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TUFTS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
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 Webster Family Library Of Veteriw^^^^^^^ 
 Cummings School ot Veterinary IVledicine at 
 Tiitts University 
 200 VVesttoro Road 
 North Grafton, MA 01 536 
 
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 m^>.d/n-i 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 ^'OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS" 
 
 Price Go. 
 
 "Tills book is describeil by tlie autlior. and nut witliout sub^tautial gi-ouiul;>, 
 'A rractioal Poultry Book.' It is not a coniyilatiou, as so inaay books that 
 concern the a-griculturists are, but a work bearing traces in every jart of large 
 practical acquaintance with the subject.'' — Daily News. 
 
 "Every page is rich in information and suggestion, lie has omitted the 
 discussion of no point, from the construction of the house and the purchase of 
 the stock to the appearance at table of the cooked product, whether egg or 
 chicken, Six chapters are devoted to ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea-fowls, 
 pheasants, and pigeons." — Glasgow Herald 
 
 "ilr. Saunders has carefully studied the liabits, wants, ami health of the 
 poultry, and his advice on the subject is valuable both for its humanity and its 
 good sense." — Mvnihin Post. 
 
 "We have as a duty, and still more as a matter of taste, read and studied 
 every fowl book and poultry guide published lor the la>t thirty years, and we do 
 not hesitate to say that this book of Mr. Saunders's is not only by far the best, 
 but worth any dozen of the best of them. Sir. Saunders not only knows what he 
 writes about, but he is able to make his readers understand as \\cll. Independent 
 of poultry altogether, the book is well worlli reading for the uifonnatiou it 
 coutaiui on food, digestion, hcrcditarj' intlueuces, and evolution." — jiantcm 
 Moiiilii'j News. 
 
 " -Mr. Saunders is evidently a cultivated man of tlie world, and writes about 
 poultry in a way which shows that if he were so pleased he could discourse 
 profitalily on many other things as well. We believe that his book will be much 
 r, ad by bird-fanciers here and in our colonies. The fourth chapter, on food, is, 
 pel haps, the most useful in the book. The ^vhole volume shows that Mr. Saunders 
 has been a nu)st careful observer. Many facts he tells \Nill be useful to those 
 interested in science who have little leisure, ojiportunity, or taste for rearing 
 poultry." — The Academy. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SamI's-on Low, M.s.rstox, Skahi.k i Rivixi.ton, 
 iss. Fleet stkkkt, k.c. 
 
OUE HORSES: 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE BEST MUSCLES CONTROLLED BY 
 THE BEST BBAINS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED SAUNDEPxS. 
 
 l'Kl!l'j;CT KNOWl,EDGE OV SATVKE WOULD MEAN SOIIETHIXCJ IIKK 
 
 LOXDOX : 
 
 Sampsox Low, Makstox, Searle lV Eivixgtox, 
 188, Fleet Street, E.G. 
 
 1880. 
 ALL JUG UTS HESERVED. 
 
n> 
 
 :(. 
 
INDEX OF CHAPTERS. 
 
 Chapter. Page. 
 
 1. — General Remarks ... ... ... ... ... i 
 
 2.— Varieties OF THK Horse ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 3. — Stabling, Clothing, Cleaning ... ... ... 27 
 
 4.— Food ... ... ... ... ... ... 36 
 
 ."). — Water ... ... ... ... ... ... 47 
 
 6.^AiR ... ... ... ... ... ... .50 
 
 7. — Exercise ... ... ... ... ... ... 60 
 
 8. — Shoeing ... ... ... ... ... ... 72 
 
 9. — Theory of Horse Education ... ... ... 83 
 
 10.— Breakixg a Horse Slowly an'd Thoroltghly ... 90 
 
 11. — High School Education ... ... ... ... no 
 
 12. — Local Systems ... ... ... ... ... 1,S2 
 
 13. — Expeditious Education ... ... ... ... 1,51 
 
 14. — Theory of Breaking to Harness ... ... ... 104 
 
 1.5. — Breaking to Light Harness ... ... ... 171 
 
 16. — Breaking to Slow HEA\Tr Draft ... ... ... 182 
 
 17. — ViCKS AND Bad Habits ... ... ... ... 197 
 
 18.— Riding ... ... ... ... ... ... 216 
 
 19. — Driving ... ... ... ... ... ... 225 
 
 20. — Selecting a Horse ... ... ... ... 242 
 
 21. — Indications of Age ... ... ... ... 255 
 
 22. — Purchasing a Horse ... ... ... ... 258 
 
 23.— Breeding ... ... ... ... ... ... 263 
 
 24. — Diseases ... .,. ... ... ... ... 275 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A Bristol youth whose theological education had been ninch 
 neglected, was once asked by his Sunday School teacher, in the 
 words of_^a catechism, *' What is thechief end of man ?" Feeling 
 his intellect insulted by a question, the answer to which appeared 
 to him so very obvious, theboy indignantly replied, " Why liis head 
 to be sure." This answer was not received with much fav« nr 
 by tlie teacher, but it nevertheless contains a very important 
 truth, and one which man is too prone to forget, especially when 
 dealing with animals whose head can hardly be considered their 
 "chief end." His dealings with the horse have not always 
 illustrated the truth of Cowper's lines : — 
 
 " 'Tis plain the creature whom He cho.se to invest 
 With kingship and dominion o'er the rest, 
 Received his nobler nature, and was made 
 Fit for the power, in which he stands arrayed." 
 
 The unexampled progress of oiir countrymen in beneficent 
 civilization during the last sixty years, has been mainly due to 
 the fact, that even the toilers amongst us have learned to use 
 their " chief end" more, and their inferior ends less. 
 
 "With more peace, more food, more leisure, and more education, 
 even our agricultural labourers have asserted their right to be 
 something more than hewers of wood and drawers of water ; have 
 sought and have obtained improved tools ; and now willingly 
 leave the lowest and most severe drudgery to the water wheel, the 
 steam engine, and the horse. 
 
 The descendants of the poor mistaken men, who, fifty years 
 ago, were burning the farmers rude thrashing machines, and 
 
Viii. PREFACE. 
 
 demanding that their ill-fed rausoles should replace those of the 
 ox or the horse, are now quite able to see that their elevation 
 must come in the opposite direction, and that their own heads 
 must take, at least, a part in the ascent. 
 
 They nDW earn the price of three bushels of wheat with less 
 effort than their ancestors earned the price of one. They have 
 learned to toil less and to accomplish more. They no longer 
 demand to raise their weary arms in a physical competition with 
 the strength of the ox, or the power of the steam engine. They 
 thrash, but not with the flail ; they dig, but not with the spade ; 
 they mow, but not with the scythe ; they reap, but not with the 
 sickle ; they grind, but not as Sampson ground. 
 
 A few minutes thought of what the world would be without 
 the horse, leads us to a true estimate of his value, and enables 
 us to realize what our lives would lose of pleasure, power, profit, 
 and picturesqueness, without the animal that brings such great, 
 yet such controllable powers to our aid. 
 
 Our earnest aim in the following pages has been to help on 
 the triumph of mind over the agencies placed at its disposal ; to 
 put the best muscles completely under the control of the best 
 brains, and to show that unthinking brute force is not the weapon 
 with which man can hope to make the best of his most willing 
 and most timid servant, the horse ; but that his superior intel- 
 ligence, applied in a spirit of humanity to the relationship, will 
 make this powerful ally far more useful and more happy than he 
 is now found to be. 
 
 By carefully observing the nature and peculiar instincts of 
 any animal in our charge, and meeting them with some humane 
 resources within our reach, we can generally insure obedience to 
 our will, cure most of his bad habits, and secure our own safety 
 by some simple stratagem, We only convert his eccentricities 
 into formidable dangers when we combat them with unmanly 
 cruelty. 
 
 We are only too conscious that no effort, literary, legislative, 
 or moral, will ever keep the horse from falling into hands unfit 
 to arbitrate the fate of any sensitive creature. 
 
 From the nature of things the most worthless and the most 
 
PREFACE. IX. 
 
 hearJess are attracted by the trick?;, and atrocious barbarities, 
 adopted by the bhicklegs among horse dealers. But enlightened 
 self-interest is the most powerful, and by far the most generally 
 applicable antidote to cruelty, and should, at least, save the young 
 horse from the injuries of ignorance, and to him ignorance forms 
 the most substantial danger. 
 
 Let breeders and owners suflficiently understand that the 
 education of the young horse is no question of craft, mystery, or 
 even skilled horsemanship ; bat demands temper, judgment, tact, 
 and qualities only to be found in a superior class of men, and we 
 may hope to see fewer cruel mistakes, and consequently losses in 
 that direction. With horses educated under the eye of those who 
 know how it should be done, and who have a direct pecuniary 
 interest in the result, an entirely dilfereut system would be adopted, 
 with results that would not be uncertain, either humanely, 
 morally, or commercially. 
 
 After seeing the horse, both tame and wild, reduced to 
 obedience by men of various degrees of civilization, in every 
 quarter of the globe, our aim has been to select the system that 
 would give us the best possible horse with the least expenditure 
 of time and trouble. In this we have succeeded beyond our most 
 sanguine expectations, and by the most humane and simple means 
 We therefore record these methols for the benefit of the horse 
 and its owner, certain that, if faithfully carried out, they will not 
 fail to contribute to the welfare and happiness of both. 
 
 For the harness horse we have entirely and invariably 
 succeeded in preventing that vice which has caused the greatest 
 exhibition of cruelty, and the greatest depreciation of value, from 
 which he has ever suffered, and we have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that the adoption of our advice would remove a weight 
 of suffering from the horse, and a load of sin from his owner, 
 that would make the w^orld less sad. 
 
 If we have forsaken the beaten paths of orthodox horse 
 management, and called in question the teachings of those who 
 have long been looked up to as great authorities, our defence 
 must be, that for half-a-century we have gone to a greater Teacher, 
 and have been shewn that they were wrong. 
 
X. PREFACE. 
 
 Very slowly, very reluctantly, but very surely, we have lost 
 our faith in long cherished theories and practices, and have 
 learned from Nature, and to bow only to the unanswerable logic 
 of facts. 
 
 Where the results have been constantly and strikingly good, 
 we have concluded that the course practised must be good also. 
 
 In judging of the value of our work, we ask our readers to 
 try it by the same rule. Let our advice be tested by the unerring 
 records of careful practice, and we confidently leave the estimate 
 of our work to the result of that unbiassed testimony. 
 
 It is usual to acknowledge the sources of any information 
 that the author has been able to utilize ; but, so far as it is 
 possible, we have done that in the text of the chapters before us. 
 We say, as far as possible, because it is not possible for the 
 human mind to ascertain all the aids that have led up to its 
 present degree of knowledge upon any subject. Where we could 
 recollect the source we have gratefully recorded it, whether from 
 great names, like Sir J. Forbes, Dr. Dadd, or Professor Rarey, 
 or from a humble American Indian, a Gaucho, an Australian 
 stockman, or a simple Maori family. 
 
 Our readers will see that we have thus literally become a 
 " debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians ; " and, 
 although we have too often proved but a slow scholar, we have 
 had every advantage to be derived from books, from the observa- 
 tion of experts, from a comparison of the different horses and 
 horsemen of the world, from a long practical experience, and 
 from a love of the animal itself, that has been the strongest 
 incentive to our writing the pages of this book. 
 
OUR HORSES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENEKAL REMARKS. 
 
 1. — In the language of zoology, or in the orderly classification 
 of naturalists, the horse ranks under the division vertebrata 
 (having a brain and spinal marrow) ; the class mammalia 
 (suckling their young) ; the tribe ungulata (having feet protected 
 with hoofs) ; and, although his own skin is thin and very 
 sensitive, he is placed under the order pachydermata, or thick 
 skinned, that term being applied to all hoofed animals that do 
 not chew the cud. He belongs to the volipeda family, having 
 on each foot only one undivided hoof. 
 
 2. — Such ancient history as we have had handed down to m, 
 gives us singularly little information about so important and 
 useful an animal. Statues and hieroglyphics do not help us 
 much : nor are there any existing herds of wild horses, except 
 those that are known to have originated with animals once 
 domesticated, and which consequently give us no cine to the 
 aboriginal home of the horse. It seems to have formed no part 
 of the possessions of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. We first hear of 
 it from Egypt, where, in the time of the dire famine, we read, 
 " Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses." The waggons, 
 the sight of which revived the spirit of old Jacob, may have 
 been drawn by asses or mules, as more suitable for such roads, 
 and more safe for the conveyance of such passengers as the 
 " wives and little ones." But, when Joseph took back his 
 father's [remains to the field of Machpelah, we are left in no 
 
2 ABORIGINAL HOME. 
 
 doubt that "there went up with him both chariots and horse- 
 men." Thus we gather that the horse first came from North 
 Africa, and was used in the service of man at least 3,600 
 years ago. The examination of ancient sculptures has led some 
 antiquarians to the highly improbable conclusion that the horse 
 was long used to draw vehicles before any one ventured to 
 mount on his back. We cannot imagine that generations of men 
 who rode on asses would continue to walk by the side of an 
 animal so much better fitted to carry them, and which they had 
 made docile enough to draw all sorts of frightful things at its 
 tail. It is far more probable that the early sculptors found it 
 more easy to represent a horse drawing something behind him 
 than to place a stone rider gracefully on his back. 
 
 3. — Egypt itself is very little adapted for a horse breeding 
 country, but the leading part that she once took in civilisation, 
 and the commanding political position she long occupied, would 
 enable her to draw supplies of them from any part of North 
 Africa. With her great maritime advantages these seem to have 
 been distributed to other parts of the world, horses being a 
 favourite article both of ordinary export, and for royal presents 
 to foreign potentates. Soloman was a large importer of horses 
 from Egypt, and with his wealth, wisdom, and power, he is 
 likely to have secured the best, so that there is nothing very 
 incredible in the Arab tradition that their best horses descend 
 from the stud of Soloman. Mahomet appears to have severely 
 tested the powers of the Arabian mare, and as he would be able 
 to obtain the best, mares that had endured such tests from him, 
 would naturally become celebrated, and thus the Arabs get 
 another starting point in the pedigree of their best hoi-ses, more 
 than 1,000 years later than the reign of Soloman, 
 
 i. — In point of strict utility the horse must perhaps rank 
 behind the cow, or even the sheep, although in the present state 
 of society it would be more difficult for any nation to take a 
 commanding position, or even to hold its own, without the 
 horse than without either of those animals. In intelligence he 
 has many superiors : the elephant, the dog, the fox, the pig, the 
 rat, the cow, and even the donkey have more brain power, and 
 
NOT AYISE OR COL'RAGEOUS. 3 
 
 are far less easily deceived than the horse. Few animals have 
 so little capacity to take care of themselves, or can be made the 
 subjects of such easy and long continued imposition, Xo other 
 animal submits his physical powers so unreservedly to the service 
 of man, nor can the muscles of any other slave be so constantly 
 and cruelly overtaxed at his command. In fiction, in poetry, 
 and even in real life, he often gets credited with much wisdom 
 and courage, though he is singularly deficient of both, and many 
 cruel mistakes in his treatment result from the supposition that 
 he is far more intelligent and more aggressively courageous than 
 he really is. He is essentially not a fighting but a flying 
 animal, one that trusts to his speed, and not to his sagacity, 
 courage, or aggressive power for his safety. Even when driven 
 into a yard, or otherwise placed beyond the possibility of escape, 
 the wild horse shows no fight, as most other wild animals will do, 
 but still cowers like the timid 'sheep at the greatest possible 
 distance from any puny pursuer. Completely and continuously 
 gregarious in his habits, the horse never feels so safe, so contented, 
 or so happy as when in company, and his hardest lessons in the 
 service of man are those which confine him to solitary service or 
 solitary confinement, and compel him to face alone dangers that 
 would terrify him even in that companionship which nature has 
 taught him to cling to at any cost of exertion. Even the 
 wounded horse will never voluntarily leave the herd, but gallops 
 with it till he drops, evidently under a feeling implanted in his 
 nature that to be left behind is to be left a prey to some cruel 
 pursuer. This is the simple key to most of the romance Ave 
 hear and read about the horse enjoying the battle, the chase, 
 and the race. Nature has taught him what she teaches all 
 animals that seek safety in flight and in society, that it is 
 dangerous to be left alone, or to be loft behind, a feeling that she 
 has sometimes allowed to seize large bodies, even of that most 
 aggressive animal — man. The vaunted courage of the battle 
 horse is the courage of ignorance and panic. He has with 
 difficulty been taught on parade that sights and sounds that once 
 terrified him are harmless, and he knows no diflTerence Ijetween 
 the boltless noise of the blank cartridge and the deadly balls of 
 
4 VICES RESULT FROM FEAR. 
 
 actual warfare. In the charge the more really terrified he feels 
 the more determined he is not to be left alone, so that each 
 horse madly rushes wherever he believes his companion to be 
 going. His most dangerous vices are the result of his extremely 
 timid nature, which makes him imagine every log to be a lion, 
 every gap in a hedge to be a lurking place for a tiger, and an 
 oppossum rug to be a bear, whilst he flies in frantic terror fi"om a 
 serpent-hke leather rope drawn by himself, from the rider dragging 
 in the stirrup, or the carriage wheels rolling behind him. 
 
 5. — In silent, patient, unresisting endurance of sufTerings from 
 which he has not been allowed to fly he has few equals. He 
 plods patiently on from day to day suffering from heat, cold, 
 starvation, or thirst, until his bones start through his skin, and 
 his wasted muscles can no longer raise him from the ground. He 
 pushes on to the fixed bayonet. He carries his rider without a 
 groan or a pause with flanks heaving for life until he drops dead. 
 No person can be prepared to deal properly with the horse who 
 starts with the too common impression that he has to deal 
 with a cunning, courageous, obstinate animal. He has usually 
 to deal with an animal simple as a baby, nervous as a lady, and 
 timid as a partridge. 
 
 (1. — In size the horse varies almost from that of the dog to 
 that of the elephant, from two feet to six and half feet high ; from 
 two cwt. to one ton in weight ; from the mere toy which a 
 gentleman has lifted into his gig, to the gigantic quadruped 
 which starts five tons weight on the London pavement. 
 Fortunately the docihty and ]>lacidity of the horse generally 
 increases with his size, making the giants often more easy to deal 
 with than the dwarfs. In slower times than the present the 
 finest specimens of the race used to be seen calmly wending their 
 way through the sights and sounds of London streets, attentive 
 to every word that was spoken to them by a self possessed and good 
 tempered driver, who was justly proud of his glossy, magnificent, 
 and obedient team. 
 
 7. — Rough stunted ponies are found in the Shetland Islands, 
 and in Iceland, and dry skinned, unhappy, emaciated Arabs and 
 Australian horses are made to endure the heat and insects at the 
 
RANGE OF CLIMATE. O 
 
 equator, but the horse can only be said to flourish in temperate 
 regions, and reaches his finest proportions only in those countries 
 where green grass can be obtained during the greater part of the 
 year. T^ven on the vast, dry, though temperate Australian plains 
 where light horses are so abundant and so good, the size of the 
 heavy cart horse cannot be sustained, so that he is regularly 
 imported from the colder climates of Tasmania and New Zealand. 
 There is ia the climate of New Zealand something specially 
 favourable to the development both of the cart horse and the 
 race horse. No finer cart horses can be seen in any part of the 
 world than at the New Zealand agricultural shows. Some of the 
 very first race horses bred in New Zealand were from Flora 
 Mc. Ivor, when about twenty years of age, yet they surpassed in 
 speed anything that she bred in her prime in Australia. During, 
 the year 1883, a three-year-old colt, bred in New Zealand, and 
 undergoing a voyage to Australia, has carried off the two 
 principal races in Melbourne, in the shortest time they have 
 ever been accomplished. This colt (]\Iartini-Henry) won not only 
 the Derby, for three-year-olds, but the Melbourne Cup, beating 
 a field of no less than 29 of the very best Australian horses of all 
 ages, doing the mile and a half in 2 minutes and 39 seconds, 
 and the two miles in 3 minutes 30^ seconds. 
 
 Though capable of his greatest speed and of the utmost 
 endurance when fed chiefly on dry fodder, with a large proportion 
 of corn, the horse only attains his utmost growth, continuous 
 health, aud natural age, when fed on somewhat bulky and 
 succulent food, 
 
 8. — Under good treatment he reaches his full growth and 
 utmost power at five years old, continues in perfection until 
 twelve, and is capable of moderate work until over twenty. 
 After that age his powers fail fast, although there are a few 
 cases on record in which he has attained the age of forty, and 
 both sexes have been known to retain fertility until after thirty. 
 Excessively fast work over hard roads, excited l^y stimulating 
 concentrated food, often wears him out in a few months, so that 
 stage coach horses, although skilfully selected, with great natural 
 powers of speed and endurance, only stand their cruel work two 
 
6 VARIETIES PRODUCED. 
 
 years on an average. The more moderate pace of the city omnibus 
 horse enables him to last about six years, although eating 
 17 lbs. of corn a day, whilst the pampered giants used by the 
 great London brewers, stand their slow work ten years, eating no less 
 than 22 lbs. of corn a day. The ordinary farm horse, eating 
 10 lbs. of corn a day, and getting a good deal of green food, 
 often lasts twenty years, although under equal treatment the 
 heavy cart horse is naturally a shorter-lived animal than the light 
 coach horse. 
 
 9. — In the course of many centuries the climate, the soil, 
 and the requirements of each country, as well as the tastes, 
 opportunities, occupations, and genius of its people, have stamped 
 a peculiar character on the horses produced in it. South East 
 Asia and North Africa have produced the beautiful, wiry, enduring 
 Arab and Barb, the rich plains of Central Europe have grown 
 and fostered the heavy Flanders horse, whilst Great Britain, with 
 its horse-loving population, its grassy soil, its free trade, and its 
 watery high way to all the world, has culled from every country, 
 and cultivated whatever it required, until it has excelled every 
 other part of the world in its racers, its hunters, and its draft 
 horses. London streets and London parks have become the 
 places where the child's pony, the lady's pamlfrey, the gentleman's 
 hunter, the high stepping carriage horse, or the brewer's dray 
 horse, may be seen in the greatest perfection, under the highest 
 discipline, and in the best possible condition. The oflPshoots of 
 our race in America and Australasia, take the same horses and 
 the same tastes wherever they go, and whenever the horses of the 
 old country are beaten it will be by the descendants of her own 
 stock in the hands of her own children. 
 
 Her colonists do not send to Africa or Arabia for their nags, 
 nor to Flanders for their dray horses, but to England for their 
 racers, to Ireland for their hunters, and to Scotland for their 
 draft horses, and foi' the men to handle them. 
 
CHAPTEK II. 
 
 VAKIETIES OF THE HORSE, 
 
 10. — Although there may never have been a period when it 
 was more possible to obtain a horse of any required size or 
 character than it is now, there were far more distinct and definite 
 breeds fifty years ago than there are at the present time. 
 
 The immense facilities that the last half century has provided ■ 
 for cheap and rapid communication, both between different 
 countries, and between different parts of the same country, have 
 lessened or destroyed many distinctions that used to exist in the 
 live and dead stock of most parts of the world ; have removed 
 many a prejudice, have dropped many an inferior race of animals 
 out of existence, and have, upon the whole, led to the survival of 
 the fittest, and the preponderance of the best. What Bakewell's, 
 Leicesters and Elman's Southdowns have being doing amongst 
 sheep, and the shorthorns amongst cattle, the Clydesdale and the 
 Thoroughbred have been doing amongst horses. The old breeds 
 may still bear the same name, but most of them have really given 
 place to a different animal, produced by repeated crosses of 
 superior blood ; or, to use a common expression, they have been 
 " improved off the face of the earth." The old stiff, gummy- 
 legged, short-winded cart horse, is no where to be seen ; the fine, 
 ponderous, slow animals, that used to work the family carriage, 
 with the long hair closely cut from their carty legs, have given 
 place to something very nearly thoroughbred ; and even the "Welsh 
 ponies are now little else than the diminutive descendants of Sir 
 Watkin Wynn's blood sires. The change has proceeded on very 
 different lines in different parts of the world, and generally under 
 circumstances more or less characteristic of the people amongst 
 whom it has taken place. The cool-headed clannish Scotchmen 
 
8 SURVIVAL or THE FITTEST. 
 
 stuck to tlieir Clydesdales through good report and evil report, 
 and would believe in nothing else ; the Yorkshiremen dropped 
 their long-prized Cleveland Bays the moment it did not pay to 
 breed them ; whilst the mixed race of horse breeders in the South 
 West of England used good cart sires wherever they could get 
 them without asking for a name or a pedigree. The South 
 Eastern breeders did nearly the same, but, when they had entirely 
 altered the character of their horses, they still kept the names and 
 colours of their Norfolk trotters, and their Suffolk Punches. 
 
 11. — In every temperate part of the civilized world, the 
 English Thoroughbred horse has more or less completely supplanted 
 every other horse for fast work. The despotic Emperor of 
 Austria, the Czar of all the Russias, the horse-breeding Germans, 
 the democratic Americans, the half- Anglicized Napoleon the III., 
 and even the anti-English Popes have all had to use the English 
 Thoroughbred for a sire, or to drop behind the rest of the world 
 with their horses. 
 
 The British colonists, on the great continents of America and 
 Australia, adopt the Thoroughbred as their own, whilst the Britain 
 of the South has given it a home in which it will certainly not 
 degenerate. 
 
 12. — No competent judge on the subject will doubt that the 
 change on the whole has been good ; yet those who can remember 
 the Cleveland Bays and the old-fashioned Suffolk Punches, 
 cannot but feel that two very useful horses have been rather too 
 hastily dropped, and that we have nothing that entirely supplies 
 the place of either of them. 
 
 THE SHIRE HORSE. 
 
 13. —The free and unbiassed choice of cart sires, which has 
 long prevailed in most counties of England, has produced what 
 is now called the Shire Horse. A horse of no particular stamp or 
 colour, but a well-built, powerful animal, less soft and slow than 
 the old Black Lincoln, though almost as large and quite as 
 powerful. He is more placid, and carries a better "cupboard" 
 than the Clydesdale, and would take a heavier load, or a heavier 
 furrow behind him, without fretting or making any fuss about it. 
 
POWER AND SIZE. 9 
 
 The largest of them are naturally bred on the strongest land, and 
 where the heaviest ploughing has to be done. The heaviest and 
 most handsome of these are picked out for heavy, slow, showy, 
 city, or railway work, which they do to perfection. On a 
 moderately good hard road each of these horses takes two tons as 
 his ordinary load, and nothing will equal them in starting and 
 shifting railway waggons. Less handsome specimens are purchased 
 for road waggons. The mild temper of these horses adapts them 
 admirably for large teams, where a long waiting pull is required, 
 or to guide good-temperedly to the voice or whip, without rushing 
 into the collar, as hotter tempered horses are so prone to do. 
 Three of these brood mares can take a double-furrow plough even 
 through heavy stiff land, and they are taught more easily than any 
 other horses to go gently, and stop at roots in wood land, or , 
 amongst other obstacles. 
 
 The largest of these horses will girth eight feet, and they 
 have altogether a roomy heavy body, on very strong, but not long 
 legs. Their thighs should be very muscular, and their hocks 
 deep, as in starting heavy loads the hind legs are tried more 
 severely than tlic foie ones. Many persons like to see very large 
 shank bones, and a quantity of hair on their legs, but neither are 
 of any use further than that they often accompany a strong frame 
 and good muscular development. The hair will often gather dirt 
 and add weight where it is lifted at a great mechanical dis- 
 advantage, so that all such hair, as well as any unnecessary size of 
 shank bone, only tends to tire the horse by taxing his muscles for 
 no useful purpose. It has been calculated that a power equal to 
 four hundred pounds has to be exerted at the loins of the horse to 
 lift one pound weight at the foot ; so that an unnecessary pound 
 there is a matter of no small consideration (43). 
 
 The smallest shank bone of any horse is almost invariably 
 strong enough for any work he has to do, and, other things being 
 equal, a horse with a light shank bone never tires so soon as a 
 horse with a heavy one. Strong, large sinews at the back of the 
 shank bone are, on the contrary, of great consequence, giving a 
 deep flat (not a round) appearance to both fore and hind legs. 
 This is a severely tried point with every hard-worked horse, and 
 
10 FIT FOR DRAWING, NOT FOR TROTTING. 
 
 one at which they often fail. Even here, quality is of more value 
 than quantity, though the cart horse should have both. 
 
 The hips should be very wide and the loins muscular, without 
 which no horse can be strong ; but, the back of no harness horse 
 should be reached. 
 
 The best of these horses have large, heavy, though good- 
 tempered heads. The light head of a Thoroughbred should not be 
 sought for in any cart horse, as it is quite incompatible with the 
 mild, placid temper that is one of his most indispensible 
 qualifications. 
 
 14. — Modern cart horses are less upright in the shoulder 
 than the cart horses used to be, and are more frequently called on 
 for a faster pace ; but we have always found that the cart horse 
 with an upright shoulder, and whose fore legs consequently stand 
 somewhat under him, will draw a heavy load with more ease to 
 himself, and stand more of it, than a horse with a shoulder sloping 
 much back. The heaviest shire horse should be able to walk at a 
 good pace, but the brisk walk should be the fastest pace required 
 from him. Where much trotting is demanded, as well as heavy 
 pulling, a lighter draft horse should be selected. 
 
 15. — As a sire, the Shire Horse betrays his varied and 
 uncertain pedigree, as he does not transmit his qualities with the 
 certainty of the Thoroughbred, or even of the Clydesdale. 
 
 If long-continued in his present form, the characteristics of 
 the race will become more fixed, and for a combination of 
 moderate, useful activity, with great power, docility, and consti- 
 tution, the Shire Horse of the present day has never been equalled. 
 
 THE CLYDESDALE HORSE, 
 
 IC— The Clydesdale horse, like the men who have cultivated 
 him, is not without his faults, but his merits have l)een sufficient 
 to take him wherever a Scotchman goes, and that must be a poor 
 country indeed, if such a country there be, where there are no 
 Scotchmen and no Clydesdales. As guiding whips are superseded 
 by reins, and walking drivers are displaced by seated pilots in the 
 streets of London, the Black Lincolns disappear, and even the 
 Shire Horses are giving place to the lighter, more active and 
 
SCOTCHMEN AND THEIR HORSES. 11 
 
 hotter tempered Clydesdale. The horses that have long proved 
 the best for hurrying through the short catching seasons of seed 
 time and harvest in the climate of Scotland, are now chosen by 
 the best judges of horseflesh for the trotting spring waggons that 
 are started to keep pace with these railway times in our cities. 
 
 17. — Inferior to the Shire Horse in size, power, constitution, 
 and placidity, he is better able to meet any pace required from 
 him, is a smaller feeder, and is more easily matched in form and 
 colour. It would be useless to repeat the traditions as to how this 
 horse originated. By some we are told that he is a cross with the 
 Flanders horse, by others with the Thoroughbred. He is probably 
 both. No British breed of cart horses is likely to be entirely 
 without Flanders blood, but the Clydesdale shows less of it than 
 most others. Like all other good animals we know, his size and 
 quality have no doubt been obtained by judicious crosses, and the 
 desired characteristics fixed by long, careful selection of the fittest 
 and best for breeding purposes. It is evident that he has been 
 subject to less recent crosses than the Shire Horse, as he exhibits 
 less variation of stamp, form, and character ; is everywhere known 
 by his true, peculiar Clydesdale head, and he transmits his 
 qualities with considerable certainty. It is this fixed character, 
 even more than the prejudices of his countrymen in his favour, 
 that has caused him to be so much sought for by our colonists. 
 We once heard an Englishman say to a Scotchman, who was about 
 to remit £500 to the old country for a Clydesdale Horse, " Why 
 don't you send to England and get something fit to put into the 
 shafts of a waggon, or to take a load through a river?" " Weel," 
 said the Scotchman, "I might get a very fine horse, I might get 
 an elephant, or I might get a camel, but I always like to know 
 what I am going to get for my money." 
 
 18. — The Clydesdale is generally brown or bay, but some- 
 times black. Stephen's book of the farm is perhaps responsible for 
 the extent to which white legs and faces have lately been tolerated. 
 They are no doubt often found on exceedingly good horses, but 
 they do not make them good, whilst they greatly spoil the 
 appearance of any horse, and thereby lessen his market value. 
 Hair on the legs has been absurdly cultivated, and does not 
 
12 WIDE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 harmonize with the quality and action of the animal. The most 
 general fault of the Clydesdale's form is, not being deep enough in 
 the barrel for a cart horse, and too long in the legs. Shortness of 
 body has been much aimed at by the breeders, and is too often 
 accompanied with a tucked up back rib, better suited for a race 
 horse. No horse is more easily broken to his work, and in the 
 hands of a Scotch ploughman lie usually takes well to the collar. 
 With good treatment the temper is good, but it is not easy or 
 placid, and under noisy, blustering, passionate drivers, the horse 
 suffers much, and tears himself to pieces. 
 
