The best time for this rest is about Christmas, during which one can
reduce the work to the very minimum, and feed with 'Rastfutter' hay,
maize, malt--dried brewer's--molasses, even potatoes; and also, after
reaching the highest points of the training for galloping, there must
be a certain relaxation of the strain to give the nerves time to
recuperate.

Generally, the course of training must be conducted from the
standpoint of what War demands, and never allowed to assume the
characteristics of the racing stable, for the purposes of the two are
entirely distinct, and this is particularly the case with regard to
the gallop.

It is precisely in this respect that the necessities of War are not
always seen with sufficient clearness.

We obtain from our troops by means of most careful preparation quite
remarkable performances in galloping. I have myself seen whole
regiments cover 8,800 yards (5 miles) at the regulation gallop, and
the horses at the end of it had still both strength and wind to
increase the pace. On such and similar performances we then base our
tactical exercises both for the Brigade and Division, and many horses
are sacrificed as a consequence. Now, I am the last man to suggest
that accurate drill at the gallop is not the crowning work of all
tactical education, but it must be accomplished under War conditions,
and it cannot be too persistently insisted on that all these tactical
pictures and the deductions founded thereon, which we attain in the
manner indicated, have practically nothing to do with real War at all.

In these peace exercises we usually ride with considerably less than
field service weights, on specially selected and favourable ground,
and on specially trained horses. All these conditions are wanting in
War. Then horses must carry their full marching-order kit, and
generally they will be entirely lacking in specific training for this
fast kind of work. The ordinary pace on the march and patrol is the
marching trot; only single patrols have now and again to gallop, the
troops as a whole only on the rare occasions when a charge has
actually to be delivered. Then, the carefully-selected conditions of
the drill ground are generally lacking; and, finally, in all War
strength squadrons there are always some augmentation horses and
remounts, whose weaknesses must be taken into account if they are not
to be broken down at the very beginning of operations, as too often
happened in 1870, in which