The preparation for a long journey should consist in training the horse to suffer, with impunity, the influence of those agents and circumstances to which his work will expose him. He should be put into condition for the pace, the distance, and the burden; he should be well inured to the harness, to the weather, bad grooming, indifferent stabling, and irregular feeding hours. Without he be previously accustomed to all that he is likely to meet with in the course of his journey, a cold, a sore back, or a bad appetite, may throw the horse out of work when his place can not be easily supplied.

When there is no time for preparation, the horse may be conditioned on the road, beginning by short stages and proceeding at a gentle pace, and giving additional attention to feeding, watering, stabling, and dressing.

The horse should be shod a few days before starting. If lamed in the operation, the evil will be apparent, and cured in sufficient time to let him proceed.

For a journey of about 300 miles, the horse may travel from 20 to 25 miles every lawful day, resting on Sunday, and doing the work in two stages, when the pace reaches six miles per hour. This work requires a seasoned horse.

Hunting requires much speed, and more stoutness. The horse must be swift and enduring. The pace seldom exceeds twelve miles per hour, and when quicker, or so quick, the run is short, soon oyer, or interrupted; yet soft sinking ground hills, and leaps, make this pace very severe even on the best horses. Good legs are essential only when the weight is heavy, the ground generally deep, or the leaps numerous.

The time required for preparation varies from two to four months. When the horse is neither very fat nor very lean, he may be trained to hunting in three months; or if he has been doing some work for two or three weeks previously, or if he has a deep chest, wide nostrils, and good legs, two months may serve. In that time he may have all the power and speed, and stoutness, his work requires. Even after one month's preparation, he may be fit to enter the field, but when there he must be carefully managed, not tasked very far, nor very fast. His work must be such only as he would receive in training.

The means employed for conditioning hunters, are physic exertion, sweating, and feeding.

On the day before work, the horse should have exercise Sufficient to empty the bowels; if a great eater, he should have no hay before him within eight hours of going to the field; on the working day he should have no water within four hours of going to work, and his grain should be eaten about three hours before he enters the field. When the horse has above five or six miles to go ere he reaches cover, restriction as to fodder and water is less necessary, for the bowels are emptied on the way, the distance being performed at a gentle pace, perhaps at the rate of seven miles per hour.

The number of working days must vary with the condition of the horse in relation to his work. Sometimes he may go out every second day, sometimes twice a week will be sufficiently often, and after a very hard day the horse may not be able to come out again till the sixth or seventh. If he be in good spirits, full of life, and feeding heartily to-day, he may work to-morrow.

While the horse can hunt three days a week, he requires almost no exercise on his blank days; still he should have some, to stretch the legs, create an appetite, and empty the bowels. A walk of half an hour may be sufficient. Such work forbids medicines and sweating. When the work is so severe, or the horse so weak, or his legs so bad that he can not hunt above twice or thrice a fortnight, some alterative or evacuating medicine is usually required in the interval to pre-vent plethora. To other horses, cordials may be needful to create an appetite, or sweating exertion to keep the lungs in order. In general a stout hunter should have. a sweat every third day. Great eaters, with defective legs, may need physic every six or eight weeks, to keep the carcass light, and to prevent plethora. Those who work well and feed well, may require an alterative every time they have to rest more than three days.

Racing requires more speed and less stoutness than hunting requires. The means employed to confer these are the same in both; the racer does not work so often, and, in training, his exercise is not so severe; but sweating and purging are carried farther in the racing than in the hunting stable, particularly with robust horses, near to or at maturity. The preparation, however, varies with the horse's age, the length of his race, the weight he has to carry, the condition of his wind and of his legs; with his disposition to work and to eat, with his temper, and with several other circumstances, all which are well known among practised trainers to require some peculiar treatment. These matters are so well understood by the only people who are interested in them, that it seems unnecessary for me to enter into detail; all that I could say about racing would be of very little use to anybody.