 19. — Next to the Thoroughbred, the Clydesdale can claim 
 to have been well sought wherever the English language is 
 spoken. The great English iirm of carriers, Pickford and Co., 
 are said to engage the exclusive services of a horse dealer in 
 Scotland to purchase these horses wherever he can. Agents are 
 often sent fi'om the South of England to purchase Clydesdale 
 stallions for the use of particular districts. In Canada the same 
 sire has everywhere left his mark. In the United States the 
 now fashionable Percheron is making a change, but still the 
 Clydesdale head is often seen even on the G-rey trotters. In 
 Australia he continues to gain ground, whilst in New Zealand he 
 is more exclusively used, is bred with as much care, is about as 
 numerous, and averages a higher standard than in Scotland 
 itself. 
 
 20. — In no part of the world have we seen the capabilities 
 of this horse tested as they now are in some parts of the 
 antipodes of his own country. 
 
 On a large farm, on which twelve thousand acres are 
 cultivated, in the South of New Zealand, we have seen these 
 horses at work in teams of six, drawing a treble furrow plough, 
 and turning over five acres of good wheat land six inches deep, 
 in eight hours. The lands were more than a mile long, and 
 the pace so fast, that men could not be got to walk behind the 
 horses. This was met by a simple contrivance of a little one- 
 Avheeled carriage, fixed behind the plough, in such a position that 
 a man could ride within reach of his steering handle. The 
 teams started at 8 a.m., and left the field at 5 p.m., getting a 
 
BOARD AND LODGING. 13 
 
 feed from nosebags, and water from buckets, between twelve and 
 one. No whips arc nscd or carried ; tlie slowest liorses are put 
 behind where they may be touched with the reins, but that is 
 rarely necessary, and there are far more complaints of the horses 
 being too fast than too slow. Each horse in the winter <j'ets 
 18 lbs. oats, and 1-1 lbs. of cut straw a day, witli a pick of rough 
 grass on Sundays, or any convenient opportunity. First-class 
 oats on the farm are only worth about one shilling and fourpence 
 a bushel. During the coldest and wettest mouths of winter 
 the horses were worked within reach of a stable, but during the 
 greater part of the year they are turned out in covers made of 
 canvas lined with felt, in which they do quite as well if not 
 better. 
 
 "21. — The picked men, who each take charge of six lively 
 high conditioned horses, and complete their five acres a day, are 
 paid thirty shillings a week with board and lodging. Their 
 lodging in wooden bunks is of a rough description, and there is 
 little variety in their bill of fare. Bread, meat, potatoes, and 
 " duff," with that colonial beverage, the abominable boiled tea, 
 are supplied in great profusion, but green vegetables, though, 
 easily grown on such land, are neither provided nor demanded. 
 
 22. — At harvest time these men and horses are transferred 
 to the reapers and binders, the men getting 10s. a day for about 
 eleven hours work, and the horses working three at a time in 
 two-hour stages through the day-light, and occasionally all through 
 a moonlight night. 
 
 Extra hands are of course employed to feed and change the 
 horses. No horse could be better adapted than the Clydesdale 
 for such work as this, and we feel thankful that it is no 
 longer done by overworked women and children, such as we 
 used to see from daylight to dark in the English harvest fields. 
 
 THE SUFFOLK PUNCH 
 
 2o. — Was once remarkable for liis low stout build, the loins, 
 being higher than the withers, the colour chestnut, the legs free 
 of long hair, the temper mild and docile, with a readiness to 
 hang on to a dead pull again and again, lie was seldom more 
 
14 NO LONGER A PUNCH. 
 
 than fifteen hands high, often less. There was nothing very 
 showy or handsome abont him, and his clean legs and feet were 
 supposed to be unequal to London stones, although those who 
 knew him best said that they were equal to anything, even to 
 carrying a heavy weight ten miles an hour. 
 
 Although most useful for all ordinary purposes in his own 
 country, he was never the horse to command a high price for city 
 work, and this led to his being crossed and altered to a hia'her, 
 more stylish, but hardly more useful horse. He is still chestnut, 
 has still hair on his legs, is still a good useful horse, but is no 
 longer all that used to be known as a Suffolk Punch, and would 
 no longer surpass the Shire Horse at a pulling match. There is 
 still a prejudice against him for London stones, and compared to 
 other breeds he has made little way out of his own county. His 
 homely virtues have not attracted the attention they deserve. 
 
 THE PERCHERON. 
 
 '2i. — Has l)een described as a " grey trotting cart horse." 
 He originated in France during the present century, and has of 
 late made some way in England, and more in America. He is a 
 cross between the Flanders mare and the lighter horses, with a 
 good deal of the Thoroughbred in them. He has been bred to a 
 tolerably fixed character, and is everywhere admitted to be an 
 active, useful horse. He has plenty of weight, good lungs, and a 
 good command of his clean, light flat legs. Tlie way he has lately 
 made amongst that combination of all civilized nations in the 
 United States, amongst the " cutest " and least conservative of 
 civilized men, leaves no doubt of his valuable qualities. 
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED. 
 
 25. — Between the cart horses described above and the 
 Thoroughbred horse, the varieties are innumerable. Wliatever is 
 wanted may be bred by selecting more or less weight for drawing 
 loads, more or less blood for going fast. Weight can only be 
 drawn by weight, speed in an animal can only be attained by 
 avoiding all dispensible lumber. If you want to draw a load 
 beyond your own powers, you have only to take a man of your 
 
THE HORSE FOR FAST WORK. 15 
 
 own weiii:ht on your back and yon will move with ease a weight 
 that defied all your efforts before. On the other hand if you try 
 to run a mile in the shortest possible time you will find that the 
 weight of a coat or a boot will tell sadly against you, and that it 
 is not your bones and sinews, your muscles, or even your nerves, 
 but your heart and lungs that set the limit to the time in which 
 you can do it. The Shire Horse, with his ponderous weight 
 and patient temper stands at the liead of all equine weight 
 movers, but the English Thoroughbred Horse, with his light 
 body, head, and legs, and magnificent heart and lungs, stands 
 without a rival at the head of every work demanding speed and 
 continuous exertion. 
 
 2(). — Perhaps no animal ever stood so entirely on his own 
 merits as the English Thoroughbred Horse. His performances 
 have shown the fallacy of a thousand theories, have put down a 
 thousand prejudices, and have commanded the practical admiration 
 of those who would gladly have withheld it, and who had strong 
 motives to pull him down from his proud eminence. The more 
 experience a man gets with horses, the less he will calculate on 
 their size, bone or muscle, and the more he will demand to know 
 the pedigree of the horse upon which he is to rely for some 
 extraordinary exertion. The novice may look to the form of the 
 racer upon which he ventures his money, the experienced 
 handicapper or bookmaker enquires for his parentage. The young 
 bushman may expect an active cart horse to best carry him and 
 his heavy baggage day after day tlirongh rivers and forests, or 
 over mountains and plains, the old bush traveller knows by 
 experience that he will only be well carried by something nearly 
 thoroughbred. 
 
 27. — AVe have seen that we cannot accurately trace the origin 
 of any horse, and we intend to avoid all uncertain speculations on 
 the subject ; but we have good data by which we can discover 
 the materials and processes that have combined during the last 
 300 years to form the fastest horse iti the world ; and the inquiry 
 is a very interesting as well as a very instructive one. AVe caimot 
 say that the result is flattering to our national pride ; disinterested 
 devotion, unselfish patriotism, as high and noble aims, do not 
 
16 ENGLISH HORSES IX 1G17. 
 
 figure much in the production ; we must at the outset admit that 
 he is rather the result of our savage wars, our gambling races, and 
 our reckless and extravagant hunting fields. 
 
 28. — The soil and climate of England are favourable for 
 horse breeding, and there is much evidence to prove that even at 
 the time of the Roman invasion the light horses were good. The 
 Normans brought over some of their best war horses with them, 
 and as they took possession of the soil, each Xorman was required 
 to keep a certain numbers of war horses. It was in their power 
 and it was their interest to keep the best, and they were no mean 
 judges. In those days heavy cart horses did not exist in England. 
 Ploughing and heavy draft work was all done by oxen. The slow 
 Flemish draft horse was not introduced until the reign of William 
 III., in 1689. 
 
 2'J. — In a really valuable book on horses, published in 1617, 
 by Gervase Markham, and referred to with much respect by later 
 English writers, the English horse is spoken of as superior to all 
 others. He says : — 
 
 " I do daily find in mine experience that the virtue, goodness, 
 boldness, and endurance of our true bred English horses is equal 
 with any race of horses whatever. Some former writer.-!, whether 
 out of want of experience, or to flatter novelties, have concluded 
 that the English horse is a great strong jade, deep ribbed, sid- 
 bellied, with strong legges and good hoofes, yet fitter for the cart 
 than either saddle or any working employment. How false this 
 is all English horsemen knowe. 
 
 " The true English horse, him I mean that is bred under a 
 good clime, on firme ground, in a pure temperature, is of tall 
 stuture and large proportions ; his head, though not so fine as 
 either the Barbarie's or the Turke's, yet is lean, long, and well- 
 fashioned ; his crest is hie, only subject to thickness if be he 
 stoned, but if he be gelded then it is firm and strong ; his chyne 
 is straight and broad, and all liis limbs large, leaue, flat, and 
 excellently jointed. For their endurance, I have seen them sufl'er 
 and execute as much and more than ever I noted of any foraine 
 creation. 
 
 "J have heard it rei»orted that at the massacre of Paris, 
 
FIRST CROSS. 17 
 
 Montgomerie, taking an English mare in the night, first swam over 
 the Seine and after ran her so many leagues as I fear to nominate, 
 lest mis-construction should tax me ol' too lavish a report. 
 
 " Again, for swiftness, what nation hath brought forth tiiat 
 horse w^hich hath exceeded the English ? When tlie best 
 Barbaries that ever were in their prime, I saw them overrunne by 
 a black hobbie at Salisbury ; yet that hobbie was more overrunne 
 by a horse called Valentine, which Valentine neither in hunting 
 or running was ever equalled, yet was a plain-bred English horse, 
 both by syre and dam. Againe for infinite labour and long- 
 endurance, which is to be desired in our hunting matches, I have 
 not seen any horse to compare with the English. He is of toler- 
 able shape, strong, valiant, and durable." 
 
 30. — Such was the stock on which the Thoroughbred Horse 
 may be said to have been grafted. Barrett, who wrote a few 
 years after Markham, thus refers to the first cross with Eastern 
 blood : — 
 
 "Althougii the Spanish Genet, the Irish Hobby, and the 
 Arabian Courser, are held both by Maister Blundeville and 
 Maister Markham to be the chief for pacing and neat action, 
 there is the bastard stallion begotten by one of them on our 
 English mares, which doth exceed either of them in toughness." 
 
 31. — Both of these books, written in the reign of James I., 
 display much vigour of thought and independence of expression, 
 and bear internal evidence of being truthful. It is not so with 
 books published fifty years later. In a very pretentious book on 
 horsemanship, by Cavendish, who had been created Duke of 
 Newcastle by Charless II., both text and plates are absurdly 
 inaccurate. In such a book we of course read a great deal of the 
 virtues of the English monarch, and nothing of the virtues of 
 the English horse. In a book published at Eome, by an Italian, 
 under the patronage of the Pope, twenty-two years later, the 
 English horse is ignored altogether, although at the same time 
 even the Catholic King James II. knew the English horse to be 
 so superior to any other, that he sent over to England for hunters 
 to use in France. So much must we allow for the effect of 
 royal patronage and sectarian prejudices even in the history of a 
 horse. b 
 
18 EASTERN SIRES. 
 
 32. — The satisfactory result of tlie first cross with Eastern 
 blood, soon led to a great deal of attention being given to the 
 importation of the best Eastern horses. Cromwell for war, and 
 Charles II. for sport, both sent emissaries to the East in search 
 of good horses. The Barb seems to have been chietly used, 
 though often under the name of the Turk or the Arabian. There 
 is much confusion in the manner in which names were applied 
 at this period, not in accordance with the strain of the horses 
 used, but after the name of the country from which they 
 happen to have been imi^orted. Some twenty Oriental horses are 
 known to have been used in the formation of the Thoroughbred 
 between 1620 to 1750, but the pedigree of no English horse 
 can be reliably traced back farther than to Place's White Turk 
 about 1655. Place was Cromwell's stud master, and like all 
 Cromwell's officers, no doubt understood his business. His 
 horse, the White Turk, is known to have been the sire of several 
 horses and mares to which some of our best stock is now traced. 
 The right quantity of Oriental blood seems to have been infused 
 into the English stock, and a new breed of a fixed character 
 formed in little more than one hundred years. No further 
 infusion of Eastern blood has succeeded. All late experiments in 
 that direction have entirely failed, and the superior speed and 
 staying power of the English Thoroughbred Horse is now so 
 undoubted, that no cross whatever can be adopted without 
 deterioration. 
 
 .3.3. — Flying Childers and Eclipse, the one foaled 1715, the 
 other in 1764, are popularly believed to have been the fastest 
 horses that ever existed. They appear to have been the fastest 
 horses of their own day, but the records of their performances 
 against time do not come down to us with the same, or with 
 equal guarantees of accuracy, as those which have been adopted 
 in the records of public events in the present century. In 1771, 
 Richard Berenger, in his " History and Art of Horsemanship," 
 says, " The finer and better sort of the more modern English 
 horses are descended from Arabians and Barbs, and frequently 
 resemble their sires in appearances, bnt differ from them 
 considerably in size and mould, being more furnished, stout, and 
 
" FAIR Ni;r,].. l!t 
 
 lusty : in g-eneral they are strong, nimble, and of good courage 
 capable of enduring excessive fatigue, and both in perseverance 
 and speed surpass all the horses in the world/' 
 
 34. — For nearly two hundred years after the English race 
 horse was admitted to be the fastest horse in the world for the 
 short distances run on an English race course, doubts were from 
 time to time raised in various quarters as to whether he would 
 prove the fastest in a very long distance. The most cruel 
 distances were often proposed but seldom accepted, but whenever 
 they have been accepted the distance has only exhibited the 
 superiority of the Thoroughbred in a stronger light. A most 
 disgusting race came off in 1825, between two Cossack horses 
 and two English horses, for no less a distance than forty-seven 
 miles. The English horses ran away to begin with more than 
 a mile, off the course, and one of them was lamed. Besides this 
 two miles extra, the unlamed horse (Sharper), did the distance 
 in two hours and forty-eight minutes, carrying towards last 
 double the weight of his best opponent, and beating him by 
 eight minutes. A much more decisive and less barbarous race 
 came off in Egypt some 30 or 40 years later, between an Arab 
 horse and an English covert hack, known as Fair Nell, but not in 
 the Stud Book. The challenge was given by Haleem Pacha, who 
 inherited from his father, Abbas Pacha, what was supposed to be 
 the best stud of Arabs in the world. His challenge was accepted 
 by some Cairo merchants, who sent to England and purchased 
 Fair Nell for the purpose. The distance was fixed at eight 
 miles, over a rough stony course, and the mare had to run a 
 fortniglit after her passage from Eugland to Egypt, against 
 the best horse the Pacha could select from his large stud of 
 Arabs. 
 
 35. — Fair Xell ran the distance in eighteen and a lialf 
 minutes, beating her opponent by a mile, and pulling up quite 
 fresh. Thus meeting the Arabs on their own ground and at 
 their own distance, Fair Nell seems to have settled the question 
 of long distances even more decisively than short ones were 
 settled before. Although not in the Stud Book, Fair Nell was 
 evidently thoroughbred, and a tine specimen of her race. Besides 
 
20 AMERICAN TROTTING MATCH. 
 
 her speed and staying power, she was a weight carrier, stood 
 fifteen hands one and a half inches high, with as good a shoulder 
 and foreleg as a riding horse could possibly have." 
 
 It was not until 1791 that the first English Stud Book was 
 published, 
 
 ■ 36. — In America, the same blood has been used, in addition 
 to many other useful purposes, to gratify the natural taste for 
 trotting matches. The descendants of Messenger, the son of 
 Mambrino, imported in 1786, have achieved most success in this 
 line. The horses are often trotted against time, the great 
 ambition being to get a horse to trot twenty miles within an 
 hour. This sounds a cruel distance for such a pace, but we lost 
 many of our prejudices against it when we first saw it done on 
 an American course. 
 
 It may sound paradoxical, but it is nevertheless pretty safe 
 to conclude that a race is never a cruel one if it is really a fast one. 
 Whenever real distress begins the pace must slacken, and the horse 
 can only make good time when in a condition to- do it Avithout 
 any distress. Thus in that barbarous race between Sharper and 
 I he Cossack, the pace was slow, three minutes thirty-four and 
 a half seconds being taken for each mile ; both horses having 
 been urged on long after they were distressed and exhausted. 
 But in the comparatively humane race between Fair Nell and 
 the Arah the pace was fast, each mile being performed in two 
 minutes eighteen and three quarter seconds, thus proving that 
 the last mile was done with unexhausted energy. 
 
 37. — We will briefly describe the race against time, which 
 made us feel more happy about American trotting matcthes. We 
 were waiting in San Francisco for a steamer towards the end of 
 1871, when we saw in the morning papers that a large wager had 
 been laid that a certain mare, unknown to fame, would trot that 
 day twenty miles within the hour. We were told by the local 
 sages that she was not at all likely to succeed ; that she was now 
 sixteen years old, and that she had been sold in her prime for forty 
 dollars. Eeasons were also given for believing that the wager was 
 fictitious, and only got up to draw some greenhorns into a trap. 
 
 On arriving at the course we tried to be as knowing as the cute 
 
STARTING. 21 
 
 meu who surrounded us, and soou thouglit that we saw a good 
 deal to confirm this suspicious view of tlie event about to come 
 off. 
 
 But nothing takes the verj^ knowing ones in on any race 
 course like a Ijit of simple straightforward honesty. The most 
 prominent feature on the ground was a man in an auctioneer's 
 pulpit, gibbering away about something, and Avho, we were told, 
 was getting bids or deposits against the mare, or against time. 
 With a little assistance from an interpreter, we understood that 
 time was the favourite, and that the mare was little trusted. 
 
 38. — The course was a half mile circle, of hard binding sand, 
 kept just wet enough to keep down dust, and on which no visible 
 impression was made by the foot or wheels. The sulky was two 
 light high wheels, with a pair of very light shafts, and just seat 
 enough built on them to hold one man. No springs were wanted 
 on such a road. 
 
 The mare was a common-looking little chestnut, under 
 fifteen hands, and a close set, rather than a reachy-looking 
 animal : and yet there was much about her that reminded us of 
 the description which Frank Forester's correspondent gives of old 
 Messenger himself. There were especially the double-sized 
 nostrils and wind pipe, the low wither, yet deep chest, with strong 
 loins and hind quarters. 
 
 She seemed under no excitement, yet extraordinary provisions 
 were being made to hold her back. Another sulky, with a light- 
 headed, long-legged horse, was placed in front of her ; and as her 
 driver took his seat he wound a rein round each hand as if pre- 
 paring to be drawn entirely by the mare's mouth. The horse 
 before her started off at a gallop, the mare soon did the same, and 
 much time was lost in pulling her into a trot. This was repeated 
 again and again, and, as the first mile had occupied nearly four 
 minutes, a shout of derisive laughter ran through the crowd, as if 
 the whole thing had been settled against the mare. It was, how- 
 ever, soon understood that the race was not yet begun, and that 
 time would not be cried until the mare had settled, down to her 
 work. This was not done for another mile or two, and when time 
 was cried she was boring her head almost through the frail sulky 
 
2'2 WON WITHOUT DISTRESS. 
 
 that was being drawn at a gallop before her, whilst each hind leg 
 seemed to reach alternately almost to the back of the sulky which 
 she was drawing entirely by the reins. Still, each mile took a few 
 seconds more than three minutes, and time was still the favourite 
 at the noisy auction mart. This continued until the leading, or 
 rather the restraining sulky, with its exhausted horse, turned out 
 of the course and the mare was left alone. 
 
 Now, for the first time, the sight was a pretty one, the 
 galloping panting horse no longer obstructed the view, and the 
 mare's hind and fore legs were a study as they came i^ast. It was 
 evident that it was the strong hind quarters that were dashing 
 those hind legs so far back, and that the short fore legs had only 
 to plant themselves well out of the way ; whilst the lungs were 
 supplying all that was wanted, as quietly as they had done the 
 first mile. 
 
 39. — She now began to do each mile three or four seconds 
 within the time, so that time went dowai and the mare went up 
 at the noisy pulpit. When seventeen miles had been accomplished 
 she had several seconds in hand, and the owner cried to the 
 driver " Don't harry, you have plenty of time." To which he 
 replied, " I can t hold her any harder, sir." 
 
 40. — The race was won with something to spare, the mare 
 showing no symptom of distress. As she was led through the 
 crowd she snatched a handful of hay that was oflFered her by a 
 bystander, and ate it as if her lungs had nothing particular to do. 
 It must be evident that had the mare been in the slightest degree 
 distressed she could not have continued to improve her pace as 
 she went on. 
 
 41. — On the racecourse the Thoroughbi'ed has been treated 
 chiefly as a gambling machine, and by racing men has been bred 
 with the mere object of getting an animal that could gallop over 
 a mile or two in the least possible time. So long as he could do 
 this his general utility, his size, his power, his temper, his 
 soundness, his beauty, his safety, were all matters of indifference. 
 A horse may excel in all these points and yet not be worth one 
 hundred pounds, whereas if he can run a mile in one second less 
 than any other horse, he is worth ten thousand pounds as a winner 
 of cups and bets. 
 
WHAT MAKES HORSKS FAST. 2f{ 
 
 4:^. — At first sight these facts may appear to prove that the 
 race course has done and will do nothing to improve or sustain 
 a superior breed of horses, and yet it is not so. Fortniuitely tlie 
 one thin^' required by the gamblers cannot be obtained alone. 
 There must be docility enough to make the horse controllable 
 under the utmost excitement ; there must be toughness enough 
 to stand the racket of tlie most trying pace, and the wear and 
 tear of severe training ; there must be digestive organs good 
 enough to supply the best possible blood ; tlierc must be animal 
 brain and moter nerves of high quality ; and above all there 
 must be heart and lungs good enough to completely oxygenize 
 a large supply of blood in the least possible time. Now all these 
 are qualities that add to the value of any horse, and many of 
 tlieui are qualities that the eye of the best judge could never 
 estimate with the certainty with which they are proved on the 
 racecourse. Men could judge something of the bones, sinews, 
 muscles, and form of the horse, and in so doing often expected 
 to select with certainty the best, but experience proved that 
 they could not do so. The brain, the nerves, the heart, and the 
 lungs were always out of sight, and the best judges were always 
 at fault. They condemned the Godolphin Arabian to a shop 
 keepers cart, and refused to use him as a sire until ten years old, 
 when Lath, his then only son by a good mare, proved on the 
 race course that his father had latent qualities which fitted him, 
 as they had destined him to be the progenitor of the most 
 successful animals that have since figured in the British Stud 
 Book. 
 
 Eclipse was never trained until five years old, and qualities 
 which enabled him to enrich more than one owner, and to 
 distance all competitoi's, were only discovered by trial and 
 competition. 
 
 43. — There is one great defect which racing meu can tolci'ate 
 jn the horse, and that is low, unsafe action. They even like it, 
 because it enables the horse to get over a distance with less 
 exertion. This is a defect which makes many a race horse of 
 little value for any other purpose. Another mislortune is that 
 the mere racing or gambling machine need not be large. A small 
 
24 BREEDS. 
 
 horse is often as fast as a large one ; indeed a very large strong 
 horse, however well bred, is rarely fast enough for the purpose : 
 there must be quality, but. there need not be quantity. Any extra 
 weight about the feet and legs which are moved at a great 
 meehanical disadvantage (18) is fatal to the pace that alone can 
 win in a fast race. A mere weed that is unsafe to ride at a 
 walk may be a better gambling machine than a horse fit to carry 
 a dake weighing sixteen stone over a five feet fence. Here 
 fortunately another human weakness has helped to save the race- 
 horse from hopeless degeneration. The breeder is never sure 
 that any horse he may breed will be fast enough to race 
 successfully : six out of seven that are bred for the purpose are 
 not so ; consequently he looks to the hunting field as a possible 
 destination for the horse he breeds, and the huntsman will have 
 nothing to do with him unless his action is safe and his foi'e 
 legs strong. Thus a potent motive is always at work to induce 
 the I.iroeder of Tlioroughbi-eds to select horses fit to carry a 
 heavy weight in the hunting field, and if fit for that they are 
 fit for any fast work. 
 
 44. — But much as the race course and the hunting field 
 have done to keep up the quality of the Briiish Thoroughbred 
 Horse, he has never been left entirely to their unaided influence. 
 During the two and a half centuries that he may be said to 
 have existed, we have never been without men of means 
 and patriotism, and judgment, whose love of the horse for his 
 own sake has made them something tar more than mere race- 
 horse breeders. 
 
 Xot a few lords of the British soil have made the improvment 
 of the horse the chief business of their lives, the one channel 
 through which they have sought distinction, and whilst such 
 men have tried hard to win races, they have tried to do so with 
 really good horses. The late Earl of Glasgow made it a business 
 rather than a hobby, and often failed on the turf because his 
 horses were too strong and useful. The valuable stud he collected 
 has done much since his death to improve the size, power, beauty, 
 and usefulness of the light horses of the world. Such studs supply 
 the material by which all the valuable quality and pace of the 
 
OAME TO THK LAST. 25 
 
 Thoronglibred is obtainecl, without getting too sniiill Cor the 
 hunting field, the cavalry, the carriage, or the traveller's horse. 
 
 4;""), — The fine strong, bony, but low-bred animals that 
 could look or hop over any fence in cold blood, and carry any 
 weight on parade, are no longer used by experienced ambitious 
 hunters. They have found that it is not bone and muscle, but 
 heart and lungs that must carry them through a long burst, and 
 that even an Arab pony, whose heart and lungs can keep up 
 with his little legs at any pace, is a safer animal to ride over a 
 fence at the end of half an hour's gallop, than the biggest horse 
 whose nerves and muscles can no longer act for want of oxygen. 
 
 The coach or carriage driver has found the same. The fine 
 Cleveland bays that pranced so nobly and started the coach so 
 easily are staggering and trembling with heaving flanks when 
 the cruel stage is half over, whilst the little Thoroughbreds are 
 ready to run away at the end of it. 
 
 4G. — On the battle field, in pursuit or retreat, through the 
 cold wild wastes of Canada, or over the snows of the Eocky 
 Mountains, in the waterless deserts of Australia, or through the 
 floods and over the mountains of New Zealand, the Thoroughbred 
 carries his rider as no other animal can do, enduring hunger, 
 cold, heat, or thirst, despising fatigue and pain, getting lighter and 
 weaker every day, but still responding to every call, and often 
 saving the life of an ungrateful and exacting rider at the expense 
 of his own. 
 
 PONIES. 
 
 47. — The term everywhere means a small horse, but the limit 
 varies in every locality, so that pony may mean a horse under 
 eleven, or under fifteen hands high. The old fashioned, hardy, 
 bad shouldered ponies of the New Forest, Exmoor, or Wales, 
 have all been crossed witli small Thoroughbreds, until any 
 distinctive character about them is lost. Thev are all active 
 enduring animals, capable of carrying light weights to a great 
 distance, but they are no longer fit to take the place of donkeys, 
 or to carry without bridles panniers loaded with children. 
 
 48. — The bhetland pony alone retains its character. The 
 
26 SHETLANDS UNDERGROUND. 
 
 peat bogs of Scotland do not suit even a cross with the 
 Thoroughbred, so that the little rough shaggy animals may still 
 be found in all their interesting docility, littleness, and ugliness. 
 The most active demand for tliem, and probably the most useful 
 occupation they ever had, arose about forty years ago, when the 
 legislature mercifully decreed that women and children should no 
 longer be nsed as beasts of burden on underground tramways. 
 Since then these little cart horses have worked in places too low 
 for any bigger animal, and some of them have drawn trucks 
 twenty miles a day for sixteen years without ever seeing daylight, 
 or breathing the fresh air with which they were supplied so 
 abundantly in their infancy. Their little legs and short backs 
 sometimes get broken, but their wonderful eyes and lungs seem 
 to stand as those of few other animals would do. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 STABLING, CLOTHING, AND CLEANING. 
 
 49. — Though adapted only for a temperate climate, the 
 horse has a constitution that enables him to endure a great deal 
 of cold or heat. When habitually exposed to much cold and wet 
 nature will provide him a good coat of thatch, but such an 
 immovable ap))endage is not convenient for hard work, and 
 especially disqualifies him for the severe though short exertion 
 that the light horse is so often required to perform. He is 
 better qualified for any kind of work by being sheltered from 
 severe cold and rain, but this should be done without excluding 
 him too much from fresh air and light, and without long 
 depriving him of the exercise his active limbs demand. 
 
 50. — We have no lessons to give in architecture : that is not 
 our fort. Horses, like children, thrive quite as well in a mud 
 house as in a marble mansion, so long as they get the sun and 
 pure air free to all, the water as it comes from the clouds, and 
 food adapted to the machinery that must appropriate it. When 
 called on to build a residence, either for themselves or their 
 horses, most wealthy men like to put up something original, or to 
 carry out some particular crotchet of their own. It is well that 
 there are men with such tastes, nor is superfluous wealth often 
 better spent. But those who have no money to spare would 
 always be more safe to look for some building already erected, 
 containing all the convenience needed, and to copy it exactly. 
 However simple, or however elaborate the structure desired, 
 something can be found as a pattern, and in nine cases out of 
 ten, the result will be more satisfactory and economical than 
 paying for any experiments of your own or of your architect. 
 
28 ROOFS AND FLOORS. 
 
 51. — The situation of the stable should be dry and sunny, and 
 openings for air and light be on the sunny side of the building. 
 The walls may be any non-conducting material that is most easily 
 obtained in the locality. Height is always advantageous, and 
 there should be some opening high up that should never be closed. 
 If the horses are to be kept warm it must be done with clothing 
 or with fire, and not with bad air. No roof is so comfortable as 
 thatch, no floor so good as clay. 
 
 52. — The clay must be kept well above the surrounding 
 gi'ound, and should be nearly a foot thiclc, putting it rather 
 higher in those parts where there will be most wear and pressure. 
 Ram it hard, and keep it quite level and ft'ee from holes. A 
 horse is greatly injured by the common practice of standing with 
 his fore legs higher than the hind ones, or with either of them 
 in holes. The clay may be loosened with a pick and re-levelled 
 whenever it wears in holes. A small part of it will daily and 
 advantageously find its way to the manure heap, and when any 
 part gets thin and low, or emits any smell, it may be picked up 
 and removed for manure, putting a new bed of clay in its place. 
 This will be found far better than any kind of stone floor, 
 as besides being uninjurious to the horses feet, clay is the best of 
 deodorisers, and keeps the air of a stable more fit to meet the 
 eyes or lungs. Any kind of smooth stones are dangerous, and 
 too slippery for the horse to rise on when laid down. Nothing- 
 could be much worse than the rough pavement made with small 
 stones put close together, so commonly used. It is impossible to 
 clean it or to prevent it smelling strongly, as stones do not 
 deodorise, whilst it is distressing to a horse's feet and destructive 
 to his shoes. Where appearances and great neatness are 
 principal considerations a clay floor with all its sanitary 
 advantages will hardly be accepted. In that case concrete will 
 be the best material, if made rough enough for the horse to get 
 a good foot hold on it. It will not deodorise, but it will not 
 absorb, and can be washed perfectly clean. Contractors are fond 
 of putting it down in layers, with the largest proportion of cement 
 at the top. This does not answer at all, the whole four inches of 
 concrete should be put down at once, and of the same strength 
 
SINGLE BEDS. 29 
 
 throughout. A foundatiou should be laid of stoues, or flints, 
 or brickbats, well rammed, so as not to sink afterwards. The 
 concrete is then prepared by mixing one part Portland cement 
 with five parts (by measure) small pebbles, about the size of a 
 blackbird's egg, mixed with a little coarse grit, but entirely free 
 from earth or vegetable mould, which would destroy all its 
 strength. "When the five parts of this gravel have been well 
 mixed with the one part Portland cement, on a floor where it can 
 pick up no earth, it must be carefully wetted so as not to 
 wash the cement out of it, and quickly laid in its place. Wet no 
 more at a time than can be put down in ten minutes, and keep 
 it moving until laid in its place, as if it sets at all and is broken 
 up again its great strength is lost. No horse should be admitted 
 on it for a week, and would be better kept off for a month, 
 
 53.— It is very desirable that each horse should have a box 
 to himself, even though it should be only ten feet square, as 
 tying up in one fixed position, even for one whole night, is 
 injurious and unnatural to a horse. Failing this his stall should 
 be six feet wide, and the sides free from any projections liable to 
 injure him when lying down. The plan sometimes adopted in 
 cart stables, of tying all the horses up to a manger without any 
 partitions between them is dangerous, and prevents their proper 
 rest. However quiet and reconciled to each other the horses 
 may be they will be liable to tread on each other's feet, and we 
 have known a most valuable horse killed in that way. The foot 
 mortifying from a wound with the turned down heel of a shoe. 
 
