors of the stalls, fitted with ire'
hinges to trice up to the sides in order to be w ashea
A
and purified, would be a great improvement, and
there would be no necessity for straw litter.
All the cavalry depots in Great Britain, Ireland'
and India ought to be fitted up with Roman bathe
capable of containing six horses. In India theArn'
are two indigenous complaints which destrol '
per cent. of our cavalry horses. The first is a cute"
neous disorder called burnsattee, from the Hin dos'
tanee word burusaria, relating to this disease, rev
liar to the rainy season ; it generally attacks lors, ef
picketed out in wet ground. No doubt the di.Setl'o
is propagated by an insect, and is contagious.
fearful complaint is of a tubercular nature ;
skin swells, then ulcerates until regular for't
are formed; no part of the body is exempt, 10"
it generally commences in the legs, and is COn;
sidered incurable. The second, a cold night air wile',
the wind-stroke, which paralyses a horses loins,'
and I have heard of every horse in a stable beinPo
disabled in one night. They rarely recover. It I
very probable that the hot-air bath would ouraboth
these terrible diseases, and at a very small exPew
diture millions of rupees may be saved.
To a hunting establishment a bath is a most N'a be
able acquisition. During a long frost horses ma/
kept in the most perfect condition. After a 1110..
day's work it is a most powerful restorative to
and horse, and nothing would surprise me less than
to hear that the kennel lameness in hounds (which
I presume is rheumatism) can be cured by the ealne
process.
Finally, old-fashioned trainers will condemn the
bath without condescending to investigateits results'
for nothing is so intolerant or presumptuous as t't
prejudice of an ignorant man. It reminds me tha
when steam was in its infancy a celebrated stagycoachman hoped to be banged, or somethingv°r',il
if they could ever travel so fast upon an iron ref
for 20 miles as he could drive his old chesnuts. be
course this hot air, so potent in its effects, maier
abused like any other valuable gift. I leave to sled
and experienced men to define where its use mill
and abuse begins. Grooms have much to leana, 0.;10
more to forget. And as the farmers of 186lridicro
the system of husbandry in 1820, so will the trairs;r
of 1870 amuse themselves with the errors of tux*
predecessors in 1860.—Baily's Magazin&