A horse cannot be called a coach-horse unless he has good legs and feet. As a wheel-horse, he is never to be depended upon down hill, if he has not sound limbs. He cannot resist weight, if he be weak in his joints. To bad legs and feet are owing numerous accidents to coaches, many of which the public hear nothing of. If horses, on the contrary, have good legs and feet, they will last, even in the fastest work, many years, provided they are shod with care, and well looked after. Proprietors of coaches have at length found out that it is their interest to be humane and liberal to their horses, because the hay and corn market is not so expensive as the horse market. They have, therefore, one horse in four always at rest; in other words, each horse lies still on the fourth day. Generally considered, perhaps, no animal toiling solely for the profit of man, leads so comfortable a life as the English coach-horse: he is sumptuously fed, kindly treated, and if he does suffer a little in his work, he has mostly twenty-three hours in the twenty-four of perfect ease; he is now almost a stranger to the lash, nor do we ever see him with a broken skin. No horse lives so high as a coach-horse. Hunters, in the hunting season, do not eat the quantity of corn that coach-horses do; for the former are feverish after their work, which is not the case with the latter, as they become accustomed to this almost daily excitement. In the language of the road, the coach-horse’s stomach is the measure of his corn--he is fed _ad libitum_[75]. The effect of this is that he soon gathers flesh, even in this severe work,--for there is none more severe while it lasts; and good flesh is no obstacle to speed, but the contrary. [75] Some coachmasters give their horses all manger-meat; but this is wrong, as it often produces indigestion and disease. A certain portion of long hay is necessary.