 CLOTHING. 
 
 54. — The horse for fast work should be clothed in the 
 winter ; for very fast work he should be clothed all the year 
 round. It will make him look better, do his work better, and 
 cost less to feed. When it is required that he should do his 
 work in good style, and when he will be thoroughly and regularly 
 cared for, his natural winter coat may be clipped off' at the 
 beginning of winter, and its place supplied with warm movable 
 clothing. No experienced labourer attempts to work hard 
 in the same coat that he wears when at rest, and it is equally 
 
30 COAT TAKEN OFF FOR WORK, 
 
 advantai^eous to the horse to have liis great coat taken oif for 
 work, and pnt on when his work is done. But as he does not 
 do it for himself there must be no neglect on tlie part of his 
 attendant. A horse so treated is most liable to suffer by being 
 kept waiting for *' my lady " half an hour after bis cloth has 
 been taken off, and before he has had an opportunity to warm 
 himself by exercise, as even when the attempt is made he 
 cannot be well covered over with the harness on. In such a 
 case the coachman should be instructed to drive about until 
 wanted, or at least to give his horses one brisk troL before they 
 are called on to stand, even though it should splash the carriage 
 a little. 
 
 Do what you will, horses that have been clipped in winter 
 will never carry such good spring coats as those that have not 
 been clipped. The horse for slow work that frequently has to 
 stand about in all weathers without much attention to his 
 clothing, had better be allowed to keep on his natural coat, but 
 the winter coat of any horse may be much shortened by clothing 
 him early in autumn, and feeding and cleaning him very carefully 
 though liberally. 
 
 55,— In any moderate weather, perhaps in any weather not 
 Avet, the horse for slow work does better turned out after being 
 well fed, with a covering of felt inside and canvas outside (20), 
 fastened so that he cannot rub, roll, or get it blown off. He 
 never takes cold when thus allowed to move his limbs and shift 
 his position. He breathes the purest air, and will keep in better 
 health than he will do tied up in a stable. He will take no harm 
 even in wet weather, but when raining or snowing he had better 
 be under a shed if one is available, but not tied up in a cold 
 draft. "Warm clothing is in every way better than warm 
 housing, as it is always compatible with free motion and pure 
 air. Picking some rough green food, though it should be only a 
 furze bush, to mix with his dry hay and corn, will save his 
 wind and promote his health. 
 
 CLEANING. 
 
 56. — Long before the average Englishman, or the average 
 physician, had discovered how much advantage was to be gained 
 
CROOMS WISK UKFOUi: PHYSICIANS. 31 
 
 by 11 little daily attention to the cleanliness of his own cuticle, 
 every trainer, and every observant coachman, knew how much 
 the health, beauty, and power of tlie horse could be increased 
 by the daily vigorous friction of his skin. There is no difl'ercuee 
 of opinion amongst trainers on this subject. Indeed the skin is 
 the principal index by which the chance of any well bred horse 
 to win the Derby or other great race is estimated. No matter 
 how good the horse may be, however well he may have been 
 bred, fed, clothed, or exercised, if his skin has been neglected, it 
 is perfectly understood that he has no chance of winning. 
 
 07. — Animal life and vigour are only maintained by a 
 
 constant pulling down of old material and building up of new. 
 
 The pulling down is just as essential and important as the 
 
 building up, and is done by more delicate machinery, and 
 
 therefore more liable to obstruction. With the ordinary well 
 
 fed man or horse, it is hardly too much to say that if you take 
 
 care of the pulling down, the building will take care of itself. Tf 
 
 the skin is not rapidly carrying away the old material, it is no 
 
 use for the digestive organs to be rapidly preparing new, and they 
 
 will not do it. To force nutritions food upon an animal under 
 
 that condition is like pouring more water into a flooded flower 
 
 pot, when there is no provision for the stagnant water to escape. 
 
 When the utmost health and vigour are demanded, every one of 
 
 the millions of minute pores that open out of the skin must be 
 
 kept in good working order, and helped to get rid of its burden 
 
 as easily and expeditiously as possible. If we could take off the 
 
 horse's hair and put it on again at pleasure, as we do our own 
 
 clothes, we could treat him as we do ourselves, and frequently 
 
 wash his skin, but as we cannot remove his clothes, the cleaning 
 
 of his skin pores and the removal of all that they bring to the 
 
 surface must principally be done with a brush. Not with an 
 
 iron scratching machine that would wound and close the 
 
 extremely minute and delicate pores, but with a vigourously 
 
 applied hair brush, that will keep them all clean, open, and at 
 
 full work. We are writing just now of well bred and well 
 
 groomed horses, whose skin and its covering are totally different 
 
 things to that of the cart horse or Shetland pony, unclothed, 
 
 ungroomed, and lying out in cold weather. 
 
32 ADAPTING BRUSH TO SKIN. 
 
 58. — In training and hunting stables a great deal of time 
 and hard work are well spent in brushing the horses skin. In 
 a gentleman's stable Avhere moderately high condition and 
 appearance are demanded, a strong man should work at least an 
 hour a day on each horse, as soon as possible after the horses 
 come in from their work or exercise. A rather stiff hair brush 
 may generally be used, but there is a very great difference in 
 the sensitiveness of different horses, and the brush should be 
 carefully adapted to them. A tender skinned sensitive horse is 
 often made vicious for want of attention to this. Most horses 
 too have some part of the legs or body on which they are really 
 ticklish, and every part must be cleaned. 
 
 Here, as in everything else, there must be no fighting with 
 your horse. Don't jump to the absurd conclusion that the horse 
 is neither sensitive nor ticklish, but only wants an excuse to hurt 
 someone. Many horses playfully threaten to kick or bite whilst 
 being cleaned, that never do either, and a good tempered groom 
 will soon find that out, and feel no alarm or concern about it. 
 But generally the threatening is the horse's only way to tell the 
 groom that he is ticklish, or that the brush is too hard for his 
 
 tender skin. 
 
 59. — If a softer brush makes no difference, and the horse 
 evidently means biting, get a bridle fitted with a very large 
 smooth wooden bit, too large for him to shut his mouth with it, 
 and put it on him before you begin to clean him. This will not 
 only make it impossible for him to bite you, but it will divert 
 his attention, and probably keep liira employed in attempts to 
 expel the awkward but harmless mouthful. If no such bit is at 
 hand, any short bit of stick the right size may be tied into his 
 mouth by the halter. If he evidently means kicking, clean all his 
 fore quarters first, and leave any part that he objects to for the 
 last. Then, if you have an assistant, get him to hold up one of 
 the horse's fore legs, whilst you gently and steadily rub the 
 ticklish part in such a way as to convince him that he will not be 
 hurt. Be quite sure that your brush is not too hard, and that 
 you are not really hurting him. If no assistant can be had, put 
 knee caps on the horse, and put plenty of litter under him ; untie 
 
KEPT FROM KK'KrNC. 3;) 
 
 Jiim I'runi tlie mangcf, and strap up one of liis fore legs (;'..');>;. 
 Then ji-o carefully to work, he can't hurt you, and you must take 
 care not to make him hurt himself. Do not keep one leg strapped 
 up more than ten minutes, but put it down and strap the other 
 if necessary. Do notliing in a hurry or in a temper, and when 
 his leg is up remember that the object is not to show the horse 
 you can hurt him, but that you will not hurt him. If the horse 
 is young and so fresh and restive as to be likely to hurt himself 
 with his leg strapped up, which very few horses will do, he must 
 be taken into a deeply littered or tanned loose box or yard, or 
 into a ploughed field. There his leg may be strapped up with 
 safety to himself, and he will soon be tired of any plunging. 
 When thus subdued, give the ticklish part a great deal of gentle 
 handling so as to get him accustomed to it, and to give him 
 confidence in your treatment. Chauge the strapped leg again 
 and again if necessary. If you cannot thus entirely cure him of 
 the liability to kick, he will soon get so accustomed to have his 
 leg strapped up that there will be no danger of his hurting 
 himself about it. The horse which merely shows you the way he 
 could kickf by lifting up his leg and putting it slowly back, is 
 only a good tempered horse warning you off. The really vicious 
 dangerous horse kicks suddenly without warning, and his kicking 
 leg moves at a pace too rapid for the eye to follow. 
 
 60. — Whenever you approach the hind quarters of a kicking 
 or suspected horse, make a point of observing which of his hind 
 legs is carrying the principal weight of the body, and approach 
 him on that side, as before he can kick you he must change th-e 
 weight unto the other leg, which will give you plenty of notice. 
 Such a horse will almost invariably take the weight off the leg 
 yo'.i are cleaning, it is therefore best to clean the leg farthest 
 from 3'ou, standing close to the front side of the other. The foot 
 is the long end of a lever, which gains velocity by distance, so 
 that a kick at the starting point is nothing very serious ; at four 
 or five feet distance the velocity is very great, and the l)low 
 very dangerous. 
 
 61. — Either the kick or the bite of a vicious horse is very 
 severe, and we must not be understood as advising any one to 
 c 
 
r>4 HOW TO WASH. 
 
 despise either. A cool headed man with a good eye, who has 
 learned to read the ears and motions of a horse, will see how to 
 keep ont of real danger, and such men are hardly ever hurt. 
 A fussy, timid, bad tempered man has no business at such work. 
 It is no doubt unwise for anyone to keep a really vicious horse, 
 but some men enjoy a daily triumph over them, or the real 
 pleasure of removing their bad habits. Only such men should 
 handle vicious horses, just as street Arabs are only successfully 
 taken in hand by ladies of a similar taste. 
 
 i'r2. — The cart horse is a less sensitive and more patient 
 animal, whose thicker skin is deeply covered with hair. They 
 are seldom troublesome to clean, and the cleansing they get is 
 generally of a superficial character. The long continuous 
 exercise they take in the open air, is more favourable to the 
 expulsion of waste, both by the skin and the lungs, whilst such 
 very high condition is not demanded by an animal whose lungs 
 are le?s severely tried, and whose daily exertions are spread over 
 eight or ten hours. 
 
 68. — A long neglected skin will be got into good order 
 most quickly by a few good washings. For this purpose the 
 horse should be made very hot with exercise — the hotter the 
 better — then quickly and thoroughly washed and scrubbed with 
 warm water, scraping the water well out of his hair with a 
 piece of hoop iron, and riding or moving him about in the open 
 air until quite dry. The fear of taking cold after the use of 
 warm water on either horses or men is only one of the bug-bears 
 that are kept up to prevent the use of water. Neither horse nor 
 man will readily take cold on a really clean skin, w'hether made 
 so by warm or cold watei-, and the child just out of its daily 
 warm bath may roll in snow with far more safety than the child 
 who has had no bath at all. Very warm water will injure the 
 appearance of any hair for some hours or days afterwards. 
 
 04. — The practice w^hicli nature has taught the horse to 
 adopt to clean his own skin has probably many advantages beyond 
 those which we can see, and is one that should not he entirely 
 ignored by those whose aim it is to keep the horse in the highest 
 possible state of health. However well a horse maybe cleaned 
 
USE OF ROLIJN(^. 3o 
 
 he likes to take an occasional rub on his owu account, and the 
 deodorizing earth that he works into his skin has uncjucstionably 
 some advantageous effect. AVith the gentleman's groom with 
 whom appeai'ance is usually the first object, such etlbrts of the 
 horse for his own welfare are never likely to receive much 
 oncouragement ; but with the trainer, who has a higher object 
 to attain, and who, if observant and reflective, has learned to 
 suspect something advantageous to the horse in everything that 
 nature dictates to him, rolling will not be forbidden, but special 
 facilities offered to make it effective. 
 
 In fine weather when the horse comes in warm from exercise 
 his cloths may be taken off, and putting a long line on his neck 
 lead him at once to a piece of ploughed ground or loose earth, 
 and let him roll on it as long as he will. 
 
 The sweet earth he will work into his skin will carry out 
 S(3me impurities with it, and although it may not improve the 
 appearance of the groom's brushes or cloths, it will improve 
 their smell, and better fit them for their main object. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 65. — The natural food of the horse is grass : there is nothing 
 else upon which he will grow so large, keep so healthy, or live so 
 long. His alimentary canal can accommodate itself to the dry 
 seedless stalks of winter, to the green foliage of spring, or to the 
 nutritious seed pods of summer. On the stalks he keeps healthy, 
 on the green foliage he grows or fattens, on the seed pods he 
 attains his utmost power and vigour. 
 
 60. — From these facts we learn at once from the teaching 
 of infallible nature upon what to feed liim for any required 
 purpose. Do we want him healthy and quiet but dull and 
 spiritless, and capable of no great amount of work, we give him 
 hay or even sweet straw. Do we want him fat, soft, and sleek, 
 though liable to puff like a fat man or woman, at his work, we 
 supply him with abundance of green grass. Do we want him 
 full of life and spirits, capable of desperate exertions or of working 
 steadily on for eiglit hours a day, we give him about the same 
 proportion of seed or corn, with the woody fibre on which it 
 grows, that nature gives him with ears of summer grass or grain 
 that he crops, and it is most important that we should find out 
 exactly what that proportion is, as it will show us at once the 
 utmost limit of concentration for which nature has adapted his 
 assimilating organs. 
 
 67. — Under the most luxurious provision that nature ever 
 makes for him, that is when the grasses and cereals are full of 
 matured seeds, he cannot procure those seeds for himself with 
 less than from two to three times their bulk of chaff', hay, or 
 straw, and accordingly we find that his alimentary canal is not 
 adapted for anything of a more concentrated or less fibrous 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF FEEDING. 37 
 
 character than that mixture would constitute, rnmixed seed 
 or corn always injures him, and injures him more or less just in 
 proportion as it contains less or more of rough woudy tibre in 
 itself. 
 
 Thus coarse seeds such as prairie, kangaroo, Maori, cock's- 
 foot, or rye grass seed, or oats, surrounded as they are with a 
 rough fibrous husk, may with some difficulty be passed through 
 his digestive organs ; but such seeds as wheat, which are 
 surrounded with no fibrous liusk, are absolutely poison to him, 
 and if allowed or compelled to eat them, in an unmixed state, 
 they will kill him with great pain. 
 
 68. — Inattention to these simple, plain, but most important 
 teachings of nature, has led to much suftering to the horse, and 
 much loss to his owner. The poor animal has often been killed 
 with kindness by those who intended to be his best friends. 
 How often have we seen a heavy feed of unmixed oats given to a 
 horse in the morning, as a preparation for the longest or hardest 
 day's work ever expected from him, and the same food put before 
 him at every stage of the journey. It is true that it does not 
 often kill him as unmixed wheat would do, but it makes him 
 uncomfortable from the first, and the discomfort increases with 
 every feed, until he refuses corn altogether, and suffers more 
 through the day with the pain and weakness inseparable from 
 indigestion and disordered bowels, than he would have done 
 with twice the work on a mixture of food fitted for his stomach. 
 
 69. — Xor does the mischief always end with the day. There 
 is a constant remarkable sympathy between the digestive organs 
 of the horse and the extremely sensitive laminoe of his feet, so 
 that inflammation will fly from the one to the other in the most 
 sudden and unaccountable manner. Anything that is liable to 
 inflame the bowels is thus liable to inflame the feet, and a great 
 deal of the lameness we see in the horses of those who Avish to 
 treat them most kindly is the result, not of overwork, but of 
 injudicious feeding. When a horse is constantly kept upon 
 food as concentrated as he can bear, there is necessarily a tendency 
 to inflammation and consequent lameness, but lameness is more 
 certainly produced with sudden changes from bulky to concentrated 
 
38 trainee's treatment. 
 
 food, and that on the day when liis feet are to be most severely 
 tried by concussion on a hard road. It would be safer to 
 abuse his digestive organs one day and his feet another, than to 
 > abuse them both at the same time. We have had errass feedinc' 
 
 horses that we could lame at any time, without any extra work, 
 by simply giving them more corn and less chaff. 
 
 70. — Trainers for the race course or the hunting field are 
 constantly sailing as near the wind as they can in this respect. 
 Their horses must be well nourished, but the trainer wants the 
 tubes by which nourislmient must be conveyed to occupy as little 
 room as possible, in order that more room may b3 left for the 
 expansion and play of the lungs. Their horse's natural appetite 
 craves for more bulk in his food ; he longs for grass, hay, or even 
 straw, and it is often necessary to muzzle him, or to litter him 
 with saw dust to prevent him from eating his bed. The more 
 oats a horse can be got to eat the l»etter his trainer is pleased, 
 but no horse can live on oats alone, and some more bulky food 
 must be allowed. We know of some successful modern trainers 
 who allow their horses some succulent food, such as a little roots 
 or grass, with great advantage, especially for very nervous 
 horses. Bulky, succulent food is the surest relief for excessive 
 nervousness in horses. Bufe the trainer tries to find out how 
 ranch hay or other woody fibre, or bulky food, is absolutely 
 necessary to keep his horse in health, and in nine cases out of 
 ten he errs on the side of too little and too dry. Only 
 Thoroughbreds will stand this treatment, and a large proportion 
 of them go lame or otherwise break down under it. None of 
 them will stand it very long; all get "stale," stiff, and 
 prematurely old under it, and so permanently injurious is it to 
 the constitution that the best mares that have been long trained 
 will often not breed at all afterwards, and hardly any of them 
 ever breed a winning foal, however good they may have l^een 
 themselves. 
 
 71. — We say this with no want of respect for the opinions 
 of trainers. They are a class of men whose views and practice 
 we consider entitled to much consideration, as they often gain 
 their knowledge with long patient experience, rather than by 
 
THE LUCKY DOG. 81) 
 
 learniuj^ stereotyped theories by heart. But there has iii all 
 ages been a remarkable tendency, esj)ecially amonj^st legally 
 qualified medical practitioners, to o\erlook the very simple but 
 all important fact, that the food for each kind of animal 
 must not only suit it chemically, but mechanically : or in other 
 words that its bulk and its textm-e ai-e often of far more 
 importance than its chemical constituents. 
 
 72. — When the great French physiologist, Francois M.agendie, 
 found that the dog could not live on sugar, butter, oil, jellies, 
 or fine flour, he at once jumped to the conclusion that it must 
 be because these substances were deficient of some recjuired 
 chemical constituent, and decided that it was the want of nitrogen 
 or azote in such food. That nonsense has been repeated up to 
 the present day, and even the Encyclopaedia Britanica gravely 
 tells us that Magendie "discovered that food destitute of 
 nitrogen is not nutritious." But some boy who did not know 
 the meaning of nitrogen or azote, had the common sense to 
 suspect that his dog would get on all right with the sugar or the 
 butter if it was mixed with some substance that would carry it 
 into and out of his bowels, and when he fed him on sweetened 
 and buttered sawdust his dog became the admired and envied of 
 all other dogs, though none of all these learned men quoted the 
 boy as an authority on the subject. 
 
 Thousands of patients are annually killed and millions are 
 made miserable by following their doctor's advice to take 
 substances that contain a large proportion of nourishment 
 instead of such natural food as will readily yield up what little 
 nourishment it contains, and pleasantly pass the machinery for 
 extracting it. 
 
 73. — For all ordinary purposes, however hard or fast a horse 
 has to work, his maize, oats, or barley, should be mixed with an 
 equal weight, or with twice their 1)ulk of chaff (cut hay or straw). 
 If beans, peas, or wheat are used more chaff must be mixed s\'ith 
 them, because they contain less husk in themselves. If the 
 work required is very light the corn should be reduced in 
 proportion, or the horses may be fed entirely on hay and grass, 
 or on hay and roots. A good deal of slow work may be done 
 
40 QUEEN victoria's HORSE. 
 
 on good grass alone. In warm dry weather even fast work can 
 ])e done well on it, and horses so fed are more likely to l)e quiet 
 and reliable for occasional services where appearances are not a 
 very formidable consideration. 
 
 Xo horse, however lightly worked, should be fed on hay 
 aloiie, he should get either grass or roots with it, when the 
 work is not hard enough to make corn desirable. No horse that 
 is lightly worked should be highly fed on corn. It is a common 
 foolish practice which causes many good horses to be discarded 
 from a good place and condemned to a coach or cab. If for the 
 sake of appearance high feed must be given, then there must be 
 regular work enough to take off the surplus energy. The well 
 fed and daily worked horse is at once the most etRcient and 
 trustworthy, but failing plenty of exercise there should be little 
 or no corn. Most of the trouble that ladies and inexperienced 
 persons get into with horses, is the effect of too much corn and 
 too little or too irregular work. When Queen Victoria rode on 
 horseback her horse was always thoroughly exercised by a lady on 
 the moi'uiag of the same day she rode it. The exercise was given 
 early enough to allow of the horse being well sweated and then 
 dried and cleaned in time for her Majesty. Horses highly bred 
 and fed, however naturally good and quiet, are always dangerous 
 for a lady's use when allowed to stand idle. Indeed, under any 
 circumstances standing long idle can only unfit a horse for any 
 kind of work. The horse is adapted for something very like 
 perpetual motion, and for foraging for himself, and not for 
 standing for days together in a stable and feeding on corn. 
 
 74. — Whatever the feeding is to be let it be regular, and 
 don't expect your horse to digest the most corn on the days 
 that he does the most work, or to digest grass on one day and 
 unmixed oats the next day. If he is to live on grass his tubes 
 will keep in the right form and diameter to deal with it, but if 
 he is to live on oats with but little hay they must alter wonder- 
 fully, and they cannot alter to meet such a change in a day or a 
 wei'k. Most of the painful and often fatal cases of colic which 
 surgeons, grooms, and coachmen are so ready to attribute to a 
 drink of water, are the effect of either being kept too long 
 
FED KY W3:i<illT OK MEASURE. 41 
 
 without water or food, or of a sudden cliano-e of food to 
 which tlie liorses tubes have had no time to adjust themselves. 
 The man who has lived for years on wliite bread, meat, eggs, tea, 
 and brandy, is at once upset if put upon fruit, cabbage, and 
 water, and thousands of such men gravely believe that fruit, 
 vegetables, and water are dreadfully unwholesome things. On 
 the other hand the South Sea Islanders t)rought to New Zealand 
 by the missionaries, and fed with white bread, meat, and tea, 
 instead of the fruit, vegetables, and water on which they were 
 reared, generally die of dysentery. A machine adapted to pulp 
 grass or turnips, is not in the right form to crush oats or wheat, 
 nor vice versa. All nature's changes arc gradual, and if a horse's 
 food is to be entirely changed, it should be done slowly and 
 cautiously, so that the tubes may adapt themselves to the altered 
 work required from them. Inattention to this has caused a 
 superstitious dread of roots and green meat for hardly worked 
 horses, though they would all l)e the better, get less " stale," 
 and stand their work and high feeding better, if daily allowed 
 to mix with their hard dry fojd, a very little of the succulent 
 vegetables natural to them, and for which they crave so eagerly. 
 
 75. — However highly or moderately you intend to feed a 
 horse let him be fed by weiglit or measure. No horse can be 
 well fed in any other way The very dainty and the very greedy 
 feeder equally demand it. It is the only way in which the horse 
 can be got to eat at the best time to suit his work, and to 
 regularly take the exact quantity that his digestive organs will 
 best deal with before the next meal. It also gives the feeder 
 an opportunity of obtaining the first intimation of anything 
 wrong with the horse, if the regular measured quantity is not 
 eagerly and completely eaten up. If the horse is a delicate 
 feeder it is the more essential that he should never have food 
 that he will not eat standing under his nostrils, whilst the gross 
 feeder should not be allowed to eat so much at one meal that he 
 cannot take his allowance at the next, nor to break his wind 
 as many horses do by perpetually swallowing hay. However 
 highly you want to feed a horse, no more should be given him at 
 once than he will eat up with some appetite left, except when 
 
4-^ NATURE ON FEEDING. 
 
 the horse will necessarily be left lonj,^ without attention as after 
 the last feed at night 
 
 76. — Then how often should we feed him ? Go to nature 
 again and you will learn your lesson at once, fiook first at the 
 colt. How often does he suck ? Every half hour at the farthest. 
 The calf may lie down three, six. or even twelve hours. When 
 a wild cow hides her calf and is watched she will sometimes not 
 go near it for thirty-six hours, and the calf will be perfectly 
 quiet. The foal rarely lies, e^ en asleep, for more than half an 
 hour, and its mother's milk runs away if not drawn for two 
 hours. Look at its mother and you may watch her many a day 
 and many a night before you will see her refrain from eating- 
 half an hour together. The cow will lie down all night 
 peacefully chewing what she gathered in the day ; but the mare 
 has no such reservoir, her small stomach will not hold enough to 
 keep her digestive organs going a single hour, and she requires 
 no long sleeps. A look into the interior of either animal teaches 
 the same lesson. In the horse \re see a piece of machinery that 
 must be supplied little and often — a manufactory without a 
 warehouse. There is nothing adapted to go long without a 
 fresh supply, and we see l>y his habits in a state of nature that 
 his appetite prevents him from doing so. 
 
 77. — Experience too has proved that by frequently feeding 
 and watering the horse, more work can be got out of him, and 
 that he will be less liable to any kind of disease of the digestive 
 organs. Directly the old fashioned mistaken system of keeping 
 plough horses in the field all day without a feed, which had been 
 practised harmlessly enough with the ruminating bullock teams, 
 gave place to the midday bait, the pace improved, the whip was 
 abolished, and twenty-five per cent, more work was done. 
 
 78. — Four hours is the outside time that the horse should 
 work without feeding, and where convenient the time would be 
 better shortened to three hours. The last feed at night, say 
 at 10 p.m , should be double that of any other, and should be the 
 only one at which he should have more than he will eat up 
 without a pause. Then, if at all, he should have some hay to 
 grind up at his leisure, as it will give a longer slower supply 
 
HO\V MUCH FOOD. 4r> 
 
 than chaff and corn would do. The idea tliat the horse will or 
 should lie down and sleep all night is not entertained by those 
 who know the animal. The horse never sleeps long together. 
 The foundered horse will lie down all night, and all day too 
 rather than put his weight on the inflamed and sensitive lamina?^ 
 but not a horse than can stand without pain. The hard worked 
 horse should have every facility offered him for eating and 
 drinking during the night, 
 
 70. — As to quantity : the Shetland pony will require a very 
 different allowance to the Shire horse, and all the intermediate 
 sizes will want proportionate quantities, supposing them all to be 
 equally worked. As a general rule the more good food a horse 
 can be got to digest well the more work he can do. 
 
 80. — The largest sized dray horse at long hard work every 
 day should get ISlbs. corn. 12lbs. rctots, and 18lbs. of hay, cut 
 into chaff. 
 
 81. — 15lbs. of corn and lOllts. of good meadow hay, with 
 some roots on his resting days, is enough for the largest hunter 
 in his hardest worked season. 
 
 82. — 15lbs. of corn, Tibs, of roots, and 10 of good meadow 
 hay, is enough for the ordinary sized, hard worked, cab, coach, 
 or omnibus horse, with more roots on Saturday night or whenever 
 a little rest can be forseen. 
 
 83. — 12lbs. of corn, 12lbs. of roots, and 121bs. of clover 
 hay is enough for the heavy farm horse at full work. The corn 
 should be reduced to 61bs. and the roots increased whenever short 
 days and bad weather make the work short or irregular. Cut 
 straw may also take the place of clover, when the work is not 
 pressing. Good bright sweet straw cut up and mixed with roots 
 pulped is better than musty hay at any time. 
 
 84. — lOlbs. of corn, 7lbs. of roots, and lOlbs. hay, are quite 
 enough for light worked carriage horses, 15^ hands high. When 
 the work is very light, 5lbs. less corn, with 5lbs. more hay, with 
 more roots, should be given. If the work is very light and 
 irregular, the pace never very fast, no long journeys, and the 
 horses required to be very steady, 20lbs. of good hay, and 14lbs. 
 roots only may be given. 
 
44 VARIETIES OF FOOD. 
 
 85. — Ponies and small horses must be fed in proportion to 
 their size. They do better without corn than large horses will 
 do. A child's pony should not have corn unless its ivork is 
 regular and fast. They will be more gentle and reliable without 
 corn, but they should get some roots or grass with their hay. 
 
 86. — With hard worked cart or plough horses, one-third of 
 the corn should be beans. Barley may take the place of oats 
 with them if cheaper. ]\Iaize or wheat may form part of their 
 food if all the hay or straw is cut into chaff and mixed with their 
 corn. 
 
 87. — For hard worked hunters, omnibus, coach or cab 
 horses, about one-third of the corn may be beans, the I'est had 
 better be oats or barley, or both. 
 
 88. — For carriage horses all the corn should be oats, beans 
 are too stimulating for light work, and maize imparts an 
 unpleasant smell to the horses that eat it. 
 
 89. — All corn is better crushed for horses when it can be 
 done at a moderate cost. With young horses getting plenty of 
 chaff with their corn, it is not necessary, but with a very old 
 horse it should always be done. It is desirable too that oats 
 ghould be crushed when given to horses that are working on 
 land from which a crop of very clean wheat is expected. Barley 
 goes farther when boiled, but should only be given in any large 
 quantity to horses at slow work. Bran should be given 
 occasionally especially if roots are not used. Sharps may with 
 advantage, either wholly or partially, take the place of any other 
 corn for horses at any slow work, however hard. We have used 
 them largely with all kinds of horses. There is no kind of corn 
 on which horses look better. They may be too fattening for 
 fast ATork. They must be largely mixed with chaff, and strictly 
 allowanced, or from their excessively nutritious character they 
 will founder almost as certainly as wheat. 
 
 90. — Hay is a term applied to dry grass of any description. 
 It may be so well made and from such good herbage that horses 
 will look well and work well on it, without any corn ; it may be 
 so bad as to be unfit to put* before a A-aluable horse, and most 
 injurious to any. ^leadow hay is the name giveai to hay made 
 
HAY. 45 
 
 from permament mixed pastures ; it may be up'and meadow or 
 water meadow ; the latter is not lit for horses. Upland meadow 
 hay is the hav most nsed for fast horses, and trainers are very 
 particular to see that it is u-ood. [t is sometimes largely 
 mixed with buttercups, dandelions, and other injurious herbage. 
 If good and well made it will be green and have a niue smell. 
 Italian rye grass makes a good hay for any kind of stock, though 
 it is more used in its green state, being much grown near cities 
 where sewage irrigation has beeu introduced. Clover hay when 
 well made is nutritious and fattening, but is spoiled with less rain 
 than meadow hay. AVhen made in good weather it will be leafy, 
 and much liked by horses. Much the same may be said of 
 sainfoin hay, which is better than clover. A mixture of green 
 oats and vetches makes a useful hay for any stock. Lncern is 
 little grown in England, but is much grown in good deep land 
 in warmer climates, where it grows several crops in a year. 
 
 91. — In climates too dry, or on land too poor for long grass, 
 oaten hay is much grown, and it does very well for horses of any 
 description. The oats should be sown thickly and cut about 
 three weeks before the corn is ripe. When well made, oaten hay 
 will be green, but it is often left too long in the field Ijoth Itefore 
 and after cutting. On rich swampy land Timothy grass will 
 give heavy crops of hay, and although coarse looking, animals do 
 well on it. 
 
 92. — A great many horses are much injured in wind by 
 getting an unlimited quantity of hay. Most trainers and many 
 coachmen prefer hay more than one year old. "We suspect that 
 the only advantage of using it is that the horses do not like it so 
 well, and therefore eat less of it, an advantage that may be 
 secured by giving only a weighed allowance. It sometimes happens 
 that finer weather has enabled the liay of a preceding year to be 
 better made than that of a current year, which would be of course 
 a very substantial reason for preferring it. 
 
