The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-08-24
Developing the Young Horse.

| WIN eHc itCt tHal Tue StrucIure OI the
horse is complicated, it will not be in
comprehensive that the ingeniously
formed bones and joints, furnishing
leverage for several hundred muscles,
each designed for a more or less dis
tinct purpose, are, if developed to their
full capacity, capable of making a wide
range of motions and accomplishing
great feats. 1t is quite clear that the
full limit of these capabilities is seldom
brought out, as the movable parts are,
as rule, only developed by the colt in
the pasture, and some colts have very
limited opportunities, even in this di-
rection. If, as is the case with the tail
or's finger on which he wears his thin
BILE, the colt could be trained, through
careful attention to certain motions
made frequently, and continued during
longer periods than now, it would make
certain joints and muscles -particularly
those brought into action in road and
speed work-larger, flexible and as en-
during as iron.
Colts and young horses that are, ow-
ing to their high breeding, considered to
be too valuable to bear any rough treat
ment are. like the children of well-to-
do city folks, too tenderly kept, in view
of the fact that they are expected be-
| fore half mature-that is, counting ma
turity to come at seven years-to under
| go violent exercise upon the turf. The
training that a colt gets just on the eve
of having sufficient age, as his owner
| thinks, to win some money, is well
enough if the drilling is entrusted to
I hnn dc int I,-,,- -l,,a
do this preliminary work are usually
somewhat reckless. They are at least
careless. If they were to change places
with the colt, they would soon realize
that muscle and ligaments, compare
lively unused when put under new eX-
actions, are liable to become sore, and
| equally liable to become SO strained that
! putting. from rupture of minute tibres,
with added effusion, are quite likely to
| occur. Hence we see so many young
things fail under trial upon the track
through want of previous fitting. The
joints, muscles, ligamentS and tendons
are, so to speak, soft, and hence en-
! tirely inadequate to stand the work
finally demanded of them.
No loud talking man, merely because
of being able to hold the colt to the
track, and rub him dry after exercise,
is capable of measuring what strain is
and what is not safe to be put upon the
mainly untried limbs and wind of the
immature and heretofore INSULT ciently
drilled horse. The fact that the colt
has been permitted to get considerable
growth. affords. of itself, no guarantee
against injury when put upon the track.
The limbs and joints that get size under
confinement are soft, and the attach
ments of muscle and ligament to the
bones are in degree insecure and
liable to rupture. The colt that is con-
sidered too valuable to often 90 out
side of his carefully bedded box, ex-
cept now and then to be led up and
down the alleyway, will be badly pre-.
pared for track work when he arrives
at the age of supposed usefulness. The
well-bred youngSter is merely ma
chine, possessing capabilities that are
not found in the low-bred colt, but these
capabilities consist, in quite degree,
in the capacity for development under
training. If we can, by judicious
system of manipulation, enlarge the
joints, ligamentS and muscles of the
colt bred for speed, as is the arm OF
the smith by habitual use, without en-.
dangering the trunk or materially in.
creasing his weight-retaining his
natural capacity to go, and adding TO
this by developing and thereby strength.
ening and toughening the parts that
are mainly instrumental in giving
speed-then we will not only get the
outside limit of his speed capacity, bu,
We will secure immunity from being
easily strained.
Twenty-three hours out of the twenty.
four in the box, with, perhaps, portion
of the time spent in quiet walk about
the grass lot, will not fit the anat. |
Omy of young horse to stand up tc |
hard work on the training track. Any
competent veterinarian or anatomisl |
can tell you this much. The thorough |
gymnast only reaches his capacity tc |
stand extraordinary strain upon the
parts involved, after persistently put
ting the parts under careful, vet severe
tension mot under the direction of an
ignorant person who is quite likely tc
look upon the leg of the colt as about as
simple in its formation as hickory
sapling) under competent trainer,
who fully understands that the parts
upon which the strain comes must be
made to grow in strength. size and firm.
ness before they can be safely put under
severe and continuous strain. Of course,
the acrobat, like the colt destined to be /
a trotter in the future, is expected to
have a favorable formation. But bear
hot If oil sho
said to 90 fast. All acrobats as well as
all horses, have each like number 81
These muscles are similarly
both at the principal and at
the tendinous end. But the power OF
each depends D upon its size; (2)
upon that innate quality which we can
not see, or measure, except by results
this we will designate as the fruits OF
high breeding (3) upon exercise,
and in this third division there is much
to be brought out.
Some one is quoted as saving that
early in nineteen hundred horse will
make his mile near down to two mi
nutes. We do not doubt this and pos
sibly We have As good material to get
this low-down speed out of now as we
will have then. Do we not err in wait
ing for the colt TO come to the speed?
Should we not make more vigorous
effort to bring the speed to the colt?
The young deer is taught to reach out
beside its dam, and soon equals the
lam in speed and bottom. 1t it were
kept seven-eighths of its time in a
padded box. the other eighth being de-
voted to gentle exercise, we would, in a
little while, have wind puffs and blood
'pavins upon the deer, if put to the top
IF his speed. We would not secure the