Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1859-03-31
Extract from Mason's Farrier.1


IN THE CONDITION OF A STALLION
~ The word condition is used by horsemen in a
different sense from that in which it is understood
as applied to cattle by the mass of farmers. BY
condition the farmer means high state of fairness;
the horseman, Oh the contrary, makes use of the
word to indicate the greatest health and strength
produced by reducing all superfuous fat, bringing
the mere flesh into clean, hard and powerful mus
organs, so that they may promptly discharge their.
respective functions, and suffer no damage from
uncommon stress-the whole in order to the ami
mails performing labors and sustaining a continu-
ance OF action to which he would not be adequate
without such especial prepar alton.
By the Condition of a Stallion is meant the state
OF the system in which the male horse should be
excellence in the progeny.
loo many persons content to breed their
mares to a horse whose figure suits them, without
regard to his condition. The mention of one pro-
minent instance alone will be sufficient to show
that good condition is essential to the production of
valuable progeny. A remarkable case occurred
.ter
fact of the accounts obtaining currency without
contradiction is fair evidence of its correctness.
The Prince of Wales, who afterwards became
George The Fourth, owned, and was in the habit OF
riding hunter, an entire horse OF unequalied
excellence In consequence of this horses superior
qualities, His Royal IIighness caused few of his,
own mares be bred to him in the spring. after he
had been kept in the highest condition as a hunter
throughout the winter, and the produce, ON grow
When His Royal Highncss, as Prince Regent, be-
came seriously gel in the Of Government,
and therefore relinquisIicd the pleasures of the
chase being DESTROYS to pcrpetuate the fine quail
ties of this stock, he ordered the horse to be kept at
Windsor for public covering, provided the mares
should be of the first quality; and in order to insure
sufficient number of these, directed the head
groom to keep him exclusively for such, and to
make no charge, with the exception Of the custom
ary grooms fee of halfa guinea each. The groom,
anxious to pocket many half guineas as possible,
published His Royal Highness's iberality, and
vaunted the qualities of the horse, in order per-
suade all he could to avail themselves of the bene-
fit. The result was, the hotse being kept WI tout
his accustomed exercise and in state of REPETITION,
that the stock, although tolerably promising in
their early age, shot up into lank, weakly, awk.
ward, leggy, good nothing creatures, to the en-
tire ruin Of the horses character as sire-untll
some gentleman, of the cause, took pains to
explain it, proving the correctness of their state
ments by reference to the first of the horses get,
produced under proper system of breeding, and
which were then in their prime, and among the
best horses in England.
Almost every Observing farmer in this country
has remarked that whenever within his knowledge,
an ordinary work-horse has, by chance, covered a
toeraby good mare, the foal thus produced has, at
maturity, almost invariably become a better animal
than it was expected to be, and in many cases
proved quite superior to the get OF the
and highly pampered stations of the neighborhood
What was the cause of this? Condition. The
work horse, by constant and severe exercise, was
brought into health and strength, and his stock
partook of the state of his system at the time of
pulation Why is it that many experienced farm
ers after having tried the best stallion within their
knowledge, frequently resort to the keeping of one
of their own colts farm horses entire, for the ser
vice of their mares, and actually obtain as large
and as good and saleable stock from such one, as
that from the public stations of far superior size
FORM blood, and all other qualities, except this in
dispensable condition? =,
1t may be stated that, generally, whenever the
ho. nj ofy1r1t tn he n
remarkable excellence comparatively with the sire
such horse has been, at and previously to the time
of getting such valuable stock, kept without pam
a GOOD share of exercise or labor. It