 93. — Roots for horses include carrots, parsnips, Swede 
 turnips, kohl rabi, mangold wurzel, and potatoes. All horses 
 will eat carrots eagerly ; they often require some teaching before 
 they appreciate other roots : this may be done by mixing them 
 
46 
 
 ROOTS, HOW TO USE, 
 
 witli cari-ots at first. Carrots are relaxing, parsnips are fattening, 
 Swedes are the best roots to give a horse in large quantities, 
 mangolds improve in late spring when other roots deteriorate, 
 kohl rabi is more suited for milch cows than for horses, potatoes 
 should not be given in large quanties and should be either boiled 
 or pulped. All other roots are best pulped and mixed with chaff, 
 but where there is no convenience for that they may be sliced, 
 or merely washed and put in the manger for the horses to gnaw 
 to pieces themselves. For fast horses the quantity should never 
 he large, but a small daily allowance keeps hard fed horses from 
 getting " stale," stiff, and husky, and adds years to their life. 
 With farm horses they keep the wind right, which so often goes 
 wrong with great quantities of hay alone, and to some extent 
 take the place of green food during the winter, so that the root 
 fed horse comes up from grass or i-eturns to it without any 
 ■extreme or dangerous clianwe to affect his dijjestive organs. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 WATER. 
 
 04 — It is distressino- to think of the amount of discomfort 
 inflicted on the horse by the ignorance of his owners and keepers 
 on this simple sul>ject. " Water, water every wliere, and not a 
 drop to drink," must often be the inward cry of the poor, thirsty, 
 hard worked and dry fed horse. On his natural .«>Teen pasture 
 he could manage to exist some time without water, but compelled 
 sadly against his will to live on nothing but corn and dry hay, 
 how hard it must seem to him to be rushed through or past eacli 
 tempting stream, and to be scolded or kicked when he would gladly 
 di'ink the water in which his own dirty feet have been washed. 
 Thousands of grooms have lived and died under the impression 
 that their chief duty Avas to find out how little water a horse 
 could live on. For hundreds of years grooms have been taught 
 by the great diplomatised authorities, who are supposed to know 
 everything and never make any mistakes, that a hungry and 
 thirsty horse will get colic or inflammation of the bowels if 
 allowed to drink before he has eaten his corn. Now, these 
 same great authorities have just discovereil that the poor horse 
 must not have a drop of water immediately after he has eaten 
 his corn. 
 
 By killing and looking inside some old horses that had 
 eaten a great feed of corn and had then swallowed a deluge of 
 water, they discovered that some of the corn had been washed 
 out of the stomach into the bowels before it was prepared to go 
 there. And although that is exactly the practice they have 
 recommended to every groom and horse keeper for hundreds of 
 years past they have now found out that is just what ought not 
 to be done. If these great authorities had gone to nature for 
 
'is SUPPLY OF WATEi;, 
 
 instruction, instead of endorsing each others blunders, they would 
 long ago have found that the mischief m I»oth cases resulted 
 from keeping the poor animal so long without water, and that 
 the hoi-se was destined by natni-e to take both his food and 
 drink often and in small quantities. 
 
 1)5. — With the exceptions we shall mention the horse should 
 always have water within his reach and be allowed to take a few 
 sips at a time with his dry food. When he returns from long 
 fasting or great exertion the necessary fluid he will crave for 
 and which alone can carry all that is ^vanted into or out of his 
 system, should be supplied in small quantities and frequently 
 until his thirst is appeased, after which he may safely be left to 
 help himself. 
 
 The horse like most other animals prefers the water he is 
 accustomed to drink, even though it may not be pure or good. 
 Any great change of water is avoided by careful trainers on the 
 eve of a race. 
 
 9G. — The common cruel practice of keeping a horse for fast 
 work always short of water, has often appeared to result 
 favourably from the fact that it has prevented the horse from 
 eating too much hay. A horse that could not get enough water 
 could not eat as much hay as he otherwise would have done, and 
 we have pointed out that greedy horses often unfit themselves 
 for work by eating too much hay. But the proper limit can be 
 and should be put on the consumption of hay, without keeping 
 a horse in a painful state of fe\er by depriving him of the only 
 fluid thai can keep his blood au'l blood vessels in a state fit for 
 work, and carry nourishment into and poison out of his system. 
 
 1)7. — Having said so much about never keeping the horse 
 long without food or water, this will perhaps be the right place 
 to point out the advantage of timing his meals to his work, and 
 keeping as much room as possible for his lungs when preparing 
 him for short arduous exertion. For such work his lungs will 
 want all the room they can get, and he should have as little to 
 carry as possible, besides which the nervous excitement he 
 undergoes will destroy his appetite and be fatal to good digestion. 
 Only nervous horses are now employed at such work, and when 
 
NATURE S NCEI). 4i) 
 
 such horses can get any sign that makes tliem suspect wliiu is 
 coming on, they will often fast too long of their own accoi'd. 
 AVith many horses the trainer has to conceal his usual preparations 
 for a race to prevent them from going- ofl" their feed altdgetluT. 
 Coach horses should fast two hours before their one liour's 
 desperate exertion. The hunter usually gets his fast on rhe way 
 to his work, and the race horse comes to the post with his 
 contracted bowels more tucked up than usual. There is noduiibt 
 that all of them are the better for having no recently swallowed 
 food or water to dispose of under such excitement. 
 
 1)8. — In everything connected with animal life we must 
 bear in mind that water is the fluid which must carry everything 
 necessary to build up or pull down every part of the body, and 
 that this is done by means of pipes which like the pipes of a 
 pump, can only act when moderately full. The torture which 
 an animal feels when thirsty is only a necessary admonition of 
 nature to attend at once to this necessary condition of life and 
 health. This is so necessary that when blood is let out of a vein 
 or artery, life is only sustained Ijy a rapid absorption of fluid 
 from the surrounding tissues, causing a strong sensation of 
 thirst. In this condition life has been saved or prolonged by 
 injecting warm water into a vein. The same remedy has 
 succeeded when a great sudden loss of fluid has taken place 
 through the blood vessels of the stomach, as in cholera. A 
 great loss in the volume of the blood, though a more gradual 
 one, is produced at hard work, through rapid perspiration and 
 respiration, and it is as important to health as to comfort that 
 the loss should be quickly supplied. As the hor^e does 
 not take drugs or spices, or narcotics with his water, his thirst 
 is a natural one, and never liable to mislead like a craving for 
 tea or spirits. 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 AIR. 
 
 99. — 111 making provision for the sustenance of any animal 
 we are accustomed to think of food as the most important thing, 
 then of water, then of air. This is reversing the real order of 
 their importance, but it is natural, because food is the expensive 
 article, and the one left to our judgment and discretion. 
 We usually take the water as we find it, and we can do nothing 
 with the air except spoil it. But the trouble we have to procure 
 food and the unlimited provision which nature has made for the 
 free supply of air, should not mislead us as to their relative 
 importance. Whilst all three are indispensable for life, air 
 must stand first both in instant and imperative importance, 
 and in the necessity for its absolute purity. The food of the 
 ox may contain from 3 to 15 per cent, of nourishment, that of the 
 horse may range from 5 to 25, that of man from 10 to 50, that 
 of the bee from 50 to 90, but with all of them the air must contain 
 just about 21 per cent. Three per cent, excess would deprive 
 them of sense, and burn their lungs to ashes ; three per cent, 
 deficiency would slowly suffocate them, 
 
 100. — By measurement the quantity of air demanded by 
 any warm blooded animal is beyond all comparison greater than 
 that of the food, but even by weight the lungs must be supplied 
 with aliout four pounds of oxygen for every pound of food 
 provided for the stomach. The water we drink is well filtered 
 before it can reach the blood, and the food is strictly confined to 
 the one long tube provided for it, and never comes in contact 
 with the blood, except such prepared portions of it as are 
 selected by the minute lacteals in the walls of that tube, No 
 such precautions are taken with the air ; nature has mixed it 
 
SUPREMEJ.Y IMPORTANT. 51 
 
 exactly as the luiigs of all animals demand it. ;ind has taken the 
 most wonderful precautions to keep it so, and therefore she has 
 made no provision in the animal structure for straining or 
 purifying it in any way, before it comes in direct contact with the 
 blood. Consequently any animal can be far more easily injured 
 or destroyed by impure air, tlian by impure food or even w\ater. 
 
 101. — According to Dr. Tanner's experience we can live 
 forty days without food : we know that we can live some days 
 without renewing the supply of water ; we cannot live five 
 minutes without a fresh supply of air. A horse or a man can 
 support action or thought with a great deficiency of food, but 
 any deficiency of oxygen will at once paralyse him. Let five 
 throbs of unoxyginated blood be sent to his brain, and the dray 
 horse could not move his own tail, and William Gladstone 
 could not repeat the alphabet. The most healthy children are 
 often those who get the least food and the most air. The little 
 rosy bird keeper wiio lives on a shilling a week in the open air 
 is often an object of surprise and envy to parents whose pale 
 pampered children are coddled up in ceiled rooms. We can eat 
 and drink enough to keep us going for twelve hours, we cannot 
 lay up one minute's store of oxygen ; we can run and jump when 
 hungry and thirsty, we can do neither when our lungs cannot 
 supply us with sufficient air. Excitement will make us forget 
 that we are hungry, no excitement will take us over a hurdle 
 when the weak knees tell us that the lungs cannot get oxygen. 
 
 102. — We know very little about what life is. Three 
 hundred years ago physicians did not even know that the blood 
 circulated at all : now we know that it must come to every part 
 of the body, constantly loaded with heat and oxygen, and return 
 every minute or two to the lungs for a fresh supply, and that 
 the pace at which this can be done limits the amount of exertion 
 of which any warm blooded animal is capable. Still we do not 
 know all that it does in its constant round, nor can we point to 
 the exact reason why we cannot act or think a moment without 
 it, or why all increased bodily exertion demands a corresponding 
 increase in the supply of air to the lungs, and of blood and 
 oxygen to every part of the body. For our present purpose we 
 
52 LIGHT IX i)ARKLVESS. 
 
 must he content to know that such is the case, and spend a little 
 time in trying to understand how it is done, as no one can have even 
 a rough idea of how to keep an animal machine going at its best pace 
 unless he understands a little about the circulation of the 
 blood, 
 
 103. — Early in the year 1550 au exiled Spaniard named 
 Servetus published a work in which he pointed out that all 
 the blood in the body was regularly sent from the heart to the 
 lungs, and brought back in a purified state to the heart. This 
 grand discovery was regarded as a greater crime than the 
 comparatively small discovery of Galileo in proving that the 
 planets circulated round the sun, so that instead of being 
 tortured, imprisoned, and humiliated, and threatened as poor 
 old (lalileo was, just 80 years afterwards, this young and truly 
 great and able man was burned in the autumn of the same year 
 in which he published his book. He had previously incurred the 
 fatal enmity of both the Pope and of Calvin, by pointing out 
 that neither of them were infallible, and now he dared to add the 
 doctors to the list of his powerful persecutors, by giving positive 
 proofs to the world that they had muddled away for thousands 
 of years without learning the A B C of their profession, or 
 knowing anything about the lieautiful machine, the whole 
 management of which they presumed to monopolise. Of course 
 the doctors declared that the blood did not circulate, and helped 
 the priests and parsons to hunt up all his books and put them in 
 the fire. In this they succeeded so well that only three copies 
 were left, and this great flood of light and knowledge was shut 
 out from mankind for just three quarters of a century. 
 
 104. — Still the blood would circulate, and in 1628 Harvey 
 had the honour of publishing a book in which the great discovery 
 of Servetus was repeated and completed by showing something 
 of the purpose for which the blood was purified in the lungs, 
 and what was done with it afterwards. Since then physiologists 
 have been continually discovering some beneficial purpose 
 accomplished by this circulation, and the greatest minds have 
 learned to bow down in reverence to a process so complete, so 
 comprehensive, and so economical. Physiologists, anatomists. 
 
WHKELS OF LIFE. 53 
 
 chemists, aud mechanics, have all learned much by observing 
 the work accomplished, but the a])]est physiologist cannot tell us 
 what is life, thougli he can give us a thousand proofs tliat 
 stagnation is death : the chemist cannot tell us how the oxygen 
 and carbon combine so as to maintain heat with such unerring 
 regularity in any climate ; the mechanic cannot discover how 
 a fluid so thick as blood is passed so rapidly through tubes too 
 fine to pass the purest watei', nor can he show us where the 
 motive power originates. The most elaborate, complete, and 
 delicate machine ever constructed by the skill of man, is a 
 clumsy, bungling, wasteful piece of mechanism compared 
 to the organisation that circulates, warms, and invigorates tlie 
 blood of the horse. 
 
 105. — As it is a circle, without beginning or end, we may 
 with almost equal propriety take it up at any part. If our 
 review of the process could be more lengthy and complete, it 
 would perhaps be most natural to begin where the chyle, selected 
 from the food by the lacteals, is first introduced into the returning 
 stream of venous blood ; but as we must confine our examination 
 of the process to what is strictly necessary to get a rough 
 understanding of the subject we will begin at the heart, at the 
 great double force pump which appears to keep all in motion. 
 
 1 06. — To the right side of the heart comes a stream of dark 
 fluid, composed of blood, that has gone the round of the 
 system, and of newly made chyle, selected and extracted by very 
 fine lacteals from the food passing through the bowels. This 
 mixture is immediately pumped out of the heart into the lungs 
 to be warmed, purified, and supplied with new oxygen. Tt 
 there gets rid of its load of poisonous carbonic acid gas, and is 
 changed from a dull dark to a bright red colour. How is all 
 this done in a few seconds ? The lungs are a beautiful sight 
 under the microscope, and would be far more so if it were possible 
 to see them at work. They contain millions of cells, too minute 
 to be seen by the eye, yet each cell receives its particle -of blood 
 or its particle of air, and without confusing them together, 
 allows the air to get near enough to the blood to give it oxygen 
 and to take away carbonic acid gas, to burn up waste material 
 
54 PERFECT ADJUSTMENT. 
 
 and to eflfect all the known and unknown changes necessary to 
 fit it to cany new life, and heat, and vigour to every part of the 
 body. Every particle of Itlood is made to meet the fresh 
 air, not only without cooling it, but heating it in the process, 
 and heating: it most when the air introduced is coldest. Havinu' 
 been thus fitted for its work, the blood goes back to the heart, 
 entering it now on the left side, and is immediately pumped into 
 the arteries which carry it all over the system, delivering the 
 required quantity as fresh and pure at the feet as at the heart 
 itself, pulling down and building up, wherever and whatever is 
 necessary, carrying nerves, brain, muscles, hair, hoofs, skin, or 
 bones, through vessels too small to carry water, and flowing into 
 the veins comes back again to the right side of the heart to be again 
 passed through the warming and purifying fire in the lungs. 
 All this is done so rapidly that the whole of the blood in the body 
 passes through the heart in a time varying from one to three 
 minutes, and the faster it is kept going by reasonable exercise 
 the more completely does it accomplish its work. 
 
 107. — What we call fire is the rapid combination of carbon 
 with oxygen. Wherever this combination takes place, either 
 quickly or slowly, heat is produced in exact proportion to the 
 amount of carbon and oxygen mixed together. We see it going 
 on in our hearth fires fast enough to produce a destructive flame, 
 and still faster in the smith's fire, where the oxygen is rapidly 
 forced into contact with the carbon by the smith's ])ellows. The 
 same thing goes on slowly in the lungs, restrained and regulated 
 by a strictly limited supply of oxygen. One principal reason 
 whv the blood is heated most in cold Aveather is because cold air 
 lies in less compass than warm air, so that the same pipes can 
 convey more of it, and consequently more oxygen at each 
 inspiration. 
 
 108. — Thus the lungs are a wonderful self regulating furnace 
 that warms the blood just as much and no more thaii is needed, 
 whilst the warm blood by its rapid circulation through a 
 beautiful system of pipes warms every inch of the body, and 
 with the help of a good, healthy, clean skin, will jireserve a 
 uniform temperature of about 100 degrees, whether surrounded 
 
MAGIC MESSENGERS. 00 
 
 by a temperature 20 degrees below zero, or two hundred and sixty 
 degrees above it. Thus the blood is always kept warm enough to 
 circulate throuuh tubes too small to be seen, yet never warm 
 enough to injure the inconceivably fine texture that composes the 
 millions of cells in which the !)lood meets, without mingling with, 
 the air in the lungs. 
 
 109. — There is a yet more beautiful and wonderful feature 
 in connection with this circulation which we cannot understand 
 without going a little into the composition of the blood itself. 
 The greater part of the blood is greasy water, but about thirteen 
 per cent, of it consists of minute onion-shaped particles, or little 
 soft, tough, flattened circles, about the three thousandth part of an 
 inch through their greatest diameter, and the ten thousandtli of 
 an inch between their flatter sides. These are called blood 
 corpuscles, or blood cells, and consist of a material called cruor, 
 which has the property of attracting oxygen from the air, and 
 of parting with it to the various tissues of the body, or in other 
 words of picking it up in the lungs, and carrying it to any part 
 of the body that wants it. These little cells go out from the 
 lungs loaded with oxygen, which they take to combine with 
 carbon in the distant tissues of the body. They return with their 
 colour changed from red to black, and loaded with carbonic acid 
 gas, produced by the combination of the oxygen with the 
 carbon, in the exhausted tissues of the body. Thus whilst the 
 purely liquid part of the blood gathers heat in the lungs, and 
 carries it to every part of the body, just as warm water would 
 do passing through a furnace, and running back through tlie 
 pipes of a hot-house, these little blood cells go out, not only 
 warmed themselves, but carrying out tlie material with which 
 to keep up a little fire at the extremities, and bring back the 
 poisonous products of that fire, to be sent out with the warm 
 moist air from the lungs. They thus keep up heat by burning 
 away waste material at the extremities, just as it is kept up on a 
 larger scale in the lungs. They ai-e so tough that they will 
 squeeze through a space smaller than themselves and recover 
 their original form. They are smaller in the horse than in man, 
 and are still smaller in the deer, jirobably smallest in those 
 
56 AS TRUE AS POETIC, 
 
 animals liable to be called ou for the most rapid circulation or 
 most remarkable for speed and endurance. 
 
 1 1 0. — We have spoken of these blood corpuscles as composing 
 thirteen per cent, of the blood, but that is only a rough average 
 estimate. They vary from something like five to twenty per 
 cent., and the cause of their variation is a most important 
 consideration in connection with the subject of this chapter. 
 The smallest per centage is found in the blood of poor needle 
 Avomen, or of any females poorly fed, getting little active exercise, 
 and abo\'e all shut up in close rooms. The largest per centage 
 is found in the blood of man, or any other animal, constantly 
 at Avork in the cold open air with enough good nutritious food. 
 With women shut up from the open air, the blood cells are 
 usually so few that their feet are kept warm with difficulty, if at 
 all. With too much hard work in the cold open air, the blood 
 cells may get so large a per centage of the blood as to give a 
 tendency to inflammation, when food or drink of an inflammatory 
 character is indulged in. Poor Ijlood can only be made good 
 blood by good food and plenty of exercise in the open air ; high 
 feeding without the exercise in the open air will only do mischief, 
 and especially endanger the lungs. The blood cells can be slowly 
 increased by the open air exercise, they can be rapidly decreased 
 by shutting up in bad air, they can be instantly lessened by 
 bleeding, and the corpuscles so lost cannot be restored for some 
 weeks or months, under the very best treatment. 
 
 Thus Mrs. Heman's allusion to the "rich blood" of the 
 Arab, is as physiologically correct, as it is poetically beautiful, 
 and such rich blood must be cultivated in any animal that is to 
 be capable of any extraordinary exertion. In other words, if the 
 horse is to lie fit for much, he must both be taken into the open 
 air, and the pure air must be taken into him, if he is shut up at 
 all. TTc must not breathe air that has already parted with its 
 free oxygen, and become loaded with carbonic acid gas, or with 
 the ammonia arising from stones reeking with the excretions of 
 his own body. 
 
 1]]. — Now we come at last to the air itself. Roughly 
 speaking the atmospheric air consists of 70 parts nitrogen or 
 
JMJ'OltTANT ALLIANCE. 57 
 
 azote, and 21 pails oxygen. There is about one and a Imlf per 
 cent, of watery vapour, and a very small fraction per cent, of 
 carbonic acid gas, but they need not be considered for our 
 present purpose. This propoi'tion of 71) parts nitrogen to 21 of 
 oxygen is found in all free air, and is the exact proportion 
 necessary for the welfare of the lungs in all warm blooded 
 animals. 
 
 A very sliglit increase iu the quantity of oxygen would 
 injuriously increase the animal fire, whilst a slight diminution 
 would depress and extinguish vigour, warmth, and liie. Nature 
 has accordingly made w^ouderful provision to prevent any 
 alteration in these proportions, by endowing both gases with a 
 peculiar constitution, wliich seems to give them almost an 
 intelligent determination to unite together exactly in that 
 proportion. Unless absolutely shut up, neither of these gases 
 will rest in any other proportion ; the nitrogen will seek oxygen, 
 or the oxygen will seek nitrogen, until the natural proportion is 
 restored, so that the free open air is always right, and only shut 
 up air can be much wrong. This remarkable law of affinity, so 
 essential to aninial welfare, and which appears to be quite peculiar 
 to the atmospheric constitution, is so strong that it entirely 
 overpowers the usual laws of gravity, and prevents the heavy 
 oxygen when free from seeking a lower level than the light 
 nitrogen, as other liquids or gases would do. This law causes 
 just as much heavy oxygen to be found at the highest distance 
 from the earth that man has ever reached, as at the level of the 
 sea. 
 
 112. — There is another important practical result from this 
 law, which must be considered. To avoid technical expressions 
 we are sometimes driven to use not very accurate ones, that 
 will convey our meaning to the general reader. We may here 
 say that the unwillingness of these gases to part with each other, 
 or to depart from the natural porportion in which they unite, 
 increases as that proportion becomes more disturbed ; so that 
 whilst the pure air freely gives up five per cent, of its oxygen to 
 the blood in the lungs, it is very unwilling to give up another 
 five per cent., and absolutely refuses to give up anything beyond 
 
58 SECOND-HAND AIR. 
 
 thcit, though l)reathed again and again, until the breathing 
 animal dies. Consequently, iov all practical purposes, air with 
 16 per cent, of oxygen is very little better than none, and with 
 even twenty per cent, it would keep an animal depressed and. 
 starving for oxygen ; whereas air witli the full 21 per cent, feeds 
 him freely with the warming and invigorating gas. 
 
 113. — When the oxygen has not only been destroyed, but its 
 place supplied with poisonous, depressing, carbonic acid gas, matters 
 are made still worse, as such air refuses to carry out the carbonic 
 acid gas that the blood cells bring back to the lungs and that 
 which is produced by combustion in the lungs themselves. 
 
 ISTow a healthy full sized horse standing at rest in the stable, 
 will consume about 285,120 cubic inches of air every hour ; from 
 this he will extract 12,672 cubic inches of oxygen, and will 
 discharge into the air 10,768 cubic inches of carbonic acid gas. 
 This shows how necessary it is that the air of a stable should be 
 freely exchanged during the whole of the night, if the horse's 
 blood is to be kept in a state that will best tit him for his work. 
 
 114. — The more we study this subject, and the more we 
 understand of the constitution ami internal economy of the horse, 
 the more shall we see of the importance of pure air, and how 
 inseparably it is connected with the warmth, vigour, health, and 
 efficiency of any warm ])looded animal. To try to warm an 
 animal by shutting the pure air away from it, is like trying to 
 increase the fire of a stove by shutting in the dampers, or to 
 make a candle burn brightly by putting an excinguisher on it. 
 The only reason that this is not always seen to be equally foolish 
 is that the beneficent laws of nature and the constitution of the 
 air itself do not allow us to exclude it effectually. 
 
 Fortunately, air is not easily shut in or out of any place. Warm 
 air will escape upwards if it can, and cold air will rush into its 
 place. This law, added to the strong tendency of oxygen to 
 combine in the right proportion with nitrogen (111), prevents 
 thousands of persons from killing themselves and their horses 
 on the spot, as they would do if they could exclude air from their 
 buildings as easily and completely as they can shut out rain. 
 Perhaps we are wrong in calling anything fortunate that prevents 
 
SPARTAN PIUNCIPLEB. 59 
 
 any violation of the laws of health from incurring its full penalty, 
 and it is at least open to doubt if it would not be better for a few- 
 thousand horses and children to ])e annually killed outright, than 
 for the whole race to suffer and degenerate by being partially 
 deprived of the vital air which nature has provided so liberally, 
 but which the ignorance of man is so ready to treat as an enemy 
 instead of a friend. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXERCISE. • 
 
 115. — Possessing large fibrous muscles, intersected with the 
 strongest motor nerves, and with arteries that supply both with 
 a continuous stream of highly oxygiuated blood, the horse is in 
 every respect adapted for motion, and cannot long be deprived 
 of it without lessening his health and efficiency. In some of the 
 most ancient wars we read of, the aim of each party was to get 
 their enemies cavalry shut up where the horses could get no 
 exercise, well knowing that without exercise they would soon 
 become useless. Tying up in a stable, where he cannot even turn 
 round, is a great violation of all his natural habits, and one that 
 should never be practised except on horses that get a great deal 
 of daily exercise in the open air. Cart or plough horses that 
 work in the open air eight or ten hours a day, will take little 
 harm from the restriction, altliough they would be much better 
 with liberty to change their position in the stable as often as they 
 please. Horses whose work is short and fast, demand the 
 indulgence of a loose box for their long resting hours, and when 
 the work of any horse is irregular he can only be kept fit for it 
 by giving him regular exercise in any long intervals that occur 
 between his working days. 
 
 116. — The young horse intended for slow work may be put 
 to some useful occupation as soon as he comes up from grass, or 
 as soon as he is broken in, but for most descriptions of fast 
 work, where horses are valuable, and are treated carefully, the 
 grass fed horse will be gradually inured to a change of food, 
 and be merely exercised for some time before he will be put to 
 hard work. 
 
 The racer's work is almost all exercise, intended to qualify 
 
WORK ONLY CAN FIT FOR WORK. 61 
 
 him for perhaps less than one hour's work during his whole 
 life ; whilst the hunter's work is usually too trying to be continuous 
 without intervals of rest, long enough to require a good deal of 
 renovating and invigorating exercise. Long periods of inaction 
 are injurious to any horse ; regular work only can qualify him for 
 work, so that unless the work reijiiired of him is of a regular 
 daily character, the stabled horse must get regular exercise, 
 either to put him or to keep him in condition for hard work. 
 
 117, — There are many degrees of efficiency demanded from 
 the horse, and consequently a great difference in the amount of 
 pulling down and building up that must be done (56), and of the 
 amount of exercise that he must take, and of the character of 
 the food he must eat. The exceedingly high and hard condition of 
 the race horse is one that can only be maintained for a short 
 time, and is not desirable in any other. With him the rule is, 
 all the corn that he can be got to digest, and all the exercise he 
 can be got to stand, for some months Ijefore he is required for 
 racing. Opinions still differ a little as to what that exei'cise should 
 be, but the tendency of modern practice has been to rely more on 
 slow and less on fast work for his preparation. Walking five or 
 six hours a day in the open air is known to be the means by which 
 all his muscles and sinews can be hardened without danger of 
 straining. All his motor nerves, air pipes, and blood vessels 
 are enlarged to their utmost capacity, by the circulation and 
 breathing being so long quickened by gentle exercise in the 
 pure air, enriching the blood Avith such a long and increased 
 supply of oxygen, and cultivating to the utmost that large per 
 centage of blood corpuscles (110) ready to carry life and 
 vigour to every part of the system, and to meet with ease the 
 emergency of the most exacting pace. A short steady gallop, 
 of a few hundred yards, on soft ground and up hill, may be given 
 daily, just to bring the lungs into their full play, and the distance 
 may be increased to a mile or two as the race draws near. But 
 long-continued quickening of the l»reath is more to be relied on, 
 and is far less liable to break a horse down than any violent 
 exertion. 
 
 118. — If as good a feeder as he should be, and not excessively 
 
€2 : TURKISH BATH. 
 
 nervous, he will get too fat oa this treatment, and fat even if so 
 placed as not to obstruct the play of the lungs and the expansion 
 of blood vessels, would be only an additional weight to carry 
 and every pound of weight is an important consideration in a 
 race. 
 
 Fat is kept down without either starving or over working, 
 by calling on the pores of the skin to carry it away. This is done 
 by working the horse briskly, in thick clothing, about once a 
 week, or as often as is found necessary. 
 
 119. — One hour after he has had his first feed in the morning, 
 having had as much water as he can drink by him all night, take 
 off his usual clothing and put on a doubly thick rug and hood, 
 kept for the purpose. Walk him briskly for an hour to open all 
 the pores of the skin, then begin a slow trot, gradually increasing 
 the pace for twenty minutes ; then canter slowly for about two 
 miles ; then take him at once to the stable and heap half a dozen 
 blankets or rugs on him, and give him water to drink in small 
 <|uantities. 
 
 In quarter of an hour take off all the clotliiug and send it 
 out of the stal)le to dry and sweeten, then let a couple of men 
 scrape and rub the horse quite dry. Put on some blankets or rugs 
 that can be changed in an hour's time for his usual clothing. 
 Every training horse should have a duplicate set of clothing, 
 and every opportunity be taken to put out one set in the open air 
 in fine weather, or to air by the fire in damp weather. We have 
 shown (56) how important it is that the skin should get every 
 assistance to carry off carbonic acid, and the worn out and pulled 
 down materials of the vigorous, because rapidly changed, body. 
 
 The clothes should never be saturated with the impurities 
 and moisture that the skin is constantly throwing off, but should 
 be kept in a state to absorb them readily, and be deprived of all 
 injurious odour by frequent exposure to warm, dry, sweet air. 
 Nothing so good as free exposure to sun and wind, and next to 
 that is an open fire. 
 
 1 20. — A far better way t han the above to dry a horse after a sweat 
 Avhen the weather will permit, is to bring him straight from his 
 canter to some sunny spot outside the stables, and taking off the 
 
FACTS VERSUS PHYSIC. 03 
 
 clothes sponge him freely with water, cither warm or cold, over 
 every part of his skin, and ipiit-kly scrape with hoop iron, and 
 ml) dry with towels. This will refresh the horse and make him 
 dry and comfortable in a innch shorter time than he could be 
 dried without the water. It i-; a most refreshing process for any 
 heated horse to go through at any time, one that they thoroughly 
 enjoy, and one that will pi'epare them for a second exertion more 
 quickly than anything else w'e know of. 
 
 121. — This sweating process has gone out of fashion a great 
 deal lately, but nothing has really taken its place. We have no 
 doubt that it will come back in an improved form. We believe 
 there used to be too much galloping in the heavy clothes, and too 
 little attention to getting the horse quickly and thoroughly dry. 
 There is still a stupid belief in pliysic, which is more difficult to 
 understand than the large fortune made by Holloway's pills. 
 
 122. — Less than two years ago we had an opportunity of 
 closely watching the training of two ordinary horses by an 
 amateur. One was a chestnut gelding that had been bouglit for 
 £30, and commonly driven by a lady. The other was a black 
 mare bought for £10. There was little if anv difference in their 
 ages. These horses were fed well on corn and cut straw, but had 
 no hay, and were daily allowed to nibble a little grass, more or 
 less as their bowels appeared to demand it. They never tasted 
 physic. They were sweated about once a week, and were always 
 w'ashed dry and made comfortal)le as soon as possible. In fine 
 weather they were allowed to crawl about, sauntering and 
 nibbling, with a boy on the back of one of them, so as to 
 keep them a great deal in the open air. 
 
 123. — After about three months of this training the horse 
 could beat the mare without an effort, giving her five stone. 
 He ran at the public races, for which he was trained, and carried all 
 before him against a number of good professionally trained 
 horses. On the first day he won a two mile hurdle race, over 
 eight flights of hurdles, carrying nine stones three pounds ; 
 time, four minutes and six seconds. On the second day he was 
 made to carry twelve stones seven pounds, but still he won easily, 
 running amile and a half in three minutes and four seconds 
 
64 EARLY RISING. 
 
 over six hurdles. He was purchased foi- two liiindred pounds 
 by an experienced racing celebrity, and was of course put into 
 the hands of orthodox trainers, and liberally supplied with 
 physic. Since then he has never won anything in good company, 
 and at the last races on the same course over the same hurdles 
 he was easily beaten, and evidently for want of condition, 
 by his old stable companion, the black mare, that was so inferior 
 to him when both were in the same unprofessional hands, when 
 both were nibbling grass in the fresh air, and botli were alike 
 io-norant of Barbadoes aloes. The mare had all along been 
 treated in the same natural way. 
 
