Thursday 16 July 2020

General Care of the (Regency) Horse







'Daily Routine'


Basic horse management has changed little over the centuries. Writing in the early seventeenth century, Gervase Markham recommended that following a half-day’s hunting, the horse should be rubbed until dry, then unsaddled and his back rubbed. Having been rugged up with a rug secured by ‘a surcingle well padded with straw’, he should be given ‘a feed of oats and hemp-seed, the gentlest and easiest scouring for a horse’. Then, before retiring, the horse should again be strapped, watered, fed and mucked out. He also advocated, after a longer day’s hunting, a more powerful purging of rosemary and sweet butter, followed by a warm gruel made up of oats, bran and malt. Approaching two hundred years before the Regency, therefore, the importance of resting – after strenuous work and before a day off – the digestive system of a fit horse, eating large quantities of grain, was recognized if perhaps not fully understood. Nowadays we would consider this a ‘sudden change of diet’ and something to be avoided, but for many years a bran mash has successfully been the traditional feed for horses following a hard day’s hunting, because it is easy to digest. Interestingly, Markham’s hunters were also fed garlic – albeit wrapped in butter rather than in the powder or granule form to be found in many modern equine stores – which only goes to prove the validity of the saying ‘what goes around comes around’.
A horse’s basic needs are simple. He requires food, water, a comfortable bed, time to rest, and to be kept clean in order to avoid injury and infection. He is a flight animal and so thrives best with quiet handling, a calm atmosphere and well-fitting harness. Ideally, he also needs some time at grass each day. If we remove the natural ability to roll, graze and exercise, we must provide those requirements in other ways. Exercise is provided under saddle or in hand, grass is provided in the form of hand-pulled or cut herbage or succulents such as apples, carrots, swedes and turnips, and the skin must be kept healthy through grooming. (See section on Daily Routine.)
In common with many other animals, the horse is prone to internal parasites. These should be treated every few weeks. Nowadays we use drugs such as anthelmintics, yet the practice of worming is nothing new.
The following excerpt illustrates that even in the seventeenth century, Markham was aware of the need to remove intestinal parasites:
Take the leaves of bore, and dry them at the fire till you may crush them to pieces, then mingle them with brimstone beaten to powder, and give it to your horse in his provender, yet very discreetly, as by little and little at once, lest your horse take a loathe to it and so refuse it. This purgeth the head, stomach, and entrails of all manner of filthiness, leaving nothing that is unsound or unclean: it cureth the cold, it killeth the worms, grubs or bots in a horse, and it never abaseth, but increaseth courage and flesh. Therefore it is to be given either to a foul horse or clean horse, but chiefly to the clean horse, because it shall preserve him from any foulness.”
From this can be seen that by the nineteenth century, and indeed, the twenty-first, while many advances have been made, much to do with the care of horses has remained the same for hundreds and possibly thousands of years. Veterinary surgeon George Skeavington gives a full description of a typical day in the stables of the early nineteenth century which demonstrates the labour involved for the men caring for a gentleman’s cattle. Here is a taster:

THE GROOM’S DUTY
Stable hours should be kept with strict regularity; all animals appear to have a knowledge of time; and it may be observed, in many instances, they observe the periods as correctly as we, who have recourse to time-pieces; witness the dog, who, if he is accustomed to receive anything from your plate at meals, never fails to attend at the dinner-hour, though in the intervening time he will be roving a great distance; no wonder that the Horse, which, I may aver is not less sensible… …should know his stated hours; and if he is not attended to, particularly to feed and water at the accustomed time, will be watching and fretting with much anxiety, and oftentimes will call and ask for his food, in such manner, as those accustomed to Horses cannot fail to understand. Regular and stated hours should be punctually attended to, with as little variation, as the season or circumstances may require; five o’clock in summer; but as the days shorten a later hour is admissible, unless Horses are to be ready at an early hour for hunting, or otherwise; in such cases, two hours at least before they are wanted, the stable should be visited: if you do not allow yourself sufficient time, things cannot be done as they should.
The first thing to be done on going to stable, after casting your eye round to see if any Horses are loose, cast, or the like, is to rack and feed. The judgement in racking is to give the Horse but little at a time, that he may eat it with an appetite, first clearing out his rack, &c. &c. If a Horse leaves hay that is good and sweet, some cause must be assigned for it, and it must be examined into; sometimes cats will foul the hay, and Horses are very nice in their food, when not kept scanty. If the Horse appears to be in health, and the hay has not been blown on by other horses, but is fresh and sweet, I should judge he is too plentifully fed, and leaving hay for the sake of oats...
After having racked with hay, you next feed, as it is termed, that is serving the oats. I proceed in the routine that is to be daily observed; for, were I to treat of things out of this regular order, young hands might be studying what they should do, and what ought to be done first, and it is no uncommon thing to see some, that have been in the stable employment for a length of time, not know what thing to do first, and occasion themselves trouble and loss of time, by going wrong about things. Now, in serving the Oats, whatever is deemed a sufficient allowance for the Horse, for the day, whether it may be three quarterns or a peck, one-fourth of the quantity should now be given: as sweet and clean food is most agreeable to the Horse, as well as beneficial...
While the Horses are eating this first feed of corn, which you will recollect is to be given immediately on your entering the stable in the morning, prepare your saddles and exercising bridles ready to take them out; which being all ready and placed on for exercise, give your Horses a few go downs of water; then, if it be an establishment of some considerable extent, give orders to the stable boy to make fair the stable during your absence…
The stable being made clean, next commence cleaning your Horses; this is a work that requires more knowledge and judgement than at first appears.
The morning’s business of the stable being thus completed, the Horse will require nothing until noon.

This, then, is a reduced description of the instructions for just the morning! It is little wonder that grooms of the Georgian era were men, since they had to work incredibly hard and for very long hours. Those of us who revere the horse, however - even to this day - consider it a labour of love and much to be preferred to stacking supermarket shelves or similar!

You can read more about the daily tasks and routine of the Regency groom in The Horse: An Historical Author's and Reader's Guide. 

(C) Heather King Images Public Domain





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