HORSE-Vetch. See HIPOCREPIS, BOTANY Index.
War-HORSE. The proper rules for choosing a horse for service in war, are these: he should be tall in stature, with a comely head, and out-swelling forehead. His eye should be bright and sparkling, and the white part of it covered by the eye-brow. The ears should be small, thin, short, and pricking; or if long, they should be moveable with ease, and well carried. The neck should be deep, and the breast large and swelling; the ribs bending, the chine broad and straight, and the buttocks round and full. The tail should be high and broad, neither too thick nor too thin; the thigh swelling; the leg broad and flat, and the pastern short. When such a horse is chosen, he must be kept high during the time of his teaching, that he may be full of vigour. His food must be sweet hay, and good clean oats, or two parts of oats and one part of beans or peas, well dried and hardened. The quantity should be half a peck in the morning, and the same quantity at noon and in the evening. Upon his resting days he is to be dressed between five and six in the morning, and watered at seven or eight. In the evening he is to be dressed at four, and watered about five, and he must always have provender given him after watering; he must be littered about eight, and then must have food given him for all night. The night before he is ridden, al
his hay is to be taken away about nine o'clock, and he must have a handful or two of oats about four in the morning; when he has eaten these, he is to be turned upon the snaffle, and rubbed very well with dry cloths; then saddled, and made fit for his exercise. When he has performed this, he is to be brought sweating into the stable, and rubbed down with dry whips. When this has been done, the saddle is to be taken off, and he is to be rubbed down with dry cloths; the housing cloth is then to be laid on; and the saddle being again laid on, he is to be walked gently about till thoroughly cool. After this, he must stand without meat two or three hours, then he must be fed; and in the afternoon he is to be rubbed and dressed as before, and watered in the usual manner.