 This is by no means the only instance we could give in 
 which nature and common sense have triumphed over drugs and 
 professional orthodoxy, but we give this case because the main 
 facts are on public records, and it is a case in which the two 
 systems were so well tested on the same good tempered animal. 
 
 124. — The horse in training should get a light feed and 
 leave the stable at daylight in the morning, as walking or 
 cantering on the dewy ground or grass is very beneficial to his 
 feet. His daily exercise should be divided into two or three 
 periods of from one to two liours each, but any fast work he does 
 should be done in the morning. He should not be galloped at 
 all, either on the day he gets his sweat, or on the day after, and 
 take care that he is never galloped enough to produce any sign of 
 
 stiffness. 
 
 125. — Xo stereotyped rules can be laid down as to the 
 quantity of exercise any horse sliould get to keep him in good 
 wind and free from fat. Xo two horses want exactly the same 
 treatment. Some restless horses will take nearly all the exercise 
 necessary for them, by constantly pacing backwards and forwards 
 in a loose box. Some delicate feeders will not eat enough to 
 keep up to much work, and will eat least when most worked. 
 Others can hardly be kept free from fat by any amount of work, 
 and not a few horses have a load of internal fat, more injurious 
 than any other that must be got rid of, even though they may 
 look like skeletons on their neck and ribs. 
 
 This latter tendency is the most difficult to estimate, and is 
 
WHIPPING THE Wir-MXG HORSE. 65 
 
 one ill which the most experienced trainer may he deceived, 
 nnless he knows liis horse very welL So lonji' as a horse's wind 
 continues to improve l)y sweats and hard work he should t;et it, 
 but the moment it ceases to do so, there has been enou^t;h of it, 
 and the fast work should be lightened oflT. 
 
 lint, however little work he may demand, see that lie gets 
 enough crawling about in the fresh air, besides getting ar? pure 
 air as possible to breathe in his box. 
 
 126. — It will of course be best to get a horse up to his 
 highest capacity on the very day that he is wanted, but that 
 is a nice point that cannot always be attained, and it is better to 
 have him ready with every ounce of fat off him, a few days 
 before he is wanted, than to have to force it off with double 
 work just before his race. We would even rather leave a horse 
 too fat — bad as that would be — than overwork him on the last 
 few days preceding the race, at the risk of making him stiff or 
 spiritless. Unless a vicious or unruly horse it is very desirable 
 that he should come to his work full of life and spirits, and not 
 in a condition that will want any driving at it. 
 
 127. — AVith most horses it is a great risk to have to resort 
 to whip or spur to bring out their last and best effort. Many a 
 race is lost by their use on a horse previously doing his best. 
 Most horses will "shut up" with any violent application of 
 them, and many will do so with the first touch. There are a few 
 race horses so easy tempered that they will bear and even require 
 pushing to the last, but there are very few that do not become 
 sufficiently excited in a fast race to do their utmost far better 
 without punishment than with. Nothing could be a more 
 degrading exhibition of bad tempei', or more certainly show a 
 man's unfitness to be a jockey, than savagely flogging a willing 
 sensitive animal that evidently cannot win. 
 
 128. — What we have said about food that passes the bowels 
 pleasantly and gives up its nourishment freely (72) is of still 
 greater importance in selecting food for the race horse. All corn 
 for him must be perfectly sweet, l)Ut never so new as to squeeze 
 into balls rather than pulverize ; it must be perfectly dry, but 
 must nevei' have been kiln dried, as kiln dried oats frequently 
 
 E 
 
<)6 DIET FOR RACERS AND HUNTERS. 
 
 ■disorder the kidneys. Hay must be free from injmnous herbs, 
 have been well made, quite sweet, and grown on good strong 
 land. The latter is important, as no matter how sweet and good 
 hay may appear, if it is grown on gravelly light land it is not fit 
 for the race horse. Many careful trainers never change the 
 ground for their hay, but constantly procure it from ground that 
 they have found to be suitable. All agree that the best hay for 
 the purpose is grown on well drained clay, rather than on light 
 land. Black Tartar oats, with their small berry, pass the bowels 
 more pleasantly than any large berried oats. They should be 
 mixed with an equal bulk of chaff, which is best cut from good, 
 bright, sweet wheaten or oaten hay {01), and with one-sixth of their 
 Aveight of good old crushed beans. White peas are used by some 
 trainers instead of beans, but their effect ou the kidneys is often 
 bad, so that we should always prefer beans. The wheaten, or 
 oaten hay chaflF, will keep the bowels in better working order than 
 meadow hay chaff, and with the proportion of chaff to corn which 
 we recommend, no large quantity of hay need be given. A little 
 bran, boiled barley, a carrot, or a nibble at grass, will keep the 
 bowels open if there is a tendency to costiveness. Have nothing 
 to do with physic, which only weakens and disorders the bowels 
 of either man or horse. 
 
 129. — Getting a hunter into condition for his season's work 
 does not differ very much from the training of a race horse. 
 His condition is not so extreme, and is expected to last longer. 
 He is allowed to carry a little more fat, but it should not be 
 much. He may be allowed a little more hay, and if he will eat 
 lOlbs. of black Tartar oats, and five pounds of crushed old beans, 
 it is better to keep him regularly eating that, than to risk putting 
 him off his feed by trying to get him to eat more. 
 
 130. — If inclined to get too fat he may be sweated in the 
 same way as the race horse, and he may get nearly the same 
 amount of walking and galloping before his work begins ; but in 
 the season he will get quite enough galloping at his work, and 
 his walking exercise should not exceed six miles a day, when the 
 intervals between his work are not longer than three or four days. 
 But this must be regulated according to the very different amount 
 
" SATAN FINDS SOME MISCHIEF STILL." 67 
 
 of work he may get in the field, and the great difference in the 
 amount of work that different liorses will require. He should 
 always be left free in a loose box, and there he will take all the 
 exercise he needs on the first day after a severe run. 
 
 131. — The ordinary ridinji' or li^lit horse when not daily 
 worked most often suH'ers for want of exercise. 
 
 AVe once heard a worthy citizen say, " My horse on^'ht to 
 take me there and back (40 miles) well in a day, as he never goes 
 out of the stable all the rest of the week." Many persons seem 
 entirely unaware that animal strength must be used, or lost, and 
 cannot be bottled up six days a week for use on the seventh. 
 The animal machine will fit itself for anything reasonable that 
 is regularly demanded of it. The muscles will harden and 
 enlarge, the arteries will expand, and the blood itself will become 
 fit for hard work (109), if regularly demanded of it ; but if a 
 horse is shut up in a stable three days out of four, he soon 
 becomes unfit for hard work, and if he does it at all, only 
 does it with great danger and suffering to himself. Such 
 a horse is dangerously eager for a gambol or a scamper when he 
 first gets out of his prison, bat soon finds that his softened and 
 wasted muscles, his thickened pipes and poor blood, all fail him 
 in any protracted exertion, especially if he be loaded with fat. 
 
 132. — There are few horses that are not quiet with regular 
 work, there are very few horses that are really (juiet without it. 
 The strong impulse to take exercise which nature lias implanted 
 in all young healthy horses, almost compels them t j play, and 
 horse-play is generally dangerous, and often leads to the horse 
 learning something, or getting into some mess, that makes him 
 dangerous ever afterwards. Thousands of timid persons who 
 would be immensely benefitted by riding on horseback or driving 
 themselves about, are prevented from doing so because they are 
 frightened with horses too fresh and too playful to be safe. We 
 have known such persons afraid to ride or drive their own good 
 tempered but playful horses go to a livery stable and hire horses 
 that had been sold cheap to the stable keeper for real vice, but 
 which were kept safe and sober by the excessively hard work of 
 their wretched lives. No cruel overwork is necessary with the 
 
68 " FOR IDLE HANDS TO DO." 
 
 good tempered well broken horse, but long rests should 1)e 
 strictly forbidden, as alike destructive to efficiency, safety, or 
 pleasure. 
 
 133. — If the work usually required from the horse is very 
 light, let the corn be withheld, or be very limited (73, 84), and 
 then a very moderate amount of daily exercise will keep the horse fit 
 for pleasant and safe riding or driving, In most cases a lady's 
 or gentleman's horse that is kept in high condition, and that is 
 only ridden short distances for pleasure, should be well exercised 
 by the groom on the morning of the day on which they are to 
 ride it (73), so that it may take any gambols it pleases with 
 him. 
 
 134:. — For a highly fed horse (82), twenty miles a day for 
 six days a week, at a moderate pace, and with a light load, is as 
 much as he should regularly do. 
 
 "When the pace is distressing and the load heavy, as in a 
 mail coach, the highest fed horse can only stand half that distance, 
 and will not last long at that. When the pace is moderate, and 
 the distance not more than about ten miles a day, the feed should 
 not be high (84), in which case the exercise on resting days need 
 not exceed a five mile walk. 
 
 135. — Some authorities have stated that when a horse is 
 required to take a long journey on one day of the week, he will 
 be best prepared for it by giving him two such journeys in the 
 week. This is quite contrary to our experience. We find 
 nothiug qualifys a horse for a long journey so well as moderate 
 daily work, and we would never give him a very long journey 
 by choice. It takes more out of a horse, and does not harden and 
 invigorate so well as flaily moderate work. If qualifying him for 
 one long day's work in a week is the only object to be obtained 
 by his work for the rest of the week, we would simply make 
 up the week's work to a hundred miles, dividing it equally over 
 three days, so as not to give him more than five miles on the 
 day before and the day after the necessarily long journey. That 
 is to say if the horse was obliged to go forty-two miles on the 
 Thursday, we would give him sixteen miles on Monday, Tuesday, 
 and Saturday, leaving only five miles each for Wednesday and 
 Fridav. 
 
niCK TURPIN s. (;i» 
 
 i;50. — <-)ne hundred and twenty miles a week, at seven or 
 eight miles an hour, is all that a good highly fed horse will 
 regularly do, and keep fresh and in good condition. We know 
 that horses have been ridden and driven more than one hundred 
 miles a day. So have men. But we would not care to number 
 on our list of friends the man who could wantonly drive either 
 of them to that distance. In America, Australia, Xew Zealand, 
 and wherever horses are so unfortunate as to be cheap, some of 
 the most brutal description of men are often endeavouring 
 to gain notoriety by some such act of barbarity, 
 
 And o'er their brimming beaker boast the inglorious deed, 
 As if barbarity were high desert. 
 
 We have seen parties of such men start on I'resh, high 
 conditioned, well bred horses, and after riding them forty or fifty 
 miles a day for a fortnight, on good summer seed grass, return 
 with a part of the the poor brutes, worn to skin and bone, and 
 with raw backs that no man with common humanity could 
 possibly sit on. 
 
 Happily in England men riding horses to such a state, in a 
 fortnight would at least stand a chance of being sent to prison. 
 Such are the feats we read of, without the horrors of the real 
 sidit, in books that tell us that horses in those countries will 
 travel forty or fifty miles a day for weeks together, on nothing 
 but grass. 
 
 Dick Turpin's mare was no better than thousands of other 
 mares, but Dick Turpin was a greater brute than most other 
 riders. What the thorough bred horse will do is one thing, but 
 what he is fit to do, and what the laws of any civilised country 
 should let brutal men do with him, is quite another thing. 
 
 137. — Cart horses will travel day after day just about as far 
 with their heavy loads at the rate of two or three miles an hour 
 as the light horses will travel with their light loads at eight miles 
 an hour, and twice as far as the light horse will continue to 
 travel at ten miles an hour. Any of them can do far more in 
 the summer season than they can do in winter. Before 
 railways were general, light cart horses in the summer season 
 often took veal to London, a hundred miles, leaving various 
 
70 FOOD TO FIT WORK. 
 
 jDarts of Wiltshire on Wednesday evening, and getting into 
 London market early on Saturday • morning. They returned in 
 an almost equally short time, each horse drawing a ton besides 
 the cart or waggon both ways, although they got little more 
 than time enough to eat their food on the way. AVe know one 
 entire horse that did this seventeen weeks following. 
 
 Only picked horses can stand such work, and they lose 
 flesh on it, so that it is very difficult to keep their shoulders 
 from galling. There is, no doubt that cart horses are lietter fed 
 on their journeys than light horses generally arc ; both because 
 they are not expected to eat corn without chaff, and because 
 they are. fed and watered by their drivers, instead of being left to 
 the tender mercies of an unknown ostler 
 
 138. — The cart horse does not often get left long without 
 exercise, except in bad weather. When highly fed, his legs are 
 more liable to suffer for want of exercise than those of the light horse. 
 We have pointed out (83) that the corn should be promptly reduced, 
 and roots substituted whenever the prospect of bad weather is 
 likely to confine the horse much to the stable. Plenty of roots 
 and bran mashes will keep down inflammation, but exercise must 
 be found for the horses even when the ground is covered with 
 snow. Where chaff cutting and corn crushing are done by horse 
 power at home, they will give some exercise, and timber, manure, 
 or stones may be drawn on a sledge. No horse need work all day, 
 but every horse should get a little exercise, and failing any work, 
 where riding and leading is not practicable, give them a chance to 
 play in a field or large yard. When cloths can be fastened on 
 them they may be advantageously turned out, even on the snow, 
 for a short time. In fact, anything is better than letting them 
 stand for days together tied up in their stalls. 
 
 139. — No horse, not even the slowest cart horse, should be 
 expected to start a heavy load after he has been long standing 
 idle, more especially if the weather is cold. Inattention to this 
 makes hundreds of good horses jibs. 
 
 The horse that from any cause has been long out of the collar 
 should be started very carefully, and with something that he can 
 move very easily ; but double care will be necessary when the 
 
COLLAR PRIDE. 71 
 
 horse has not only been without collar work, but without any 
 work at all, and is consequently fresh, frisky, and impatient. To 
 put such a horse to start anything that requires a slow, long, 
 patient lean into the collar, is to incur a very great risk of spoil- 
 ing him, and the risk is still greater if he is asked to start it two 
 or three times before he is allowed to go straight off with it and 
 get warm. 
 
 140. — For a long rested horse, however good, the carriage 
 should be drawn out upon good hard road, where it will get rather 
 a down than an uphill start, and where the horse can go straight 
 off without any stops or turns. Directly he is fastened to the 
 carriage he should be allowed to go away with it, and, if 
 possible, without a check from either rein, be steadily driven a 
 mile or two before the carriage is loaded, or he is asked to wait 
 about and start at command. Tf the horse is known to be liable 
 to jib, he should have a bridle and saddle and his own working- 
 collar put on him, and be ridden a mile or two fast enough to warm 
 his shoulders and the collar on them ; then put on the rest of the 
 harness, and buckling the reins into the traces, let some one hang 
 on to them whilst you lead him about. If he can be stopped by 
 the traces the assistant must ease off and let him go, but do not 
 put him in any carriage nncil he will walk slowly on with all that 
 an assistant can pull back. We say slowly, because a jib will 
 usually draw five times more at a fast, than he will at a slow pace. 
 "When you do put him in the carriage don't wait about, but drive 
 him about until quite warm and steady before you take up any 
 load, or risk any stopping, or starting, or waiting about. A horse 
 that has once jibbed will always be liable to do so again, and is 
 especially unfitted for occasional light work. The horse that has 
 to pull hard and steady every day will usually do it, even though 
 he has been made a jib, but such horses will always be troublesome 
 after much rest. Remember, that in nine cases out of ten, it is 
 eager impatience or fear, and not laziness or obstinacy that you 
 have to deal with, and no whip should be heard or seen by such a 
 horse until well warmed and settled down at his work. 
 
CHAPTER VII] . 
 
 SHOEING. 
 
 111. — In a country like Great Britain, wheie the roads are 
 generally metalled, shoeing the horse that has to travel on such 
 roads may be regarded as a necessary evil. A\'here he can do 
 most of his work in fields, over grass plains, or on roads not 
 covered with stones or flints, a good hoof will lie far better left 
 without any additional weight, and without being nailed to any 
 unyielding substance. The springiness of the horse is so much 
 lessened by even the very best shoes, as to make the difference 
 quite perceptible to the rider, notwithstanding the many springs 
 that interfere between his seat and the horse's foot. 
 
 14:2. — There is a very great difference in natural hoofs. A 
 few strong, tough, concave hoots, grown on dry hard ground, 
 will stand almost any roads without shoes ; others grown on soft 
 rich swamps, without frequent cutting back, are so thin, weak, 
 and flat, and have such unsound frogs, that they will stand no 
 amount of work on any roads unshod. Few horses can do much 
 without shoes after they have been accustomed to them for any 
 length of time, especially if the frogs and bars of their feet have 
 been once destroyed, as they are often with a smith's knife. 
 The flesh attached to the hoof, like that attached to the human 
 nail, is of an extremely sensitive character, and although it has 
 been protected by nature with a thick insensible hoof, that hoof 
 is not so capable of adapting itself to a greatly diifering amount 
 of wear and tear as the skin of the human hand or foot, whilst 
 the larger surface of extremely sensitive laminae demands a much 
 m<jre impenetrable covering. Thus in a bog, or on any soft 
 gritless land, the hoof will sometimes grow so long as to 
 quite impede the horse's motion, but when constantly worked 
 
» XATUUK KNOWS .I3E«T. io 
 
 on <i Hint road, it does not urow fast enough to supply the 
 material that, is there raj)idly worn away. In the one ease, the 
 horse's feet can only be kept tit for easy and safe action by cutting 
 •away the surplus hoof: in the other, the sensitive feet ean only be 
 protected by the assistance of some material harder than the hard. 
 tough hoof itself. 
 
 143. — The object of shoeing should, of course, be to give the 
 necessary protection with as little additional weight as possible, 
 •and, what is of more importance, with the smallest amount of 
 interference with the elasticity which lessens the violent concussion 
 of the horse's great weight and speed, on roads necessarily made 
 so hard and unyielding. The men who so long contrived to get 
 paid for torturing tlie horse with their physic, their lancet, their 
 bhsters, and their firing irons, also undertook to superintend his 
 shoeing, and were as ready to improve upon nature witli his foot 
 as they were with his stoinaeh, skin, or blood vessels. Nature had 
 done everything wrong; so these presumptuous meddlers set to work 
 to improve the horse's foot by cutting away the frog, the sole, the 
 bars, and all the middle of the foot, and then put a heavy ring of 
 iron under the outside edge. This unyielding iron ring was nailed 
 all round to what remained of the foot, so that nothing, but the 
 play of the pastern, was left to protect his overtaxed nerves and 
 sinews, on roads harder than nature intended them to meet, with 
 all her softening buffers. 
 
 Ii4. — With this treatment, the loot constantly contracted, so 
 that the horse that had long been shod in that way, had soon 
 •quite a different shaped foot to the unshod colt ; one that would 
 not go a mile without a shoe, and often went lame with one. 
 
 The height that the thick and often turned down, or calkined, 
 shoe carried the horse from the ground, put an extra strain on 
 everything, and lessened his safety and efficiency, as certainly as a 
 high heeled boot does that ot a lady. Nature fought against all 
 this as best she could for many generations, but there is a limit to 
 the long suffering even of the horse and his owner, and many jter- 
 sons have lately arrived at the conclusion that nature knows better 
 how a horse's foot should be made than either a veterinary surgeon 
 or a blacksmith. What Sir Chaides Forbes, Doetoi's Bostock, 
 
74 DAWNING LIGHT. 
 
 Benjamin Bush, and other first-class physicians, have done to ex- 
 pose the rash experiments, and the presumptuous meddlings with 
 nature practised by many of their profession on human subjects ; 
 those shining lights of the veterinary art, Lafosse and Fleming, 
 have done to show up the vile treatment which the horse's foot 
 has so long received. Horse owners are greatly indebted both to 
 those intelligent, scientific, and practical veterinary surgeons, for 
 their uncompromising denunciation of the too common destroyers 
 of the horse's foot, and to the Scotch Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals, for having brought out so many good 
 essays on the subject, and for giving such prominence to Mr- 
 George Fleming's admirable prize essay on horse shoeing. 
 
 145. — Much pity has been expended, and principally 
 wasted, on the " poor child," or the " poor horse, without 
 a shoe to its foot," which might have beeir better directed 
 to the poor children, and poor horses, whose well formed 
 springy feet, have been condemned to wear heavy, tight, 
 clumsy, unfittmg, unyielding shoes. The labourer's child, whose 
 calves dwindle away to " mop sticks," because the child has been 
 compelled to give up walking and springing, as nature intended 
 him to, and to swing at the end of his legs a few pounds of ox 
 hide and iron that will never bend with his wonderfully elastic 
 feet, is hardly more injured and disabled than the horse, whose 
 natural springs and elastic protectors are all cut away, to be 
 replaced by a clumsy, ponderous, unyielding iron ring. 
 
 146. — The first journey that the young horse makes to the 
 blacksmith's shop is generally the last in which he has the 
 advantage of all the kind provisions which nature has made for 
 his feet. The farrier there, too often makes him his patient for 
 life, by ruthlessly cutting away the elastic cushion, called 
 the frog, which is nature's natural support for the great flexor 
 tendon. This cushion is nature's provision to support the centre 
 of the horse's foot, to take ofi" the strain from the sensitive 
 lamina3 with which the hoof is connected with the foot, to 
 prevent the extreme depression and consequent strain on the 
 flexor tendon, and to break the concussion caused by the horse's 
 great weight coming so rapidly to the ground. When once 
 
farriers' fictions. 75 
 
 severely cut away, the frog never entirely recovers its original 
 efficiency, and will be a very long time before it will be even 
 moderately useful. At the same time the enamel, like the enamel 
 covering our finger nails, which covers the whole of the outside 
 of the colt's hoof, and etfectually retains its moisture and supjile- 
 ness, is rasped away to make his foot fit the shoe, and to give it 
 a round and uniform shape. Thus two of natui'e's most important 
 provisions to secure an elastic tread, are ruthlessly destroyed, 
 and the horse compelled henceforth to stump and jar away with 
 his sensitive foot and loaded sinews resting entirely on the dried 
 and unyielding crust of his hoof, made still more unyielding by 
 being nailed to an iron ring. 
 
 147. — Then the soft horn that covers and protects the sole 
 or bottom of the foot is pared away, as if it had been put there 
 by some bungler who did not understand his business, and thus 
 the farrier is secure, that whenever his shoe comes off", the 
 unsupported, thin, brittle, outside crust, which alone has been 
 left, will break away, and bring the horse down on to the 
 mutilated frog and sole, now quite unfit to bear any such weight. 
 This means, of course, that he cannot go a mile without being 
 shod again, when his frog and sole will be again pared, his 
 enamel rasped off, and the farrier's customers educated to believe 
 that shoeing is a blessing of which they can never have too 
 much, and that a horse without a farrier would be of no more use 
 than a horse without a foot. 
 
 148. — Now, instead of acting as if convinced that nature has 
 done everything wrong, and that we cannot too completely take 
 the horse's foot out of her hands, we ought to look at nature's 
 work with reverence, and to feel quite sure that there is a wise 
 design in every part of that foot, as we see it unmutilated on the 
 unshod colt. If it fails to bear all we require of it, it is only 
 because we want it to work on roads which we have made 
 unnaturally hard and grinding. If we approach the horse's foot 
 with this feeling, our aim will rightly be to interfere as little as 
 possible with nature. We shall remember that every nail we put 
 into the hoof is an injury to it ; that the best iron or steel is not 
 half so good as the tough, light, elastic horn which nature provides, 
 
76 TIPS VERSUS SHOES. 
 
 and tliat every ounce we add to the weight of the foot requires a 
 power to lift it equal to four hundred ounces at the loins. 
 
 140.— The farm horse, with oood sound feet that can be kept 
 •constantly working in fields, is very much better without any shoes 
 at all. He is less liable to accidents, Avill not injure his mates or get 
 injured himself in turning round amongst them, or standing in the 
 stable, or running in the field. He will never get corns, and hardly 
 ■ever go lame from any cause. He will work longer and faster every 
 <lay of the week, if he is not called on to lift one hundred and twenty 
 thousand times a day, at the utmost mechanical disadvantage, an 
 iron ring, enclosing more or less clay, mud, or dirt at the bottom 
 •of each foot. If the frog, bai-s, and soles of his feet have never 
 been cut away, he will do all the carting necessary for the harvest, 
 or manure hauling, and even bear an occasional day on the roads. 
 The Southland teams, of six horses each, that plough five acres a 
 day, and draw their driver behind them (20) never have any shoes 
 to lift on their feet. 
 
 150. — For any work that makes shoeing necessary, let there 
 be as little departure from nature as possible. If tips will do, don't 
 nse shoes, but whichever are used take care that the frog, sole, 
 bars, and enamel are never cut away, nor the horse made so that 
 he will not stand without shoes afterwards. 
 
 For city work, on rough paving stones, or on roads formed 
 with very cutting flints, the common shoe may possibly be 
 necessary ; but for all ordinary work, on ordinary roads, with iin- 
 mutilated feet, light, narrow, steel tips, not exceeding two or three 
 •ounces, are very much to be preferred ; leaving the heels, bars, and 
 frog in a state of nature. But don't try these for the first time on 
 a horse whose frog, bars, heels, and soles have been hacked away, 
 •and then jump to the conclusion that toe tips are not a sufiicient 
 protection for a natural foot. Thousands of horses have worked 
 Tvell in them, and not a few which could work in no other way. They 
 •cure contraction of the feet, or the opposite mischief of a sinking 
 centre, either of which may be caused by cutting away the frog. 
 Corns, thrush, and sand crack, generally disappear when nothing 
 more than tips are used, and when the frog can be got to do 
 ■the work it was designed to do it will take off the strain and jar 
 
ROUan RIDES AND HIGH JUMPS. 77 
 
 that so often ruins the sinews of the legs. Put on a sound footed 
 young horse, whose feet have never been hacked to pieces, they 
 will carry him, as we know irom experience, over rocky mountains,. 
 and what is even worse, over long, rough, stony river beds. 
 
 That wonderfully capable and clever, though vicious hunter 
 " Bulky," which for years carried the huntsman of the Ashburton 
 Hunt Club over a rough stony country, and was never known to 
 be behind either at a jump or a burst, was always shod with very 
 light tips, generally put on by the huntsman himself. In those 
 tremendous six feet jumps, which made that horse so celebrated 
 amongst the daring hunters of New Zealand, he landed on the good 
 frogs and heels which nature provided for him. 
 
 lol. — Whatever kind of shoe is used, or whatever kind of 
 work the horse is wanted to do, the one unvarying rule should be 
 to let the centre of the foot alone, and to leave it prominent 
 enough to take its full share of the weighc of the horse. The toe 
 may be shortened as much as it conveniently can be, but let 
 nothing be taken from the heel if the frog can be kept prominent 
 enough without doing so. "Where tips are used it need never be 
 touched ; where long shoes are used any unequal projections 
 must be filed off that interfere with the perfect bedding of the 
 shoe. Rasp the bottom of the outside of the hoof until you 
 procure a level, flat surface, as wide as the shoe or tip to be nailed 
 on to it, and exactly fitting it, and don't interfere with any other 
 part of the foot. Kasp no more of the sole away than may be 
 necessary to bed your narrow tip, or shoe, and don't leave the 
 soft sole any lower than the hard crust, !jut let them both take a 
 level bearing on the straight level top of the shoe or tip. The 
 shorter the horse's toe is kept the less likely he will be tu hiiua: 
 his toe to the ground before his heel, and consequently to stumble, 
 whilst anything that raises the foot off" the ground, weakens the 
 horse, and puts more strain on all his powers. 
 
 152. — The upper surface of the shoe or tip must be perfectly 
 smooth, and the projections raised by puncturing the nail holes 
 thoroughly filed down, but the under surface should be rounded 
 off at the edges, as a worn hoof or worn shoe would naturally^bc. 
 The shoe or tip must of course be made the right size and shape 
 
78 NAILS, FEW AND SMALL. 
 
 ■to correspond with the outside of the hoof, as the enamel of the 
 hoof must never be cut away to make the hoof fit an unsuitable 
 shoe. 
 
 153. — The nail holes must be bevelled throudi the whole 
 thickness of the shoe, and made to exactly fit the heads of the 
 nails, so that they will hold the shoe on until worn out. The nails 
 should be made of the very best material, so that they may be as 
 small, and few in number as possible. Three on the outside and 
 two on the inside are all that should be used with a full-sized shoe. 
 Only three nails need be used with tips. The strongest hold will 
 be obtained near the front of the foot, and nails there cramp the 
 foot less than they would do farther back. 
 
 154. — Smiths pride themselves upon driving these nails as 
 far into the hoof as possible, and consequently as near as possible 
 to the quick. To an unthinking observer, this gives an appear- 
 ance of greater security to the shoe : but such appearance is 
 ■entirely deceptive. The practice is an exceedingly mischievous 
 one, besides being dangerous. 
 
 To fully understand this, we must remember that the hoof is 
 grained like a piece of wood, with the grain running up and down, 
 as in a tree. Nails driven in the direction of the grain have not 
 nearly so good a hold as nails driven across it. But besides this 
 a nail driven far up the hoof can never be securely clinched. To 
 ■escape the quick at all, the last part of the nail's passage must 
 have been very near the outside of the hoof ; so that, when the 
 nail is turned down for clinching, it is turned over a thin, Aveak 
 strip of hoof, easily split out, and with the grain the wrong way 
 to support it at all. On the other hand, when the nail is brought 
 out within half-an-inch of the shoe, it takes a direction more 
 across the grain of the hoof, and the point can be clinched where 
 ■there is a great thickness of solid, hard hoof to rest it on. 
 Another great advantage in this short drive into the bottom of the 
 hoof is, that when the shoe is taken oflF, after a month's wear, and 
 the toe is again rasped down, the short nail holes will be nearly 
 rasped out, so that they will not weaken the hoof for another 
 nailing, nor form ventilators through which to evaporate the 
 natural moisture of the feet. 
 
CAN SHOE AT HOME. 79 
 
 1 55. — With this system of di-awing the nails, any strong and 
 supple man, with common sense, can nail on a shoe without any 
 previous experience, or without runniui;- tiie sliiihtest risk of 
 touching- the very sensitive ((uick. None but a drunken or 
 wantonly brutal man will ever drive a nail to the quick and 
 leave it there, as the horse will tell them plainly enough if a nail 
 actually touches the quick, but with the system of driving nails 
 so high up, the quick is often pricked and the nail instantly 
 withdrawn, or what is a great deal worse, a nail is often so close 
 to the quick that it is painful without actually laming the horse, 
 though it sometimes causes him to limp a day or two after being 
 shod. This should always be carefully watched, and the first 
 suspicious symptom attended to ; but, as we have shown, there is 
 nothing to be gained by running any risk in the matter, so that 
 no nail should be allowed to go anywhere near the quick. 
 
 156. — Pointing the old fashioned home-made nails with a 
 hammer, used to be the only difficult art in shoeing, but nails 
 can now be purchased with points that require no hammering. 
 Care should be taken to keep them bright, by keeping them from 
 damp atmospheric influence, as the slightest rust will make them 
 drive badly. The one-sided chisel point of these nails will bring 
 them out of the hoof with a shorter hold than a beginner is likely 
 to calculate on, but he will soon learn what direction to give 
 them to get hold enough. He will find that he wants to jwint 
 them more inwards at the toe than he will do near the heel, 
 both because of the different shape of the hoof, and because 
 whilst the horn that the nail meets at the toe is almost equally 
 hard on both sides, and therefore effectually acts on the bevelled 
 point, to direct the nail outwards, the horn at the heel is much 
 softer inside than out, and consequently will not curve the chisel- 
 pointed nail so rapidly and certainly outwards. 
 
 157. — When the nails have been driven, a slight notch may 
 be filed in the hoof, under the point at which each nail has come 
 out, to clinch when the nail is turned down. The clinch may 
 be filed down almost level with the hoof, but this must be done 
 without recklessly filing away the enamel covering of the hoof, 
 which is of great importance to protect it from the action of 
 
80 " A MIGHTY MAN 16 HE." 
 
 either damp or drought. Far less must the hoof be rasped awar 
 to make it fit the shoe. 
 
 158. — Amongst smiths, as amongst other men, there is of 
 course a wonderful variety of character, though the village smith 
 is often, if not generally more than an average man. Seme of 
 them are remarkably cool, courageous, and patient ; others are 
 just as cowardly, bad tempered, aud brutal. The man who has 
 never tried to shoe a restive, awkward horse is hardly qualified to 
 sit ill judgment on a shoeing smith, as he cannot know what a 
 severe trial it is to a man's temper. The position is so cramped, 
 the work so hard and particular, and the danger of getting a 
 sharp nail drawn violently into his thigh so very manifest, that 
 it must be an angelic temper that will not sometimes get irritable 
 under such a combination of provocations. No man should be 
 asked to shoe a young horse in a hurry, nor at the same price 
 as an old one, nor without very competent assistance, and exevy 
 proper appliance to prevent danger. 
 
 ir)9. — Here, as everywhere else, there must be no uncertain 
 fighting with your horse, no kicking or hammering, no shouting 
 or threatening. Show the horse that he can submit without 
 beino- hurt, but that submit he must. 
 
 There are many ways to secure the horses hind legs, so that 
 he can be shod in safety to the smith, however unwilling he may 
 be to submit to the operation. One of the simplest and best is to 
 put on an old strong collar and hames. Then take a driving 
 rein or long strong strap, or failing these, a piece of good half 
 inch rope, about twelve feet long. Tie a secure loi>p at one end 
 (if tlie strap or rope and pass a strong hobble or hame strap 
 through it, and giving it two turns, buckle tlie strap round one of 
 the hind pasterns. Then bring the other end of the strap or 
 rope under the collar and hames, and taking one turn round them 
 di'aw the foot steadily uj) and hold it wherever re([uired, A 
 strong rope or strap, or breastplate, may be used instead of the 
 collar, if more easily at hand, but the rope will not work (juite 
 so well round them. The only use of the hames is to strengthen 
 the collar and prevent its being injured. A severe rope gag or 
 bridle (353) may be put on and used in the horse's month if he 
 will not give up his legs without much violence. 
 
EFFECTUAL PERSUASION. 81 
 
 IGO.- -The foot can now be placed in the right position for 
 shoeing, by passing a common stirrnp leather under the pastern 
 close to the foot, and after giving it one turn round the pastern^ 
 bring the strap over the ham strings, six or eight inches from the 
 hock, and buckle it as required. When the smith wants to get 
 at the front of the hoof, to clinch the nails, the rope can be drawn 
 up tighter, and the strap adjusted for that purpose. 
 
 Remember that the horse stands with difficulty on three legs^ 
 especially if very fat, and don't keep his leg up longer than 
 necessary. If the smith has to leave him for any purpose, let the 
 leg down, and draw it up again when he is ready. It will not be 
 lost labour, as it all helps to make a colt more tractable. 
 
 161. — Xo such appliances are likely to be necessary with 
 a colt that has been handled in its infancy, and deliberately and 
 patiently broken, but it is far better to use them at once and 
 systematically, when any serious resistance is offered, than to 
 have any uncertain fighting with a colt, or to run any risk of 
 injuring a smith, or giving the smith any provocation to abuse 
 orilluse your colt, which might make him afraid of a smith's shop 
 all his life afterwards. 
 
 162. — When a shoe is to be taken off it must not be 
 violently wrenched at the risk of splitting off a large piece of 
 hoof with it. Let the clinched ends of each nail be first turned 
 back. Then the shoe may be carefully raised with the pincers, 
 far enough to withdraw the nails, so that their heads may be 
 taken hold of by the pincers and each nail separately drawn. 
 
 163. — The nails may also be drawn out, one at a time, so as 
 not to alter the position of the tip or shoe, and a fast nail made 
 to exactly fit the countersink in the shoe and to pass through 
 the same hole in the hoof may be driven in its place. 
 
 In such seasons, latitudes and altitudes, that frozen icy roads 
 may be expected to frequently alternate with unfrozen roads, Mr. 
 Flemming's system of screwed or tightly and accurately fitting 
 steel plugs should be adopted. The shoes should have holes at 
 the heels and toes, and be tapped with female screws, as large as 
 the shoe will securely bear. Short, square headed, tight fitting, 
 steel plugs, the screws of which will not penetrate beyond the 
 F 
 
82 flemming's alternations. 
 
 top face of the shoe, may be screwed into these holes for ordinary 
 wear. Other steel plugs with chisel-pointed heads, must also be 
 tightly fitted into the shoes for use in frosty weather, and a supply 
 of them kept in the stable. Whenever the state of the roads 
 demands it, the square-headed plugs may be screwed out, with a 
 small hand vice, and the chisel-headed ones screwed in, and 
 renewed as often as may be necessary. Mr. Flemming is said to 
 have successfully accomplished the same purpose, by using 
 unscrewed square holes, with very slight bevel, into which square 
 accurately fitting steel plugs can be driven. A supply of these 
 nails and screws, or steel plugs must be kept on hand, and may 
 be put in, in a few minutes any frosty morning without having to 
 teach your horse to skate and wait for hours at the besieged 
 smith's forge. Horses walking on their frogs never slip so badly 
 as those whose frogs have been destroyed. 
 
 1G4. — Under a growing sense that iron is too heavy and 
 unyielding to be a suitable foundation for a horse's foot, many 
 substitutes have been tried, and many of them are more like 
 nature, but no one has yet succeeded in securely fastening any 
 elastic material to the foot. Consequently all substitutes for 
 iron or steel have been very generally abandoned. The only 
 elastic material that can be securely and entirely relied on, is the 
 horse's own safe and useful frog, which we have for centuries 
 so ruthlessly and ignorantly discarded as unfit for its work. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THEORY OF HORSE EDUCATION. 
 
 165. — Some forty-six years ago, we met, in Somersetshire, 
 a Mr. Josiah Hunt, a quaker, an athlete, a man of extraordinary 
 physical power and agility. We were told that he once saw a man 
 stealing his geese and gave him chase. On coming up to him the 
 thief proved a powerful man, who well understood the use of his 
 fists, so that Mr. Hunt had to abandon his peace principles for the 
 occasion, and to enter into a long-pitched battle with a very able 
 opponent, before he succeeded in getting him committed to 
 custody. After Mr. Hunt had given his evidence before the 
 magistrate, the latter was tempted to make the impertinent 
 remark, " I thought Mr. Hunt that Quakers did not fight ; " to 
 which Mr. Hunt instantly replied, " Let me catch thee stealing 
 my geese, I'll tell thee if Quakers don't fight." 
 
 166. — After the goose stealer had been committed to prison, 
 Mr. Hunt's mother, who was a local Elizabeth Fry, undertook to 
 visit him, expecting to find as tough a subject in her line as her 
 son had found in his. But the moment she opened her soft fire 
 ■on the criminal he began to weep, and said, " I would rather fight 
 your son than talk to you." 
 
 167. — Mr. Hunt had attacked the pugilist with his own 
 "weapons, and only succeeded because he was the stronger man. 
 Mrs. Hunt attacked him with weapons that he was wholly unpre- 
 pared to resist, and found him helpless as an infimt. 
 
 168. — The horse's natural defence is kicking and striking. 
 He has few equals in that line, and no man could compete with 
 him for a moment. If you strike him it is quite natural that he 
 should strike you. He quite understands that business ; nothing 
 else you could have done would have been so much in his line ; 
 and you have foolishly provoked a battle in which you must be 
 worsted. 
 
84 LEADING EULES. 
 
 169. — Meet him on the other hand with mechanical appliances, 
 about which nature has given him not the slightest idea, and he 
 no longer thinks of resistance. He has nothing to oppose to you ; 
 he is a piece of clay in your hands ; and you stand before him no 
 longer on equal terms, but as a superior being ; an omnipotent 
 master, whose will he will obey directly you can make him under- 
 stand what that will is. 
 
 170. — This is the great central truth that you must never 
 forget in your dealings with the horse. Never meet him on his 
 own ground ; never enter into a physical contest with him ; never 
 run after him ; never exhibit any brutal temper ; never give him 
 blow for blow, nor push for push, nor pull for pull. Avoid every 
 contest in which you must, or even may be beaten, and the horse 
 will soon learn to look upon you as omnipotent, and will never 
 think of measuring any of his powers against yours. 
 
 171. — If our readers will only keep this great principle 
 constantly in mind, in everything they do with a young horse, 
 they will certainly succeed. The details we may give may be 
 varied in a hundred diflFerent ways, but this essential principle 
 must never be departed from, 
 
 172.— The modest opinion that the horse can so readily be got 
 to entertain of his own power is a most convenient feature in his 
 character until we come to Avant to give him confidence at pulling 
 in the collar, and then it becomes our great difficulty. But this 
 is a subject of such great practical importance that it must be 
 fully treated of in a separate chapter, before we can understand the 
 subject of breaking to harness. 
 
 173. —The man who undertakes to educate a horse labours 
 under some disadvantages that do not arise in the education of a 
 child. A tutor is commonly supposed to be the superior of his 
 pupil physically, mentally, and morally, and generally has the 
 immense advantage of using a language common to both. The 
 teacher of the horse knows nothing of his language, if he has one, 
 whilst he has to deal with an animal far surpassing him in physical 
 power, and whose special senses are all more efficient than his own. 
 The ear of the horse catches sounds too faint or too distant to be 
 heard by man ; his eyes enable him to gallop on a track that his 
 
BRAINS VERSUS MUSCLES. 85 
 
 rider could hardly see on his hands and knees, or to travel safely 
 in the darkness of night. His taste and smell direct him un- 
 erringly in the choice of herbage, or in the rejection of water 
 from a contaminated vessel, whilst his sensitive muzzle is the 
 oracle he appeals to, as superior to all his other powerful senses, in 
 deciding upon the danger or safety of any suspected object. 
 
 174. — In memory of a road once travelled, in finding a far- 
 distant home through a trackless wilderness, or in reading the 
 concealed intentions of a would-be captor, the horse has some 
 perceptions superior to man. But whilst in physical power and 
 special senses man stands a pigmy by the side of the equine giant; 
 in reasoning power, he is the all powerful giant by the side of an 
 insignificant pigmy, and is called on to deal with an animal so 
 entirely in his power as to demand all the compassion, gentleness, 
 and forbearance that a noble nature is so anxious to extend to any 
 helpless object that has no means of resistance; no hope of a 
 defender. 
 
 175, — With so much physical inferiority and so much mental 
 preponderance, the policy of the horse trainer should evidently 
 be to avoid any approach to a physical conflict, and to meet his 
 pupils' superior strength with the irresistable appliances of reason. 
 With good judgment and sufficient caution, it is in fact wonder- 
 fully easy to give such a simple animal the impression that he has 
 no power to resist your will ; but if once you allow him to provoke 
 you into a trial of strength against strength, in which he is sure 
 to succeed, the spell is broken and you have lost an advantage 
 which you can never again completely recover. The horse that 
 has once pulled at one end of a rope whilst you pulled at the other, 
 and has thus discovered that you are nobody in such a contest, or 
 that has shown you his heels, and seen how fast you fly from 
 them, has learned a lesson that he will never forget ; and will 
 never be made quite so gentle and obedient as one which has 
 never acquired that piece of information. 
 
 176. — On the other hand, if he has ever been severely hurt 
 in his first contact with man and his appliances; has been 
 whipped, spurred, galled, had his jaw wrenched, kicked his legs 
 to pieces, or has turned a somersault with a lounging line, a tether 
 
86 DANGER OF FEAR. 
 
 rope, or harness, he will always associate such objects with 
 pain ; all his strong natural fears will be confirmed, and may, at 
 any time after, be exhibited in the most unsuspected and 
 dangerous manner, 
 
 177. — The time and money spent in the education of 
 different horses, under widely diflPering circumstances, varies 
 almost as much as that which was spent respectively on Sara 
 Weller and the Prince of Wales ; but the object that must be 
 aimed at with all is to make the horse believe that he has no^ 
 power to resist the will of man, and that he may submit to him 
 without being hurt. The latter is by far the most difficult part 
 of the lesson. With at least nine horses out of ten their fear is 
 the only thing that you will have any difficulty in getting over. 
 Once convince them that you are not going to hurt them, and 
 you take away the danger of any frantic movements likely to hurt 
 you. The horse is neither a vindictive, an obstinate, a sulky, an 
 insensible, or a lazy animal ; although careless observers have put 
 him down for all these, and under that fatal mistake have adopted 
 practices only calculated to ruin an animal whose besetting weak- 
 ness is fear. We have seen a horse, in his first lessons, whealed 
 from head to foot by a brutal man without offering to move ; 
 although the same horse a month afterwards would run himself 
 to death rather than be touched with a whip. When first brought 
 into the clutches of man, and made to feel that escape is hopeless, 
 the most timid and sensitive wild horses are prone to be paralysed, 
 like a victim in the claws of a lion, and in that state will take no 
 notice of being torn or cut to pieces. The man who would whip 
 a horse in that pitiable condition should never be allowed to have 
 any animal in his power. 
 
 We cannot pretend to explain all the strange action, or 
 want of action, we sometimes witness in our first contact with a 
 young horse. 
 
 We have seen a few cases of even handled pets, who could 
 not have been paralysed with fear, who could not move at all with 
 anything on them that controlled the direction of their move- 
 ments. We have even seen them stand stock still, for nearly 
 half-an-hour, after everything was taken off them, evidently under 
 
IDIOSYNCHACIES, 87 
 
 the impression that they could not move. We are wholly un- 
 conscious of the nature of the instincts which appear thus to 
 paralyse the regulated motions of some colts. A state of paralysis 
 which is commonly treated as obstinacy or sulkiness, but which is 
 more apt to be exhibited by amimals the farthest removed from any 
 such tendencies, and by animals that afterwards move with the 
 utmost promptness for the most gentle indication. Wo have tried 
 our utmost to discover the cause of this unfortunate propensity, 
 but have never succeeded. All that we know about it is, that the 
 more patiently and soothingly it is treated the more completely it 
 disappears ; and that harsh treatmenc will render the horse liable 
 to similar fits all through his after life. Most unbroken horses 
 will move on when whipped, but many will not, and it is a great 
 mistake to suppose that a horse necessarily knows that he is 
 resisting your will because he does not fly from your whip. 
 
 178. — Besides the evidence of sacred history that the horse 
 probably originated in Africa, there is abundant evidence in the 
 nature of the horse itself, that he is an animal originating in 
 some country abounding in serpents and beasts of prey, powerful 
 and agile enough to require his constant vigilance. The mad 
 terror with which he flies from a dragging tether rope, the wide 
 birth he likes to give to every log, the distance he will keep from 
 a fur rug, the frantic exhausting plunges he will make under the 
 first animal or even object that alights on his back, the extreme 
 nervousness with which he receives the slightest prick, such as 
 might be given by the sharp claw of a beast of prey, all show that 
 nature has endowed him with a watchful timidity adapted to move 
 amidst dangers which have no existence amongst us, which keeps 
 him constantly on the alert, and subjects him to many sudden 
 impulses which are very difficult for us to understand. 
 
 179. — With such evidences of the horse's real nature 
 constantly before us, we cannot rate that man's intelligence very 
 high who tells us that the fears of the shying horse are all shams 
 adopted to unseat his rider, or to turn him over in a vehicle. 
 
 It is quite true that constant hard work in the open air will 
 banish a great deal of nervous timidity from man, woman, or 
 horse, but that does not prove that it never existed, or that its 
 
■88 HARE COMBINATION. 
 
 possessor deserved to be tortured more than he was naturally 
 tortured, by the wretched feeling itself. Any experienced 
 traveller on horseback must have noticed the awe and reluctance 
 ■with which even an old horse enters a forest tract, the depressed 
 spirits with which he passes through it, and the animation he 
 recovers as soon as he can see his way out of it. 
 
 180. — There is too, a proneness to martyrdom about some 
 horses that no one can account for, and which often subjects them 
 to fearful torture. They will jump from the mere threat or touch 
 of a whip, but will not move for a severe application of it ; they 
 will fly for the prick of a light spur, but will not move for a 
 dagger or a burn. Extremely sensitive to the slightest touch, 
 severe pain has probably some paralizing eflFect upon them. 
 
 181. — The instructor of the young horse should bring to his 
 work great natural qualifications. He need know little of English, 
 and nothing of Latin or Greek, but he should possess all that 
 fondness for his work and that interest in each pupil, that patience 
 ■and good temper, that insight into each character, and the best 
 way to meet its peculiarities, found in the first-class instructor of 
 children, and he needs besides the highest order of courage, and a 
 certain, indefinable, mesmeric perception and influence, which 
 supplies the place of language between him and the horse, and 
 without which no man is ever very successful with them. The 
 ■courage wanted is the very opposite of the blustering aggressive- 
 ness and reckless blindness to all danger that is sometimes called 
 by that name. It is quick to see real danger, to anticipate and 
 provide for it, but when it comes it sharpens and does not drive 
 away the wits, and there must be none of that selfish fear of his 
 own skin which makes a man always so ready to secure himself at 
 any cost to others, to suspect bad intentions where none 
 •exist, and to be needlessly cruel because he cannot be calmly 
 just. Such fear is more contagious than the small pox, and 
 is quite fatal to any beneficial intercourse between man and 
 horse. Under its influence they will be perpetually alarming 
 each other, and the horse will wildly plunge from side to side at 
 an object that he would have passed quietly enough with a calmer 
 man upon his back. 
 
RAUEV. 81) 
 
 182. — Ravey has done much for the horse by showin": the 
 most expeditious method of reconciling him to all the objects of 
 his groundless fears. We are quite ready to admit that Rarey's 
 system is not the best possible system under which a horse can 
 be educated, nor one that we would adopt with a very valuable 
 horse in a country where good men can be got at reasonable 
 wages to haudle him. 
 
 But, like cheap eugraviugs, his system is a boou to the 
 millions, and a moderately humane way to make millions of 
 horses useful upon whose education much time or money will 
 never be spent. Where the total value of a horse is less than 
 the wages of a man for a week, nothing wiil induce his owners 
 to employ a man for a month to prepare him for market. In 
 such circumstances we must seek for cheap and expeditious 
 methods, making them at the same time as efficient and humane 
 as we can. We have broken horses that cost five hundred pounds 
 each, we have broken others, eight of which were bought for 
 five pounds. However much we may determine to treat them all 
 humanely, no one could be expected to spend an equal amount of 
 time and trouble on their education. The one will be treated as 
 princes the other as Sam Wellers. 
 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BREAKING A HORSE SLOWLY AND THOROUGHLY. 
 
 183. — In England the education of a horse often and wiselj 
 begins on the first day of its existence. The little long legged 
 animal is brought into a loose box with its mother, and if not 
 actually haltered and taught to lead, is gently handled from head 
 to foot, which has a great effect in making it ever after fearless 
 of the approach of man. The more often this is repeated the 
 better. When two or three months old it is often fed from a 
 manger with its mother, and frequent opportunities taken to 
 handle it. It is sometimes shut up in a loose box during the 
 forced absence of its mother, and at others follows her through 
 the roads, over the bridges, and amongst the sights and scenes 
 of its future life. 
 
 184. — At weaning time, if not already done, it is often 
 subjected to the important lesson of being tied up. A strong 
 wide smooth leather halter is quietly, cautiously, and securely 
 fixed on its head. It is placed in a stall and fed from a manger. 
 Some door, gate, hurdle, or slip bar is closed behind it so that it 
 cannot run back far. Then a rope is tied to each side of the 
 stall sufficiently loose to allow the colt to feed freely, but not 
 long enough to allow it to turn round. As it cannot get far 
 backwards or forwards it will first feel the restraint of the rope 
 sideways, in which direction it can exert but little power and 
 can hardly hurt itself. In this position it may be tied for two 
 hours or more, on several days in succession, when, if it has 
 been well managed so that it has neither broken away nor hurt 
 itself, it will have come to the conclusion that it cannot break 
 anything that it is tied with, and will not try, however weak 
 the line by which it may afterwards be fastened. 
 
LOUNGING. 91 
 
 185. — At two years old it may be brought in, and after being 
 shut in a loose box or some secure enclosure, until reconciled to the 
 absence of its companions, it may be tied up again with the same 
 precautions as at first (IS-t). After being thus well accustomed to 
 the restraint of the common leather halter, it should have a nicely 
 fitting cavessou adjusted to its head, with the noseband low enough 
 to give some power over the colt's movements, but not low enough 
 to interfere with his breathing, or to press painfully on the soft 
 cartilages of the nose. If the colt has not been taught to lead, it 
 may then be driven into a well-fenced yard or large enclosure. 
 There a long soft hne of web or leather may be attached to the 
 front ring on the oavesson, and the colt be started to move round 
 you where the fences will prevent his pulling away from you, and 
 enforce obedience to your pull on the cavesson. When made 
 obedient to the cavesson on both sides, put on a bridle, or attach 
 a bit to the cavesson. Whatever bit is used, it should be large 
 and very smooth, and have large guards at the side, so that it 
 cannot be drawn through its mouth. After a little lounging on 
 both sides with the bit and a little time to freely play with the bit 
 in its mouth, it may be put into the stall, with its hind quarters 
 to the manger, and the bit fastened to the post on each side of the 
 stall, at the natural level of the head, so that it can only move its 
 head a few inches either way without being restrained by the bit. 
 An hour at a time on three successive days will be long enough 
 for this, as in that time the colt will be under the firm conviction 
 that it cannot resist a pull on either side of its mouth, or go 
 forward against the bit ; a delusion you must take care not to 
 dispel by any after handling. 
 
 186. — After these lessons in the stall, take the colt into a 
 shed, or large enclosure of any kind, and get it to walk round you. 
 Hold it first by the rein fastened to the left side of the bit, by 
 which you give the colt a side pull before he reaches a corner, and 
 turn him round towards you. Try how little force will fetch him 
 round, and use no more, but firmly bring him round at any rate. 
 After a httle practice on that side, buckle the line on the right 
 side of the bit, and walk him round in the other direction, guiding 
 him as before. It does not matter what pace he goes, the object 
 
92 GENTLING. 
 
 of the lessou is to keep up the delusion that he must yield to a 
 
 pull on either side, where the walls will enforce the lesson, and 
 
 give him no chance to pull effectually against you. An hour of 
 
 this will be quite enough, after which go to his head and rub it all 
 
 over with your hands, going gently over the eyes and ears until he 
 
 makes no objection to such handling. If he seems at all suspicious 
 
 about it, spend a good deal of time to gain his confidence ; rub 
 
 the corners of his eyes and the roots of his ears again and again, 
 
 until he is quite reconciled to the process. Then take a wisp of 
 
 straw, and, letting him first touch it with his muzzle, rub the head 
 
 gently with that, working back down his neck and fore legs and 
 
 over his shoulders and back. Take his hind quarters cautiously, 
 
 » holding the rein in your left hand, and keeping an eye on his ears, 
 
 and on the hind leg that is not carrying the weight of the body, as 
 
 he cannot kick you with the other until he has shifted it. There 
 
 is rarely any difficulty about all this with the early handled colt, 
 
 but if there is any disposition to kick, or any strong objection to 
 
 be handled in any part, this will be the proper time and place to 
 
 deal with that frailty with safety to the colt and to yourself, and 
 
 the lesson will not be without good effect in making the colt 
 
 more submissive in all his following lessons. 
 
 187. — Strap up one of his fore legs (353), and then go back 
 to his hind quarters and wisp them all over, going down the 
 hind legs and handling his feet, lifting his tail, and reconciling 
 him to be touched in every part ; showing him, in fact, that your 
 touching him and rubbing him in any part will not hurt him. 
 If the foot has been strapped up without much difficulty, and 
 the colt is not very restive, don't keep him on three legs more 
 than ten minutes, but let the foot down and take up the other 
 one. The more frequently this is done the more easily it will be 
 found to yield to the process, and it makes the colt more 
 tractable for shoeing, and many other purposes. If there has 
 been much difficulty in getting the foot up it may be kept up a little 
 longer. In this you must be guided by the weight and hard or 
 soft condition of the colt. Ponies with no surplus flesh, and in 
 hard condition will hop a mile, or stand an hour on three legs, 
 but a heavy, soft, fat horse will sometimes lie down rather than 
 
THE SOFT TAMER. 93 
 
 stand on three legs for five minutes. There is no harm in the 
 lying down if the place is suitable, but there must be a great, 
 strain on the muscles to compel a colt to do so. After the 
 wisping get a piece of cloth or sacking about two feet square, 
 and after taking it to the colt's muzzle, rub it over his head and 
 body. Then beat him with it as with a duster, at first gently, 
 but getting harder and harder until he will allow you to swing it 
 round forcibly and bring it rapidly down on any part of his body 
 or legs. This he will submit to in a few minutes, and you will 
 find it save a lot of time and trouble in all your future handling. 
 A colt that has been well dusted, and completely gentled by this 
 operation, will usually loose all fear and nervousness about articles 
 being put suddenly on him, so that he will allow a saddle or other 
 harness to be flung on his back without any warning, and will not 
 jump away from a sudden approach. 
 
 188. — The colt being thus entirely reconciled to your close 
 proximity, so that you can freely and even hastily tumble against 
 him without danger to yourself or alarm to him, can now be 
 taught the important lesson of leading freely and well. Take 
 the rein in your left hand, so that your right hand is free to 
 place on his head and neck, to push the colt gently away from 
 you if necessary. Take him at first round a yard or large shed, 
 where the fences will secure him, and enforce obedience to your 
 rein. Encourage him to step out freely by your side, and to 
 yield to a gentle side pull on the halter. Use no violence, have 
 no pulling matches with him, never get before him or attempt to 
 pull him along, or you will soon spoil him for leading. If you 
 cannot coax him into a free bold step, take a long gig whip, and 
 gathering the rope up in your right hand, take hold of the 
 leather halter round his head, so that you can either push or pull 
 him. Drag the whip behind you with your left hand, so that 
 you can touch his hind quarters with the thong, without his 
 understanding that you arc the operator. This will soon give 
 him the habit of stepping freely when led, though it requires to 
 be done skilfully and judiciously, without any appearance of 
 turning round to attack the colt, or destroying his confidence in 
 you, which would be quite fatal to good leading. 
 
•94 PROGEESSIV^E LESSONS. 
 
 189. — The next day's lesson may be to teach the colt to 
 bear something tightly girthed round it, and to be reconciled to 
 articles fastened on its back, A surcingle is the most convenient 
 thing for the first lesson. It need not be ornamental, but may 
 be simply a plain leather strap, three or four inches wide, with a 
 ring on each side of the colt, and one at the bottom. It should 
 fasten round the colt with double buckles and buckle straps. 
 
 Put on gently and tighten moderately by degrees. Then 
 walk the colt round and see if it has any disposition to try and 
 throw it off, and if it has let it try its best. If it has not, tie 
 on a pocket handkerchief, or some small waving ariicle, and try 
 the effect of that. As soon as it is quite reconciled to one 
 article try another, until it carries them with indiflFerence Take 
 care that nothing is put on so that the colt can throw it off, or 
 that can possibly hurt him. Dou't forget the precaution to let 
 him touch everything with his muzzle before you put it on his 
 back. 
 
 190. — One lesson that may take a good deal of time with 
 a young horse, and especially with a young mare, is allowing 
 articles of any kind to be placed between its tail and its body. 
 First put on a common crupper, and fasten it moderately tight 
 to the surcingle. The fore leg may be strapped up (353) if 
 necessary for this purpose, and be let down again as soon as all 
 is secure. Let the colt move round you, and you will soon see 
 if it is going to be ticklish about its tail. If it kicks let it kick 
 as long as it will, and when it will not kick any longer slacken 
 the crupper, so that it will drop three inches down its tail, and 
 try the colt round at that. When it will no longer kick at a 
 tight or slack crupper, tie a piece of stout string as long as your 
 lounging line to the crupper, midway between the tail and the 
 surcingle, and taking the loose end of the string in your hand 
 tighten and slacken the crupper with it as the colt passes round 
 you. When reconciled to this strap up a fore leg, and take off 
 the crupper. Fold and secure a large duster or some such fabric 
 round it so as to make the part that goes under the tail three or 
 four inches in diameter. Then put the crupper on again and 
 try the colt round with it. If it kicks keep it going until it will 
 
SADDLING. 'J5 
 
 kick no longer. See that it is not too tight, and that there is 
 nothing about it to make the very tender skin under the tail 
 sore, so that it may be kept on several days and nights if 
 necessary. It will have a greater effect and be less likely to 
 produce any soreness or tenderness, if the material under the tail, 
 as well as its size and position, are varied every day. The 
 crupper can be shortened and lengthened so as to touch different 
 parts of the colt's tail. On the second day a piece of woolly 
 fiheep skin may take the place of the duster, on the third a hay 
 band, on the fourth a loose cloth or a wide piece of leather or 
 sacking, and thus continue something new until the colt will 
 ■take no notice of any harmless thing, and will not pinch any of 
 them when placed under his tail. 
 
 191. — You may now try a riding saddle without stirrups. 
 Put it first on the usual part of the back, keeping hold of it, and 
 shifting it backwards and forwards until the colt makes no 
 objection to it on any part. Then put it in the right place, 
 and adjusting a surcingle round it girth it on securely. Fasten 
 every description of clothing on the saddle until the colt appears 
 reconciled to every article of dress you can think of. Lead him 
 quietly at first, and then try the effect of a trot, or any faster pace, 
 whilst he is secured both by walls and a lounging line, as a colt 
 will often carry clothes or other articles at a slow pace which 
 i\'ill alarm him in a faster ]3ace. 
 
 192. — When quite quiet at leading or lounging, put on 
 reins, and drive the colt about with them, first in the shed or 
 yard, and then outside. The first drive with reins, walking 
 behind a colt, requires quick sight, quick movement, and some 
 common sense. We have seen persons put the reins on a colt 
 for the first time, passing them through rings, fixed in the 
 harness, saddle, or surcingle, as they would do with an old 
 horse that was to be fixed between shafts. The result of this 
 usually is that the first time the colt makes a short turn round, 
 the would be driver finds himself without any reins at all, 
 and the colt awkwardly entangled, or running away in a fright. 
 Reins should not be tried at all until the colt is likely to go 
 ■quietly, and to guide to them, and then of course they should be 
 
96 PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE. 
 
 passed through no fixtures, and nothing must intervene between 
 your hand and the colt's mouth, and turn as he will you must 
 keep behind him. Until you know that the colt will guide fairly 
 well to the reins, do not let him out of a good yard, or some 
 place where he cannot get away from you. Besides the certainty of 
 losing your reins by passing them through rings, &c., you lose 
 the power to give a side rather than a back pull at first, which is 
 a very essential point in teaching a colt to guide pleasantly to 
 reins (198). When the reins are simply tied to the colt's bit, on 
 each side, you have always the power, in case of any entangle- 
 ment, to drop one of them, and to use the other as a lounging 
 line. Use the reins gently and teach the colt to guide, turn, and 
 stop with them, repeating at the same time the words that you 
 wish him to attend to when on his back. 
 
 193. — Some colts will take whatever you put on them quietly, 
 indeed most colts will do so after a good dusting (187), whilst 
 others will want time to get reconciled to each new article. 
 Give whatever time is necessary and reconcile him to everything 
 you can think of before he is mounted. 
 
 It is far better, both for horse and rider, that his first alarms 
 and most violent efforts should be directed against empty clothes 
 or light and inanimate objects. A desire to show off his riding, 
 or to " fight it out" with a colt, is one of the worst errors a horse 
 breaker can fall into. Too many persons labour under the 
 delusion that a colt is the better to try his best to throw his first 
 rider, so long as he does not succeed. This is a great mistake, 
 even if we could be quite sure that he would not succeed, which 
 we never can be. We have seen one colt throw successively three 
 of the best riders in the world, though the same colt was com- 
 pletely tamed by letting him try three days in a field to throw 
 off a common cart saddle, well secured with girths and crupper. 
 Plunging and bucking with a man on his back is very liable to 
 injure any horse, and especially a two year old colt. But apart 
 from all danger to man and horse it is not only useless but very 
 mischievous to unnecessarily enter upon any such encounters. 
 No horse is so well broken as the horse which has never tried to 
 throw a living rider, which has never pulled on a bridle or halter 
 and never refused to pull in a collar. 
 
MOUNTING 1)7 
 
 Prevention is better and more easy tlmn any cure, and in '.Hi 
 cases out of 100 i)revention is possible, and perfect cure impossible. 
 
 1 94. — When the colt has been made really ready for mounting, 
 his breaker will have learned a great deal of what his tem])er is, 
 and will be able to judge what precautions will l>o necessary in 
 getting on his back. 
 
 There are many different ways of going to work, and the 
 experienced breaker will choose the one most suited to the temper 
 and disposition of his pupil. Available convenience too will vary 
 greatly : a common stall, an empty barn well littered, a ploughed 
 field, or even a grass paddock may be used, but we like nothing 
 better than a good sized high loose box, with a clay floor, and 
 some well trodden short litter upon it. 
 
 105. — An empty box about eighteen inches square makes a 
 good mounting block. Let the colt touch it with his muzzle 
 and closely examine it as long as he pleases. Then place it near 
 his left fore leg and step quietly on to it. Pat the colt on the 
 back, and give him plenty of time to take stock of you at that 
 elevation. Then get off the box and mount again repeatedly. 
 Then standing on the box reach your hands over and pat him 
 down the right side. Lean first a little and then all your weight 
 on him, gently repeating anything that alarms him until he is 
 quite reconciled to it. If he is still nervous about your 
 proceedings, get the duster (187) and give him another good 
 rough dusting. This never does any harm, and it usually has a 
 wonderful effect in removing all fear of your future movements 
 upon hira. With your hands lean your weight first in one 
 stirrup and then in the other. Then put your left foot in the 
 left stirrup and stand in it, getting up and down repeatedly 
 Thus deliberately feeling your way at every stage get gently on 
 his back. Pat him on the neck and shoulders and speak to him 
 in a calm soothing voice. Get on and oft' repeatedly. If you 
 have got on so far without ruHling your own or the horse's 
 temper, you may take away the box, and practice getting on and 
 off as long as he appears at all nervous about it, and get him 
 thoroughly reconciled to this important part of his future business' 
 however long it may take, before you attempt to proceed farther. 
 
98 PATIENCE PAYS. 
 
 19G. — There are few things more difRcult to teach a lively 
 horse than that he is not wanted to rush on the moment you 
 begin getting on his back, and if he is allowed to do so at first, 
 he is hardly ever cnred of it, so that it is worth spending a good 
 deal of time with a valuable horse to teach him to stand quietly 
 to be mounted without holding. One single hasty act at the 
 first stages may make it impossible to attain the quiet, unsus- 
 picious standing that adds so much to the pleasantness and value 
 of a riding horse. We would here impress upon the horse tamer 
 the importance of doing nothing at this stage if he at any time 
 feels that he has lost his own calmness and temper. 
 
 The youQg horse will know it by his face, by his touch, and 
 especially by his voice, and he cannot be deceived. Go away at 
 once and come back to your work when you are fit for it. 
 
 197. — When the colt has been taught to let you mount him 
 without any nervousness or impatience, take him out into the 
 yard or shed where you have been leading him, and mount 
 him there, letting him stand still with you or walk as he 
 pleases. If he stands still five minutes after you have mounted 
 him so much the better, but very few, if any, colts will do that. 
 If at any time you want to start him, don't touch him with your 
 heel, or do anything to send him off with a rush, but pull him 
 gently to one side with a horizontal rein. If he is restive and 
 does not guide to the rein, you have mounted him too soon ; get 
 off as soon as you can, without any fighting, and give him 
 more discipline where he must submit. If he walks about 
 quietly with you, take a few turns round the yard or shed, and 
 then get off his back and lead him, or drive him with reins 
 a mile away from home, and there get on him and ride him 
 home at a walking pace. Be sure that you do not at first 
 attempt to ride him away from his home, his stable, his company, 
 or any strong attraction, as it may lead to a fight in which you 
 may not be master. If such a fight is carefully avoided at first 
 it will not take place after he has learned to thoroughly under- 
 stand all your signals, and acquires, as he soon will, the impres- 
 sion that he must obey them. 
 
 198. — When you first mount a colt, do not be so absurdly 
 
BE UEASONABLK. 99 
 
 unreasonable as to expect him to g-uide by signals that he has 
 never been i aught, such as the pressure of a rein on the neck, or 
 even by a straight back pull on eitlier of the reins, but imitate 
 as nearly as you can the signals he has been taught whilst you 
 were at his side, and still more forcibly wlien each side rein was 
 fastened to a post. Draw hira to either side by a pull on the 
 rein of that side, holding your hand well out from your body so 
 as to give the pull as much side direction as you can. Remember 
 that your object is to keep up the delusion that he can no more 
 resist your pull now you are on his back than he could the pull 
 on the straps that first fixed him to the stall posts. He will 
 quite expect to obey what he still believes to be the irresistible 
 side pull, if you do not frighten him out of his senses with some 
 new object of alarm, or commence before the delusion is established, 
 to resist hi in on some very strong natural instinct. "When the 
 habit of yielding to a touch of the rein has been well established 
 he will instinctively obey it even under excitement, just as a long 
 trained soldier can hardly help obeying the word of command 
 in the excitement of a battle, which would drive his half learned 
 lesson out of the memory of a recruit. Until the habit of yielding 
 to a touch of the rein has become a part of the horse's impulsive 
 nature, strong excitement will make hira forget it, and one act of 
 Successful disobedience, though accidental, may entirely destroy 
 the delusion that he is obliged to obey the rein, and thus make 
 him a less obedient animal fur the rest of his life. 
 
 191). — This awkward looking side pull will not have to be 
 continued long. The colt's sensitive mouth and active tempera- 
 ment will soon begin to notice the slightest touch in that 
 direction, and will not wait for the completion of the side pull 
 signal, just as the carriage horse will not wait for you to take the 
 reins in your hand and give him the order to move, but will move 
 on the moment you put your foot on the step of the carriage. 
 
 AVith a few hours gentle, patient practice, the colt will guide 
 with the slightest touch of the rein, stop for a barely perceptible 
 pull, and pick up the meaning of any side pressure on his neck, 
 or his side, or any other distinct signals with which you con- 
 stantly accompany those he understands. 
 
100 ARABS POWER. 
 
 200. — The care, consistency, and gentleness that the breaker 
 exercises at this stage, will make the difference between a good 
 and a bad mouth, between the horse that could be ridden with a 
 pack thread, and one that will require two leather reins and a jaw 
 breaking bit to steer and restrain him. There is a very great 
 natural difference in horses in this respect. Some will never l)ear 
 jerking and tucking about with a rough hand, others will get to 
 bear more and more of it, until they will allow a clumsy rider 
 to hang on to their mouths with a snaffle bit, to raise himself in 
 the saddle, without stopping or taking any notice of it ; or will 
 bear a wrench with a curb chain and iron lever, that would make 
 a more irritable horse stand on his hind legs. But there are very 
 few well bred and well formed horses that with light handling at 
 first will not learn to have light pleasant mouths ; indeed we have 
 never met with one. 
 
 201. — Most horses can easily be tauglit to go any pace and 
 to guide, stop, or turn without touching the reins at all. They 
 will take all their signals from the rider's legs and the way he 
 sits or turns his own body. Indeed, the great majority of horses 
 long ridden by one even tempered, unfickle man, will learn to do 
 this whether you wish them to or not, will start off at a gallop 
 the moment you put yourself in a position for it, canter if you sit 
 right for that, trot directly you put more weight in the stirrups, 
 walk whilst you sit loose and easy, stop the moment you throw 
 your foot out of the right stirrup, and turn to either side if you 
 turn yourself, drawing one leg a little back and the other forward. 
 This is the whole secret of the sudden and effectual manner in 
 which the Arabs can gallop, stop, turn, or steer their horses, 
 with nothing on their heads but a single reined bitless halter, 
 and with neither stirrups nor spurs ; whilst our supposed skilful 
 English officers tell us that after purchasing the same horses they 
 find them headlong and impetuous, and that they cannot so 
 completely control and suddenly stop them, with tlie most 
 powerful bits. 
 
 202. — It is amusing to read the accounts which English 
 officers have given of this (to them) surprising fact, and the 
 reasons they gravely assign for it. Such writers have evidently 
 
PRICK OF LOVH. ]()] 
 
 not attended to the illustrations they might liave dbserved, or 
 experienced, of the mesmeric language that may be estahlished 
 between a horse and his constant rider, and have not discovered 
 how much more complete his education can be made without 
 than with the usual instruments of torture. In less than one 
 year's careful training, with only the one rider, the ordinary 
 English thoroughbred horse will learn to go through all such 
 evolution.s to perfection, and keep in good temper over it too, 
 which he would not do with a sharp bit and spurs. So that we 
 need not wonder that the Arab who rides the same horse every 
 day during their mutual lives, and eats, drinks, and sleeps with it, 
 can teach it to read all his dumb signals as certainly as an observant 
 wife can read all the dumb motions that indicate her husband's 
 wants. 
 
 203. — There is nothing that the Aral) teaches his horse that 
 an Englishman could not teach an English horse if he treated 
 him more as a friend and companion. 
 
 A New Zealand Maori woman is by no means superior to 
 an English lady, but whilst the English lady believes a pig to be 
 the most stupid and filthy of animals, the Maori woman Avho has 
 taken to suckle a young pig as a substitute for her lost baby, 
 discovers that the animal is so cleanly in its habits that it can 
 be kept in a drawing room, so tractable that it will walk about a 
 flower garden without stepping on a border, and so clever that it 
 can be taught to beat its mistress at a game at cards. The 
 Australian squatters who import the best collie dogs that money 
 can procure from Scotland, and keep scores of the poor brutes 
 on the chain, as the mere chattels of their extensive estates, 
 never have a dog to equal the one faithful day and night com- 
 panion of the poor mountain shepherd and his family. 
 
 " Love, and love only, is the boon for love ; 
 All like the purchase, few the price will pay. 
 And this makes friends such miracles on earth." 
 
 204. — But although horses trained to bound oft" or stop 
 suddenly, at some short hand signal, are delightful horses to 
 their first and only rider, and enable him to perform wonders on 
 horseback which other persons cannot understand, they are 
 
102 ROTTEX ROW. 
 
 often pronounced vicious dangerous brutes by the first stranger 
 who gets on them, and goes over their head at the first unexpected 
 stop, or over tlieir tail at the first sudden bound forward. The 
 too eager and willing slave that has only been doing what he 
 has been taught by a better, and better loved master, now comes 
 in for torrents of abuse, whip and spur, for daring to stop, 
 bound, turn, and guide for signals which his new master does 
 not understand. Of course, such teachable horses caii soon be 
 made dangerous by siicli illtreatment, but if their new owners 
 only had the sense and patience to investigate the cause of 
 movements they do not comprehend, such tractable animals 
 might soon be made to learn any new set of signals and to 
 become almost equally valuable to their new owners. 
 
 205. — 8«ch teaching, however, disqualifies a horse for a 
 constant change of riders, and, therefore, unless you are training 
 a horse for your own riding exclusively, all such re^nements in 
 his education are best avoided. It will often be only training a 
 gentle Uncle Tom for some brutal Legree to cut to pieces for his 
 very virtues. 
 
 206. — There are, however, a large proportion of riders, and 
 even drivers, who appreciate a fine sensitive mouth, and enjoy 
 using only that delicate touch which is essential to its preser- 
 vation. This is a qualification demanded by the refined as 
 distinguished from the vulgar horseman, so that the value and 
 destiny of the horse will often depend much upon it. The most 
 beautiful sight in Rotten Row is a pair of well bred handsome 
 horses, full of health, life, and spirits, willing to trot at any 
 pace, without a touch from the merely ornamental whip, yet held 
 in even under excitement, by a lady's hand, without an effort, 
 and without imparting a lean to the gracefid figure of their 
 driver. It is this perfection of mouth that every teacher should 
 endeavour to obtain in a light horse, and it can only be main- 
 tained ])y careful gentle handling of the sensitive mouth from the 
 first. 
 
 Indeed, such a mouth, combined with such free motion, 
 such courage, confidence, and cheerful spirit, is the sui'est indica- 
 tion that the horse has been well handled from first to last. 
 
YOUTHFUL HABITS. 103 
 
 207. — So far as we have yet gone with the education of tlic 
 colt there has been little or no need for either whip or spur. The 
 main business has been to gain the coil's confidence, and to show 
 him that he will not necessarily he hurt by the closest and most 
 intimate contact with man. In our future dealings with him, it may 
 sometimes be necessary to meet fear with fear, and to appeal to 
 his ever present apprehension to drive him past a multitude of 
 dreaded objects, and to bring out his best powers in our i^ervice. 
 For this purpose the breaker had better now be armed with both 
 whip and spurs, provided, of course, that he has temper and 
 skill enough to avoid any senseless, passionate, or accidental 
 abuse of them. 
 
 208. — Left to his own instincts, our two-year-old horse, that 
 has just been taught to carry a man with some confidence on his 
 back, would never go along a road at any steady pace. He would 
 gallop a short distance with his nose near the ground, then raising 
 his head high, would slacken his pace to a walk, get as far as he 
 could to one side of the road, stop and have a good look at some 
 object of alarm, start and stop again repeatedly, until the 
 suspicious object is passed, and then liound off at a gallop again. 
 In the service of man all this has to be altered. He must be 
 taught no longer to play the part of a timid idle fugitive, but to 
 lend his physical powers to carry the lord of the creation wherever 
 and however he pleases, regardless of a thousand objects which his 
 apprehensive nature prompts him to shun. 
 
 209. — This is a very hard lesson for so timid and impulsive 
 an animal to learn ; but fortunately it can be made far more easy 
 and agreeable to him by calling in the aid of his strong gregarious 
 instinct, and giving him a companion which has learned to scorn 
 the objects of his juvenile fears. In the next lessons, he should be 
 ridden in company with a bold, well-broken, and well-ridden horse. 
 and one that can walk fast, as that is the first pace for any riding 
 horse to learn, and the only pace that a two-year-old horse should 
 be ridden at. A fast, steady, safe walk adds much to the value ot 
 any riding horse, and the longer a colt is kept at it, before he is 
 allowed to carry a rider at any other pace, the better and faster he 
 will be likely to walk. It is the pace at which a horse requires 
 
104 WHI}' AND SPUR. 
 
 more urging than any other. The racehorse that pulls hard on the 
 bridle at a gallop, will often require a frequent touch with the 
 spur to keep him up to a good fast walk, and the colt is still more 
 likely to require it to admonish him that he must n^t stop to stare 
 at all the strange objects he passes. 
 
 210. — There arc many reasons why the spur is preferable to 
 the wlii]) for this purpose. In the first place it is far more 
 eifectual ; it comes without warning, and the horse cannot watch 
 it. or swerve from it, as from a whip. In, the second place the 
 whip, at I his stage of the colt's education, should be used as a 
 guiding monitor rather than as an instrument of jmnishment, and, 
 for many obvious reasons, the colt is best not to feel much of it. 
 Thirdly, the spur, though more dreaded by the colt, inflicts far 
 less pain upon him. The most superficial prick answers the 
 purpose far better than anything more (180), and even the 
 deepest prick that a properly made spur would inflict would not 
 carry so much future pain as a whip used hard enough to produce 
 a weal. 
 
 511. — With so many new objects about him, the colt, like a 
 child, will be very apt to be inattentive to some of the signals he 
 has learned, and the light whip must be at hand to instantly 
 call his attention to his negligence. No inattention to any rein 
 signal must be allowed to pass unnoticed, at this stage, or the 
 fine mouth may be lost. There must be no heavy long-continued 
 dragging, far less any jerking af the reins, or the mouth will 
 certainly be spoiled. If the cole does not instantly answer to a 
 slight pull of the rein to one side, accompanied by a barely 
 perceiitible turn of your body and legs in the direction you wish 
 him to turn, let a gentle tap of the whip on the opposite side be 
 immediately added to move him in the right direction. The 
 touch should be one that will not hurt him in the least ; the 
 object is not to punish but to arouse his attention just as you 
 would touch or tap the shoulder, rather than raise your voice to a 
 child, who was looking at something else whilst you were speaking 
 to him. .V hard stroke would not even answer the purpose, but 
 would be far more likely to provoke a fight and produce a result 
 the opposite to that desired. One tap is almost always enough, 
 
FIT KOI! SAPDLK. 105 
 
 but if not the light taps may be repeated until they are attended 
 to. Thus using the spur as lightly as possible to keep the colt 
 walking steadily on at a good parie, and the whip to enforce 
 attention to any neglected I'L'in signal, keep him some times on 
 one side and some times on the other of the old horse, generally 
 putting the old horse l)etween the colt and any serious object of 
 alarm. You must be very careful not to let him acquire a habit 
 of paying more attention to the rein on one side than the other, 
 a habit that is soon formed, and one that is quite fatal to pleasant 
 riding or driving. 
 
 212. — After the first or second hour's riding, the experienced 
 horseman should be able to judge whether the colt will ever be fit 
 for a saddle horse or not. If he brings his toes to the ground 
 before his heels, or cannot put his fore leg well forward, he will 
 never make a safe saddle horse, and shonld at once be consigned . 
 to harness. All the pages that have been written about teaching 
 a young horse to step, by practising him over large turnips, or 
 uneven ground, are on a par with those that used to be written 
 about keeping a horse from falling down by reining him up, .or 
 Supporting his head with his tail. If a horse's legs and shoulders 
 are so formed that he can put his leg before him, with the heel 
 down first, he will always do it, and will always be safe, if they are 
 not so formed he cannot do it, and he will stumble in consequence. 
 It is a mere question of the length, strength, and direction of a 
 complicated set of ropes and pulleys, which are quite out of your 
 reach. Below the knee the horse has no muscles, nothing but 
 bones and sinews, worked from the powerful muscles above ; and 
 you might as well expect to improve the action of a steam engine 
 by working it over a rough turnip field as to improve that of the 
 horse. No man ever saw a stumbling horse made a safe one yet, 
 unless the stumbling resulted from weakness, or was the conse- 
 quence of a mis-shaped hoof or shoe, which could of course be 
 altered. You may whip and spur and curb him, and make him 
 lift his legs higher as long as you excite his fears, and no longer* 
 but that will not make him put his feet down the right way, nor 
 prevent his falling, even whilst you are giving your worse than 
 useless lessons. If on the other hand the colt's action is too high, 
 
J on ■ HARNESS. 
 
 or from any cause rough and unpleasant, ii will only get rougher 
 and more unpleasant with age, ami harness should be his 
 destination. A. racehorse may be utterly unfit for a gentleman to 
 ride and yet make a valuable gambling machine, but any other 
 saddle horse should be safe and pleasant in his paces, aj)d where so 
 mauy are required for harness, and so few for the saddle, it is not 
 worth while to train anything for the saddle that is not naturally 
 fitted for it. 
 
 21 o. — If it is discovered that fiie colt will only be fit for 
 harness, or if it is intended to teauli him to go in harness as well 
 as saddle, it will be more easy to put him in harness at ouce than 
 to put the finishing strokes on his education as a saddle horse ; 
 because in harness a well-trained companion can take him certainly 
 and harmlessly through any sights or sounds, and leave him no 
 option about complete obedience. 
 
 In bygone days it was considered derogatory and injurious to 
 a riding horse to have ever been in harness ; but so many advan- 
 tages arise from it when very carefully done, that the most perfect 
 saddle horses are now often good light harness horses as well, and 
 can thus get plenty of daily exercise witliout always carrying an 
 injurious weight on their legs. Such iiorses must never get a 
 collar mark on their shoulders, nor a punishing bit in their mouths, 
 nor a rough-handed coachman at their reins : nor should they 
 habitually have very much weight l)ehind them. But their treat- 
 ment in harness will properly come under, breaking to light 
 harness, and we will now go on with the education of the colt on 
 the supposition that it is to be broken to saddle only. 
 
 214. — While the principal object at this stage is to keep the 
 colt up to the habit of a fast steady walk, and instant attention 
 to the most gentle touch of the rein : time is often well spent in 
 letting him examine closely and exhaustively any common objects 
 that alarm him, when you have an opportunity to do so. It is 
 generally best to get off and lead him up to them, encouraging 
 him to touch them with his muzzle, after which he will generally 
 take no further notice of them. If the object is a moving one, 
 such as a roller, a wheelbarrow, or a bicycle, keep on his back and 
 let it meet him with the old horse nearest to it at first, then turn 
 tliem both round aiul follow ic up, getting the colt as close to it as 
 
OVKRCOMINO AIiAl{M8. 107 
 
 you can by gentle ui"ginj>- without any fighting. Par better noc to 
 do it at all than to have any lighting about it. 
 
 215. — If you have an opportunity of taking the colt at once 
 where there are a number of alarming objects, it is best to ride 
 the old horse yourself, and lead the colt with a long strong leather 
 strap attached to a strong leather halter on his head, and passing 
 under a hunting breastplate on the old horse, which will give you 
 power enough to hold the colt, however much he may be alarmed, 
 without spoiling his mouth by any lugging at the bit. Should a 
 hunting breastplate not be at hand, a light leather collar on the 
 old horse, fastened back to the saddle above, and the girths below, 
 will answer this or any similar purpose even better than the breast- 
 plate, and make it quite easy to hold a colt by a leather strap 
 passing under it. In this way the colt may be gradually introduced 
 to the sights and sounds of a bustling street ; a few hours of which 
 will reconcile him to mure objects of alarm than a years conntry 
 riding. 
 
 216. — A steam engine, a railway train, or a tram car drawn 
 by steam, are all objects so naturally alarming to a horse, that a 
 single introduction to them will not make him safe, nor can the 
 first introduction be safely made in the crowded streets of a town. 
 Here the colt breaker must bo guided by his opportunities, and 
 by the more or less nervous character of his pupil. There is 
 nothing better than turning a colt for a few weeks into a well 
 fenced small field, where trains frequently pass, and where tliere 
 are other horses that will take no notice of them. We have 
 sometimes had an opportunity of putting a lot of colts together 
 into a high strong yard, close to a railway line, which we did, 
 day after day, when we knew that trains would be passing. 
 Failing any such opportunities the colt may be frequently brought 
 to some clear spot where a train is about to pass, and before it 
 approaches strap up one of his legs (353), so as to make sure of 
 holding him, and keep him pretty close to it as it passes. When 
 you know that you can control him on his four legs, take him to 
 a railway station at a time when most noise and motion is going 
 on, and lead him about in close contact with it. After he takes 
 little notice of a train lead him into a town riding on the old 
 horse, and taking them behind a cram car follow it up keeping 
 
108 DEAL GENTLY WITH FEAR. 
 
 the colt as close as you can to it, until he ceases to be alarmed 
 about it. Then choose a good place to meet it, first at a safe 
 distance, and get closer by degrees. These lessons must be 
 repeated until there is no alarm at a passing train or tram, and 
 even after that the familiarity with the steam engine, and all its 
 noises, should be continued for some time with a horse that 
 has been very nervous about it. 
 
 217. — It would be impossible, and it is quite unnecessary, to 
 even enumerate all the objects with 'which a colt must be 
 familiarised in diiferent parts of the world. 
 
 Where a horse has been brought up without seeing them, a 
 common pig, or a donkey, are objects of great alarm to him. The 
 principle is the same with all the objects of his fear ; the colt 
 must be brought in contact with them without hurting him, and 
 shown that he may pass them, ever so closely, without any 
 painful and injurious consequences to himself. To savagely 
 attack him with whip, curb, and spur, because he is already 
 frightened is as mischievous as it is senseless and barbarous, and 
 has made thousands of horses dangerous and worthless, that 
 with more rational treatment would have been safe and valuable. 
 
 218. — The colt may now be said to have passed through 
 his elementary education, and before you can give him his higbj 
 school lessons he should be turned out to grass another year or 
 even two. A valuable colt can hardly be broken in too young, 
 can hardly be put to hard work too late in life. As a rule the 
 larger the horse the later he matures, so that ponies can he worked 
 much earlier than large horses. By far the most perfect and 
 reliable children's ponies we have ever seen were handled a good 
 deal at a month old, regularly broken at a year old, and never 
 let out of hand afterwards, though they were never called on for 
 any severe work, and were never kept long without green food. 
 Such treatment would make any horse more docile and trust- 
 worthy, without injuring their growth or power, but the difficulty 
 is to get them so handled, and we know of no remunerative 
 work to which a young, growing, light horse could be put in 
 these fast times without overtaxing his tender sinews. 
 
 219. — The horse that has been handled as we have advised, 
 at two years <ild, and then turned out, may be taken up again 
 
DESIRE FOR COMPANY. 109 
 
 at three, four, or at any time that it is intended to put him to 
 work. He will be found to remember all that he has been 
 taught, although he will most likely come up fresh and frisky 
 as even old horses will be after a long rest. The most 
 exciting cause of restiveness is, generally, the extremely 
 strong desire to return to his field componions. This is one 
 of the strongest impulses of his nature, and one that must be 
 resisted, but you need not contend with him about it under any 
 circumstances in which he could possibly defeat you. We would 
 not even venture to tie him up, when first brought from the field, 
 except with the same precautions taken for the first tying up (184). 
 Where convenient, it is better to put him into a loose box or yard. 
 If the latter, take care that it is secure and high enough to prevent 
 his jumping either over or on it. The exercise he will take in 
 trotting from side to side will help to prepare him for his work. 
 
 Give him good hay and roots, or grass, but give him very 
 little corn at first, increasing the quantity as the work gets harder, 
 and his digestive organs adapt themselves to the change of food. 
 
 220. — When he has become less frantic about his company, 
 take him into the stall and put him on the reins for two hours 
 (185) ; then turn him round, tie him up and feed him. Put on 
 a bridle and saddle and mount him with the same precautions as 
 at first (193). Ride him at first, either with an old liorse, or in 
 some direction that he will have no strong objection to (197). 
 Practice him at a fast walk and a good steady trot, and teach him 
 that he is not to use his paces together, Ijut to keep at one pace 
 till the signal is given for another. Teach him to walk and trot 
 with a slack rein, but gather him up for a canter, which is not a 
 natural pace for him. For a canter, tighten the rein and urge 
 him a little with your heels, this will start him to gallop, which 
 you must shorten gradually to a canter, keeping him a good deal 
 on his hind legs with his fore feet well before him. He will 
 probably want a good deal of practice before he will canter slowly, 
 pleasantly, and safely. Avoid anything like racing with a com- 
 panion, as a young horse is generally too prone to take to it, and 
 it makes him unpleasant and unmannerly in company. Let him 
 rather understand that his business is to keep his head level with 
 that of his companion. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 221. — The high school education of the racer, the hunter^ 
 the war horse, the child's pony, the roadster, or the overland 
 traveller, will differ even more than that of a lawyer, a doctor, 
 a clergyman, or a military officer. 
 
 We shall, for obvious reasons, say little about the first 
 three. Their training is always undertaken by experts, who, if 
 not perfect at their work, are seldom seekers of advice. In what 
 we say of the other three we can only hope to make a few 
 suggestions that will illustrate the simplest means by which any 
 of them may be taught such accomplishments as may best fit 
 them for the work of their lives. 
 
 THE RACE HORSE. 
 
 222. — The race horse has often the advantage of very accom- 
 plished teachers. Men from whom we have learned much. The 
 disgusting vices, so consi^icuous on the public race course, are 
 little seen in the private training stable, and those who judge 
 the one from the other, and think that everything connected 
 wnth the race horse must be depraved, would be surprised to 
 witness the command of temper, the high character, and the 
 noble self control of some of the men who are entrusted with 
 the care of the most valuable race horses. 
 
 "We have no love for the race course, but it is the gambling 
 not the racing that we abhor. It is absurd to talk of its cruelty. 
 There is no cruelty in letting, or even in urging a highly trained 
 And capable horse to do his utmost for five minutes, whilst the 
 care that is taken to prepare him for that five minutes work has 
 taught horsemen in all other vocations a great deal that has 
 
REAL OltUF'-LTIES. Ill 
 
 lessened the sufferings of the poor brutes that are daily toiling 
 on with streaming sides, heaving- flanks, trembling legs, and 
 shaking tails, indicative of untold and unheeded suffering. 
 
 223. — We respect the high character and motives of those 
 ■who set their faces like a Hint against all gambling, whether it 
 be on a horse, a boat, a man, or an election, but we would like to 
 see the warm sympathies of the truly humane, directed, not to 
 the imaginary cruelties of the race course, but to the real 
 barbarities of our fast coaches, and post horses, our butcher boys, 
 and veterinary surgeons, of those fast young and old men who 
 habitually bribe a cab driver to drive his over worked horse at 
 some unreasonable pace, and above all to those ignorant and 
 brutal men who prefer to educate the young horse by torturing 
 him for not doing that which he had never been taught, and thus 
 give him vices that cause him to be ill treated for the rest of his 
 unhappy life. 
 
 224. — We have generally watched the handling of the race 
 horse with the view of learning, and not with the hope of teaching; 
 but there is one thing we have often thought of in connection with 
 him, in which we cannot help thinking that his education might 
 be improved. Why is he rarely, if ever, taught to start well ? 
 He might be getting exercise and fresh air at the same time, and 
 his riders would be learning their own business, whilst they were 
 teaching the young horse its work. How often a short race has 
 been lost by a bad start ; and unless the young horse is taught to 
 stand in row, and start when called on, with more deliberation 
 and patience than can be afforded at a race, he is never likely to 
 start well. Each start that he makes in an actual race, is only 
 likely to teach him to be impatient and restive, but it might be a 
 part of his daily exercise to l)e taught to stand steadily in row, 
 with any number of companions, and to jump off only, at some 
 very well understood and unmistakable signal, which should 
 certainly not be the spur. 
 
 225. — Every one knows that tlie difficulty to be met is im- 
 patience, and not laziness, and, consequently, the young horse 
 wants to be daily taught that he may stand in row, with any 
 number of restive companions, without being in danger of a dig 
 
112 HUNTERS. 
 
 with the spur, as the first intimation that he is wanted to jump 
 forward. If daily practised to walk and to stand a long time in 
 row, and then at some painless signal to start off with companions 
 at no furious pace, and to pull up soon, without any racing, the 
 young horse would come to learn that he need not tear himself to 
 pieces before his race begins, nor be prancing ten yards behind, 
 or with his head the wrong ^N-ay, when the flag drops. Trainers 
 might often agree together or with any friend on horseback to 
 introduce occasionally the excitement of strange company, which 
 would, no doubt, be an important part of the lesson. 
 
 226. — In the hunting field, cruelty is often seeu. Amongst 
 every class of men, a few excej^tionally hard hearts are to be 
 found, whose pleasure is not marred by the keenest suffering of 
 the animal which serves them, and who even seem to think that 
 there is something glorious in riding a willing horse to death ; or, 
 what is a great deal worse, in frequently riding him to a state in 
 which he suffers all the pangs of a painful death. Still the life 
 of the average hunter is one to be preferred to the average life of 
 the daily harassed coach, cab, or butcher's horse, and, in good 
 hands, his life is one to be envied by most of the other classes of 
 his race. Much that we know al)out the best way to feed and 
 tend a horse to bring out his utmost capacity, has been learned 
 through the unbounded care and expense usually lavished on the 
 rich man's hunter ; whilst the high prices that have been given 
 for first-class hunters, have done much to keep up a superior breed 
 of riding and driving horses. 
 
 THE HUNTER. 
 
 227. — There is not mucli that is peculiar iu the education of 
 the hunter. It differs little from that of the education of a first- 
 class riding horse, which a hunter must always be. He should 
 have the best of mouths, that will control him uuder the very 
 great excitement of galloping in a crowd : he requires the utmost 
 confidence in his rider, and an unshaken conviction that he 
 must obey the rein, and fly over any possible obstacle at the 
 uro-ent call of a resolute horseman. He should never be taken 
 to the field by a timid irresolute rider, as for such riders no horses 
 
JUMPING. 113 
 
 will jump. Nor should he ever be practised at any sort of sham 
 fence, that will give way to liis legs, or he will soon learn to 
 expect every fence to do so, and as a consequence turn occa- 
 sional somersaults with his rider. The remarkable " cleverness" 
 of some horses in the perfect command of their legs, even at the 
 end of an exhausting run, or the " fifth leg " always at hand 
 when wanted, may be bred l)ufc can never be taught by any 
 amount of education. 
 
 228. — Jumping with a man on his back is a severe strain on 
 any horse, and should not be attempted until the horse is at least 
 four years old, but a younger horse or a pony, may be taught to 
 jump with a skilfully managed lounging line, or well fenced 
 drive, and there is perhaps no better way to teach any horse his 
 first lessons in jumping. Whatever method is adopted l)egin 
 low enough. Ask your horse to do nothing more than he can 
 do very easily, but whatever you ask him to do must be done. 
 Horses do not like jumping, and can only be kept up to it by 
 the well sustained delusion that they must go where a resolute 
 rider determines to take them. Every opportunity should be 
 taken to show them that they must clear their fences well, or 
 suffer from touching them ; let them take the full consequence 
 of any slovenly management of their legs. 
 
 220. — We have received the following letter on this subject 
 from the huntsman of the Ashburton Hunt Club, whose horses 
 always become celebrated, both for the jumps they take in his 
 hands, and for what they will do in other hands, after he has 
 trained them. The horse " Sulky " has been mentioned in another 
 part of this work, " Barry " is a horse on which he won the 
 County Steeple Chase in 1878, as he did on '' Pirate" in 1882. 
 He says — 
 
 2o0. — " My success in training hunters, as well as other 
 horses, has been gained by putting into practice the rules and 
 instructions received from you, so that almost anything I could 
 tell you would be stale news. 
 
 231. — "Nothing makes horses so good, indeed nothing else 
 will make a good hunter, but consistently keeping up the delusion 
 that you always told us was so necessary to make an obedient 
 
 H 
 
114 ASK LITTLE AND TAKE NO LESS. 
 
 valuable horse. The horse must be kept up to the belief that he 
 has no power to resist your will, but must go where you steadily 
 and resolutely direct him. 
 
 232. — " In teaching a horse to jump, lounging him over 
 diiferent things does some good, but will never make a hunter. 
 He must be actually ridden by some one with good hands, and 
 with courage and determination enough to make him do whatever 
 he asks him to do in the jumping line. I find that it saves 
 much time and trouble in the end to insist upon a horse doing 
 whatever you ask him to do, however severe the first fight may 
 be. This is especially the case in jumping lessons. 
 
 233. — " Begin with something simple and easy, and insist 
 upon its being done. With a youug horse, or an unknown one, 
 begin with something that you can be sure to get them over, 
 such as a rail laid on the ground, in a gateway, or a very low 
 furze hedge, and if they stop, which you should try to prevent, 
 don't turn them round, but force them to go over it, or through 
 it somehow. 
 
 234. — " Punish a horse severely for baulking at his fences, 
 but if you want to make him a good pleasant jumper punish him 
 for nothing else. If he strikes his fences, and is careless, keep 
 jumping him at something very stifi" or prickly, and he will 
 hurt himself quite enough, and by praising and making a lot of 
 him whenever he gets over, however clumsy the style may be, 
 he will soon improve. I never on any account punish a horse 
 in the act of jumping. They naturally dislike jumping and are 
 afraid of it, and you want to do all you can to encourage them. 
 Pet and pat them after every successful attempt. 
 
 235. — " To show how completely horses can be made to 
 believe that they must go wherever you steadily direct them, I 
 may say that during the whole of last season's hunting, my 
 horse " Sulky" (229), never once refused anything I put him at, 
 and twice in one run across Mr. Hunt's field, actually dived 
 into and through a furze hedge ten feet high without being 
 touched with the spurs. When I was regularly riding old 
 *' Barry," he never thought of stopping at anything I asked him 
 to try, nor would he do so with anyone else that was not afraid 
 
HOW TO RIDE AT A JUMP. 115 
 
 to ride him. lie once, almost at a stand, jumped a gate five feet 
 four inclies high which Mr. Atholstan Parsons turned his head 
 at, without expecting that the horse would take it. At one of 
 the Christchurch hunts, young Mr. Griffiths was riding; him, 
 and could not hold him, so turned his head at a large clump of 
 strong furze, nearly an acre in extent, into which " Barry" 
 jumped, and they both had to be cut out. 
 
 236. — " In riding at a jump sit in such a position that you 
 nan use your heels instantly to assist your hands in guiding. Take 
 both hands to the reins with a firm steady hold, so that the 
 horse cannot possibly slacken them, and then, rather by threat- 
 ening than actual using your spurs, keep his whole attention 
 to the very spot you wish him to jump. When you are quite sure 
 that your horse is going to jump, shift your weight on to your 
 thighs and stirrups, keeping the same steady hold of the reins* 
 both in rising and falling. This will prevent any jar to yourself 
 or your horse. 
 
 237. — " Horses that have once found out that they can 
 .please themselves about going where you direct them are never 
 very good hunters. With a good deal of trouble and fighting 
 you may teach them to go for yourself, but they will try on 
 their old tricks with the first stranger that gets on them, 
 and too often succeed in getting their own way again. 
 
 238. — " ' Cleverness,' or that wonderful power to keep on 
 their legs nnder all circumstances which some horses possess, 
 ■can never be taught, it is purely a natural gift, and no horse is, 
 or ever can be any good for a hunter that does not naturally 
 possess it. With a hunter it does not mean merely a good 
 shoulder and foreleg, or a well placed foot, such as would make 
 a horse safe on a good road, nor a good eye, and good wind, 
 although of course both are essentially necessary, there must be 
 beyond all these a mental power of some sort that is well expressed 
 by the word ' cleverness.' For instance I have seen horses that 
 have been hunting for years that will day after day jump short 
 and get into a ditch not seen on the landing side of a fence, but 
 before 'Sulky' had teen hunting one day he found out that 
 when there was no ditch on the take off side he might expect one 
 
116 "SULKY." 
 
 on the other, and he invariably puts on more steam where he sees 
 no ditch, than he does where he sees one. He will never touch a 
 wire under any circumstances, but even after he has left the 
 ground, if he sees a wider ditch than he expected, cr anything 
 objectional)le on the landing side, he will if possible strike 
 either a strong top rail, or a , bank, with his hind legs, to carry 
 him a little further, and when he finds only a choice of evils he 
 is sure to take the least. Of course, no one could teach a horse 
 this, it is simply bred in them." 
 
 THE WAll HORSE. 
 
 239, — The British war horse, like most other public servants,. 
 has a good deal of public money spent on his education. He is 
 not supposed to be fit for his work until at least a year after he 
 has been purchased. According to evidence given before a 
 Parliamentary Committee, his education, prior to purchase, cost& 
 five pounds, and twenty-eight pounds afterwards ; but even the 
 latter sum does not include the pay of his instructor. He has 
 to be perfectly reconciled to a number of alarming sights and 
 sounds, and to understand his place and movements in the ranks, 
 as well as the man who rides or drives him. The " government 
 stroke" in horse-breaking is probably as much behind the times 
 as in most other things, and, judging from the old "rough riders" 
 who afterwards set up as horse-breakers, there is not much in that 
 school that is worthy of imitation. 
 
 THE child's PO^'Y. 
 
 240.— A child's pony should receive a great deal of careful 
 training at an early age. The pony has generally more brain power 
 than larger horses, and as such is more liable to be tricky and 
 to learn to take care of itself. It can be taught easily, but the 
 danger is that it may learn too much that will not be in the 
 interest of its owner. For this reason, and on account of the 
 extreme docility required, and its unfitness at an early age to 
 carry a man on its back, we would always begin by putting it 
 down (353) again and again, and teaching it all we could on the 
 ground (357 to 3G7) until it was perfectly safe to handle in any^ 
 
SCARE CHOW. 117 
 
 part, to pub anything on it, and to pull it about in any 
 direction. For the same reason we would always break them 
 in to harness, whether required for it or not, as it gives an 
 opportunity to familiarise the pony to a number of sights 
 and sounds, that it must be reconciled to, and a little 
 deadening of an extremely sensitive mouth would hardly be an 
 objection in a child's pony. After the usual education both for 
 saddle (183 to 220) and light harness (379 to 403), it should be 
 taught to let a child roll under it, to hold on to its legs, or tail, 
 and to stop when he hears the word *' whay," or the moment its 
 rider has lost his seat, lessons that would be well taught to the 
 hunter, or to any other riding horse, but which are quite essential 
 to a child's pony. 
 
 241. — Get a strong suit of boys old clothes, and with sticks, 
 ropes, and straw, make, what is called a scare crow, but what 
 in this case, may be as strong and as handsome an imitation 
 of a boy as you can manage. Take it to the pony for approval. 
 Let him have a good look at it and touch it with his muzzle. 
 Then put it down on the ground and get the pony to investigate 
 it there, moving it into several diflterent positions. 
 
 242. — After this tie it securely on to a piece of plank 
 rounded on the under front edge, so that it can be drawn like a 
 sledsre. Let the head of the scare crow rest on the back end of 
 the plank or sledge, and fasten a small rope or strap eight feet 
 long to the front end. Now take the pony and the scare crow 
 into a grass field, and again invite him to inspect your work. 
 Then take the pony in your right hand and the scare crow line 
 in your left and walk on, so that the pony can see the scare crow 
 di-agging along by its side. If it is much alarmed about it, 
 stop and get it to have another look at the scare crow on the 
 ground, and then move gently on again. When it takes little 
 notice of it, lengthen and shorten the rope, and let it see it 
 nearer and farther behind it. When nothing will alarm it on that 
 side, change hands and try the other side. 
 
 243. — When quite reconciled Co it on both sides get a pair 
 of long reins on the pony, and tying the scare crow to one side of 
 the saddle, drive the pony about with it for an hour, after which 
 
118 LIFE PRESERVING. 
 
 tie it to the other side and do the same. Then secure your 
 stirrups to the saddle and tie one leg of the scare crow to the 
 left stirrup, in the position that a boy would occupy with his foot 
 hung in the stirrup. Drive about like that, then try the right 
 side. Give hours, or days, or weeks to it if necessary, but let it 
 be done, so that the pony will take no notice of it, and no 
 jumping of the scarecrow over uneven ground will startle him. 
 A child's life may depend on this being done thoroughly, and at 
 any rate, a parent's peace cf mind will be very much secured by 
 it. No one can judge how long it will take, as some horses will 
 be reconciled to more in an hour than others will in a week, but 
 the most timid will come round with quiet perseverance. 
 
 244. — Having reconciled the pony to dragging the scare 
 crow after it in various positions the jDlank may be removed. 
 Put the scare crow under the pony and move it about, then 
 bring it gently against his legs, and rub them with it. Then 
 laying it down under him between his fore and hind legs lead the 
 pony on and teach him to step over it, first with his hind legs 
 and then with all his legs. You may now put it on the pony's 
 back, and let it fall oflF, first on one side and then the other, 
 without moving the pony, and repeat the process until he will 
 take no notice of it. 
 
 245. — For the next lesson you will require some assistance, 
 and should get your own pockets well filled with oats, carrots, 
 biscuits, or anything that you know the pony to be most fond of. 
 
 We may here say that the patting and coaxing so much 
 recommended by some writers as a reward for 'good conduct is 
 not much valued by the horse, and is never regarded as an 
 absolute reward. He often accepts it as an evidence that you 
 are in a good temper, but it is no more a reward or a treat to 
 him, than the kisses are to an infant, which some ladies are so 
 prone to lavish upon them. A few oats in the one case, and a 
 few playthings in the other are far more potential. 
 
 246. — Get a man to walk by the side of the pony, and to 
 hold the scare crow in the position of a rider on the saddle, whilst 
 you drive the pony with reins from behind. After all he has seen 
 of the scare crow, the pony is not likely to make any objection to 
 
POTENTIAL REWARDS. 119 
 
 this. If he does, one of his legs may be strapped up (353), and, 
 whilst you hold him by the head, let your assistant place the 
 scare crow on his back, and move it about until he cares nothing 
 about it. Then put down the strapped leg, and lead the pony on, 
 whilst your assistant holds on the scare crow. Get back to the 
 reins as soon as all goes smoothly, and let your assistant step 
 gently away, when the scare crow will fall oflF, whilst you stop the 
 pony at the same time with the reins. At the first fall, let tlie 
 pony step past the scare crow, and don't be too rash with your 
 reins, or you may make the pony step on the scare crow, which he 
 should never do As soon as the pony is stopped, go up to him 
 and give him a few handfuls of oats, or something that yon have 
 provided as a known luxury, fondling and soothing him at the 
 same time. If more likely to be a treat to him let him crop a 
 few mouthfuls of grass, but oats should alwavs be a treat to a 
 child's pony, as they are to any horse not highly fed witli them. 
 All this may l)e repeated again and again, stopping the pony 
 more sharply and suddenly at each fall of the scare crow, and 
 letting him rest and feed after each stop until he stops of his own 
 accord, which he will very soon do. Let this lesson be repeated 
 day after day, until stopping at a fall becomes an established 
 habit with the pony (IDS). 
 
 247. — For the next lesson your assistant should be a boy 
 that is not afraid of a horse, that can ride a little, and will do 
 what he is told. His clothes should not be a very valuablp suit, 
 and he should have no boots on his feet. Put a halter on the 
 pony, with a bit buckled to it for your own use, but let the boy's 
 riding reins be fastened to the upper rings of the halter, so that 
 he cannot interfere much with the pony's mouth. Put on a 
 saddle without stirrups. Then put the boy on the pony and lead 
 him yourself to some ploughed field, or other soft ground, taking 
 your long reins with you, and your pocket full of oats, of which 
 the boys pockets should also contain a supply. When you come 
 to soft ground let the boy get off, and going up to the ])ony's 
 head give him a handful of oats, and a rough patting and 
 rubbing all round, whilsc you hold the pony's head and hold up one 
 of its fore legs in your hand. However quiet the pony may be it is 
 
120 GYMNASTICS. 
 
 best to take this precaution, as boys generally do something 
 out of the way that teazes a pony, and although the pony will have 
 to get used to unskilful handling, it can and must be done without 
 the risk of a kick, 
 
 248. — When the boy has handled the pony all round drop 
 the pony's leg, and let the boy come up to his head again, and 
 give him another handful of oats, in any awkward way he 
 pleases. 
 
 Then let the boy lie down quietly on his back and give the 
 pony another handful of oats, either out of the boy's hand or 
 close to the boy out of yours. The boy may next throw up his 
 legs, then his hands, roll over, stand on his head, and perform as 
 he pleases, whilst you lead the pony close round him, getting the 
 boy to repeat anything that alarms the pony. Every now and 
 then the pony should be encouraged to come up and take a 
 handful of oats from the boy's hand, until he gets to thoroughly 
 understand that it is only a boy after all, however frightful his 
 antics may have made him appear. The boy may next put on a 
 girl's frock and bonnet, and with the foot again held up, rub 
 round the pony in that dress, and afterwards repeat on the ground 
 all that he has done liefore in his own clothes. 
 
 240. — Setting aside the frock and bonnet, the boy may next 
 come up to the pony and after giving him a handful of oats, 
 hang on round his neck and climb over him with hands and 
 legs in any awkward way he pleases, getting up on one side and 
 down the other, reversing the sides, and making the descent, as 
 much like a tumble as he pleases. When the pony is (juite 
 reconciled to all this, and will stand quite still with such 
 gymnastics, put on your long reins and putting the boy on the 
 pony's back, with the reins that you fastened to the halter in his 
 hand, drive the pony about, with the boy sitting steadily in the 
 saddle. After a little practice at this, get the boy to slip 
 out of his seat and hang, holding by the saddle, whilst you 
 immediately stop the pony with your reins. Then let the boy 
 drop off and rolling over on the ground, get up and feed and 
 fondle the pony. If the pony does not very soon learn to stop 
 of its own accord directly the boy is unseated, as most ponies 
 
BETTER BE SURE THAN SORRY. 121 
 
 will do, a curb bit or loop bridle (356) may be used, which will 
 soon make him afraid to move on when the boy is out of the 
 saddle, but the curb must not be used so as to set the pony 
 backing and prancing about, and is better not used at all unless 
 found necessary, after a patient trial without it. The boy 
 should come off sometimes on one side and sometimes on the 
 other, and may be as long about it as he pleases. Continue the 
 lesson until the pony invariably stops of his own accord, and 
 even after that, it is best repeated occasionally at short intervals. 
 When once the habit is confirmed we have seen a very lively 
 pony stand stock still, allowing our horse to go away from it, 
 and a passionate infant to kick its legs for having thrown him 
 off. A daughter of the same pony, bought for seven pounds, 
 was sold for fifty pounds after it had been well instructed in this 
 lesson. 
 
 250. — Whilst on soft ground, strap up one of the pony's legs, 
 and, holding him firmly, put the boy on his back behind the 
 saddle, and let him shift backwards and forwards, to accustom the 
 pony to carry on any part of his back. If the pony makes any 
 fuss about it let it be frequently repeated, and consider no child's 
 pony broken until he will carry a string of children on his back, 
 reaching from mane to tail, and let any of them safely slip off 
 ■either behind or before. If you do not teach this lesson in its 
 proper time, place, and manner, the boys will be sure to try their 
 hands at it, with the probable result that the pony will learn a 
 lesson in the art of how to get rid of an unwelcome rider. 
 
 251. — The pony must next be taught to stop at command ; 
 and for this purpose it is important to choose some word that the 
 pony is not likely to hear when it is not wanted to stop ; as, how- 
 ever well you may teach a pony to stop for any word, it will soon 
 be ineffectual if it hears the word often, without being allowed to 
 stop for it. The common word " whoa" has got to be constantly 
 used in the hearing of the horse for every imaginable piu'pose, 
 and it is hopeless to expect that all who come in contact with the 
 pony will cease to abuse that word ; therefore it is necessary to 
 adopt some other. The carter's word, whay, is less likely to be 
 abused in this way, and there are not many other words that the 
 
122 CHOICE OF WORDS. 
 
 pony will be likely to mistake for it. "We will, therefore, advisfr 
 its adoptiou, although, of course, any other word, not likely to be 
 used without meaning-, would do just as w^ell. 
 
 252. — For the first lesson, put on a saddle and a pair of 
 blinkers, with a ring, curb, or some sharp bit. The object of 
 putting on the saddle is to make the pony associate the saddle 
 with the lesson, and to believe that he cannot be disobedient when 
 the saddle is on, even after he has found out that he can please 
 himself about obeying in the field. The object of the blinkers is 
 to prevent his seeing and learning too much, and getting to cal- 
 culate that he need only stop when you are in a certain position 
 behind him. Now tie to the bit two light rope reins, each twelve 
 feet long, and drive your pony about with them. This will be 
 nothing new to him after his former lessons, but if the blinkers 
 make him fidgety at first, drive him about until he gets over that, 
 and then begin your lessons. 
 
 253. — Stop suddenly, with a sharp jerk on the reins, and at 
 exactly the same instant say whay. Repeat this until the pony 
 will always stop instantly for the word without the reins. Xext 
 give up the reins to an obedient, quiet assistant. Tell him to 
 make no noise himself, but to stop the pony sharply with the reins 
 the instant you say whay. Then stand some distance from the 
 pony, on either side, and say whay. Do the same at both sides of 
 him, as well as before and behind him, and let him find that your 
 position makes no difference, and that the jerk on his mouth 
 comes all the same wherever you are. Then get on another horse 
 and ride beside the pony, and repeat the word at a great number 
 of differing distances, until the pony will stop with certainty 
 wherever he can hear it, and he can hear it much farther than you 
 can. 
 
 254. — Xext take ofi" the blinkers, and put on a sharp-bitted 
 bridle. Tie a long strip of nig on the root of the pony's tail, and 
 form with it two long loops, on which to rest the reins. Tie 
 twenty feet of binding wire, such as is used for tying sheaves, to 
 the end of each rein, and twist the far end of each wire round a 
 small piece of stick for a handle, so that your assistant can stand 
 thirty feet from the pony's mouth with these handles in his hands,. 
 
HABIT CONFIRMED. 123 
 
 and, without any connection that will be very apparent to the 
 pony. Mount your horse and ride by the side of the pony. It 
 will probably still stop instantly for the word, "whay ;" and if it 
 does so, after several trials, nothing more need be done, as it is 
 just as well that it should get no opportunity to see how matters 
 have been managed. If it shows any hesitation about stopping, 
 the wire reins must be brought severely into use, and taken off as 
 soon as the pony is quite sure to stop without them. Test the 
 pony's obedience on the following day, and repeat the whole, or 
 any part of the lesson if you find it necessary. The habit of 
 stopping to the word must be thoroughly established by constant 
 practice for some weeks after the lesson has been thoroughly 
 taught (198). Obedience to the word must also be constantly 
 enforced by any rider on the pony's back ; but above all, it must 
 never hear the word without obeying it. For this reason you 
 should never, but especially at first, use the word when trying to 
 catch the pony, or under any circumstances in which obedience 
 would be doubtful, and cannot be instantly enforced. 
 
 255. — AVith ponies thus trained, we have turned our own five 
 boys out alone, with their little lively nags, and never had a 
 serious accident with any one of them. We would rather trust 
 them with such ponies alone, than with any number of grooms or 
 footmen watching them on ponies that are not under control. But 
 remember that no pony, however quiet and well-broken, can be 
 safe for a child's use if highly fed with corn and kept in a stable 
 without plenty of work. Paddock-fed ponies may not look so 
 bright, but they are infinitely safer for any child's use, and are 
 quite capable enough for anything that a child could require of 
 them. They may wear a canvas and felt cover during winter, and 
 at that season may get hay and even a little corn if they have 
 regular work. 
 
 THE ROADSTER. 
 
 256. — A horse can hardly l)e said to have passed his primary 
 education until he has been taught all that is really necessary 
 for an ordinary roadster to understand. We have practically 
 given his education in the riding horse's primary lessons, so that 
 we shall not have much to say about him in this chapter. 
 
124 ACCOMPLISHMENTS TAUGHT. 
 
 257. — He will have more to do than most other riding 
 horses in the way of passing and meeting vehicles, and other 
 objects on the road, and great care and patience should be 
 exercised to teach him to do this pleasantly, without getting 
 dangerously near them, or shying too far away from them. We 
 like to leave a horse alone at such work as much as we can, only 
 interfering when he does wrong, as this habit makes him a safer 
 horse in the dark, when he alone can see what to do. There is 
 no time that a man feels so charmed with a good horse as when 
 he has brought him past a hundred real dangers which he could 
 never have avoided with his own eyes. 
 
 He should be taught to go a little faster when overtaking 
 than when meeting an object. A good bold rider may allow him 
 to select a soft path near the side of the road to save his feet, 
 but when so indulged there is always more risk of a sudden 
 swerve to one side, so that a less accomplished rider had better 
 teach his nag to keep the best path he can find nearer the 
 middle of the road. 
 
 Cantering on hard mettled roads is an expensive luxury, 
 ■especially with a heavy weight, as few horses stand it long without 
 failing in the leading fore foot or leg, so that a young man who 
 wants to save his horse from lameness had better be content to 
 walk or trot. As in every other riding horse, a good, fast, easy 
 walk is a valuable accomplishment. 
 
 258. — ^Your horse will have been taught to carry every 
 article of dress (188, 191), he must also be thoroughly reconciled 
 to an umbrella, or the most glaring uniform ; should be practised 
 at standing quietly for his rider to shake hands, and not to fear 
 the approach of a lady carrying or swinging about a parasol. 
 He should also be taught to put himself alongside and retreat 
 well from a gate, so as to assist his rider in opening it on his 
 back. All this is very easily taught if it is set about patiently, 
 as part of your business, and before a horse has been spurred and 
 knocked about for not doing it without teaching. 
 
 THE OVERLAND TRAVELLER. 
 
 259. — The horse for the overland traveller should possess 
 
MUCH REQUIRED. 125- 
 
 nearly all the good qualities of a very good horse, and perhaps 
 we never know how many good qualities we want in one liorse 
 until we come to try and find one fur this purpose. 
 
 He must be a good walker, a good swimmer, and should be 
 a pleasant ambler. He must possess an iron constitution, that is 
 not likely to fail under the greatest hardships ; lie must be easy 
 and safe in his paces, clever on his legs, easy to mount, easy 
 to lead, easy to catch, easy to tether. He must be bold enough 
 to face any river, to clamber oxer rocks, to venture up and 
 down precipices, and over any reasonably soft ground, and yet 
 should have sagacity enough to refuse an impassable bog, or a 
 quick sand. In fact he should be wonderfully well bred and 
 well taught. 
 
 260. — There is a great difference in horses for swimming.. 
 For crossing unknown, flooded, muddy, rapid rivers, we would 
 never take a horse that we did not know to be a good swimmer. 
 No horses take so easily to river work, as the colts that have 
 followed their mothers through such rivers, and have learned 
 in infancy neither to dread nor to despise them. 
 
 In many parts of Xew Zealand horses are kept by the 
 Government for the express purpose of taking travellers across 
 rivers in which fords will often change every week, and it is 
 beautiful to see how bold, and yet how sagaciously cautious such 
 horses often become. " H you have got the seuse to let the 
 old horse alone, he will take you over all right" is the marching 
 order usually given to the traveller mounted on one of these 
 horses, to cross a river in which no man and no boat could live, 
 and in a country where more colonists have been drowned in 
 fresh water than in any other part of the wurld. Too rapid 
 and too full of timber and rocks for any boat, too benumbingly 
 cold for the best swimmer and the best human lungs in the 
 world to live in them a quarter (. f an hour ; these rivers, floe ded 
 with snow water, can often only be crossed by a very powerful, 
 surefooted, coiu-ageous horse, that knows where to swim and 
 where to walk, or by one that has a rider on his back that can 
 show him and consult him by turns. 
 
 201. — There is perhaps no position in which we feel the value: 
 
12G SWIMMIXG ESSENTIALS. 
 
 of a good understanding with a horse so much as when alternately 
 swimming and fording one of these rivers ; and when our life at 
 one time depends upon his perfect obedience to our will, and at 
 another upon our perfectly understanding the admonitions of his 
 superior instincts. Here practice is of great importance, to both 
 horse and man, neither of them must be timid, neither of them 
 must be rash, each of them must feel confidence in the other. It 
 is wonderful to see the confidencs that a horse will acquire at this 
 ■work in a man that has proved that he knows both how to direct 
 him and to understand him. 
 
 262. — Many horses could never be taught this work, and no 
 one should venture into such rivers on an unproved horse. Try 
 the horse first in a clear, quiet river, with large boulders at the 
 bottom, and see how he manages his feet amongst them. If he 
 makes a mess of it you can't teach him to do it properly ; try 
 another, and don't waste time upon him. The same may be said 
 if he walks upon his hind legs when he ought to be swimming, 
 as many horses will do that are not accustomed to deep water. 
 Never take such a horse into a dangerous river. The first horse 
 that served us this trick made us lose both of our stirrups, and 
 we had to finish our journey without any. He was the last horse 
 that we ever started with on an overland journey without trying 
 him as a swimmer. 
 
 263. — Left to himself a horse will almost always choose to 
 cross a river on a ford, but if you know that the river is too high 
 for fording, you should avoid every shallow, and go at once to a 
 deep quiet part of the river, where you can see a good landing 
 far enough below you on the other side. Be sure that you 
 allow enough for current, as it will not matter if you reach the 
 other side half a mile above your landing place, but it may matter 
 a good deal if you reach it half a yard too low. "\7e have 
 sometimes been washed a mile down whilst crossin": a flooded 
 river not a furlong wide. Never allow your horse to waste his 
 strength by trying to swim up a rapid river. If you have 
 missed your landing place you must seek another below, however 
 far that may be, and your horse should be kept in deep water 
 for that purpose, with a sharp look out for logs, or rocks, that 
 
FORDING MAXIMS. 127 
 
 may roll hira over. If yon are thrown off in deep water don't 
 ^aste your strength in trying to get on again, because you cannot 
 do it. You have nothing to spring from and the horse will 
 roll round towards you if you climb up him, like a floating log. 
 Hang on the mane or tail until your horse gets a footing again, 
 keeping only your head oat of water. A strong swimming horse 
 will carry a man in the saddle with armpits and shoulders well 
 out of water, but he does that at great inconvenience to himself, 
 and if the struggle is a severe one, you should lean as much of 
 your body under water as you can, which will keep the horse's 
 hind quarter's higher, and in a better form for swimming. 
 
 204. — When a swimming horse first touches the ground 
 in a strong current, he is oltliged to instantly give his body a 
 •very strong lean up stream, which often unseats a rider that is 
 ■not on the look out for it, coming as it does at the same moment 
 that the stream begins to strike hard on the horse no longer 
 floating with it. 
 
 265. — Crossing a river on a deep rapid ford is much more 
 difficult, and requires more presence of mind than swimming 
 across it in deep water. The most practised eye will be deceived 
 as to the direction, and you will fancy that you are keeping up 
 stream, when you are really going fast down it. Before you go 
 into the river, you want to fix upon the best point to make for on 
 the other side. 
 
 If a straight line is practicable, which it seldom is, you can 
 take two prominent land objects, on the far side, that will give 
 vou the right line, and keep your eyes on them as you cross, 
 paying no attention to the apparent direction you are making in 
 the stream. When really keeping the right line on the ford, 
 the horse will appear to you to be walking almost straight up the 
 stream. Never hurry your horse on a ford but give him plenty 
 of time to choose his footing, and to make a good use of faculties 
 far superior to yours in avoiding dangers under water. If the 
 current has proved too much for the horse to bear against, 
 and you find yourself on the low edge of a ford, with no power 
 to get further on it, don't attempt to go back again, where you 
 would be sure to get washed off into broken water, in which 
 
128 TETHERING. 
 
 your horse could neither swim nor walk, but make at once for 
 smooth water, such as you would select for a boat, and then 
 swim for either bank th*at the stream will take you to. Do nob 
 let your horse exhaust his strength at any impossible landing- 
 place, but swim on to a good one. If your horse must try a 
 difficult one throw yourself oft' and relieve hiin of your weight 
 for the struggle. 
 
 9GC. — Your overland horse should be taught to tether well 
 in some way, and the best way is by the fore foot. Any horse 
 unaccustomed to be tethered, is sure to lame himself by cutting 
 his hind pastern with the rope when tethered by the neck, and 
 although they learn to manage the rope better after a while, a 
 horse never gets so clever with it as a mule or a donkey will do^ 
 and is always in more or less danger of getting wound up in a 
 tangle, and of losing a night's rest and a night's feed. 
 
 When tethered with a strap round one of his fore pasterns he 
 is much more safe, and a lighter rope will do it. He requires a 
 little education for this. Before he is aware of his bondage, he 
 may start off at some fast pace, and get and give a violent jerk at 
 the end of his tether. This he will soon learn to avoid, and until 
 he does so, the rope may be held in hand or left to drag after him. 
 He will often tread on it with his hind feet and will learn from 
 that to move his tethered foot with caution. For the same 
 reason, the first six feet from, the strap that goes round his foot 
 will require to be very strong, and the requisite strength, light- 
 ness, smoothness, and durability will be found in nothing better 
 than a strip of raw cow hide, about an inch wide. Another 
 advantage of this short length of raw hide is, that if your rope 
 breaks the hide still remains, and greatly impedes a horse's power 
 to get quickly away from you. The rest of the tether line may 
 be light tarred rope, of good quality. Such a rope often comes in 
 useful for many other purposes on a long journey, through a new 
 country. 
 
 207. — The tether I'ope is not much used by experienced 
 hushmen, on experienced horses, in very long journeys. Either 
 round the neck or the foot there is a probability of a horse getting 
 into a mess with it when rolling. Hence some danger of injuring 
 
HOBBLES. 129 
 
 a horse, or of a breakage that lets the horse get entirely away, 
 besides which it too commonly puts the horse on very short allow- 
 ance for the night. For all these reasons hobbles are more 
 generally used, and the horse should be accustomed to walk in 
 them a little before he starts on a journey or he may stick up a 
 whole night or two without moving at all. On the other hand, 
 some horses get so clever in them that they are of no use on them. 
 They sometimes learn to canter almost as well with them as without 
 them. "When this takes place it may be prevented by fastening a 
 piece of raw hide to the hobbles, long enough to be trod on by the 
 hind feet. 
 
 268. — Great care is necessary to prevent the hobbles from 
 rubbing the pasterns sore. The frequent whetting and drying and 
 dirt which they necessarily get from wet grass and drinking holes 
 makes leather very harsh and uncomfortable, however much you 
 oil or grease it. The padded hobbles that look so comfortable aa 
 you see them new in a saddler's shop soon get worse than any 
 others at rough work. For actual service w^e have found nothing 
 save the horse's skin so much as plain leather or green hide straps, 
 with the hair inwards, well soaked in water every evening before 
 they are put on. The hobble may sometimes be buckled above, 
 and sometimes below the fetlock joint, so as not to always rub the 
 same place. 
 
 269. — Of course, either tethers or hobbles should be used as 
 little as possible. One of them will be necessary whilst a young 
 fresh horse is within easy reach of a much-loved home, or com- 
 pelled to stay in a barren, waterless territory. In such places a 
 traveller's life may depend on their effectual use, and he must run 
 no such risk. But a good horseman can almost always trust his 
 horse loose, or dragging a tether rope, until ready to go to sleep 
 himself, and by that time he will often be able to correctly read 
 the horse's intentions for the night. 
 
 270. — To make the most of a horse on a long journey no 
 man should sit steadily on his back for an hour together, or pass 
 an exceptionally tempting plot of grass without letting his horse 
 have a bite at it. To get off your horse's back and lie down on 
 your own back for ten minutes every now and then will be a great 
 I 
 
130 THE MERCIFUL MAN. 
 
 relief to both. An active man will get on faster if he rides two 
 miles, and walks quarter of a mile, all the journey through. A 
 Tery strong man at Clifton, near Bristol, who could carry more 
 than 7001bs without injury for a short distance, undertook for a 
 wager, to carry 286lbs. for a mile. He did it, but was so injured 
 by the prolonged exertion that he never recovered his original 
 strength, and died soon afterwards. Let an ordinarily strong 
 man take lOOlbs. on his back, it seems a mere nothing to him at 
 first, but by the time he has carried it a mile it will have become 
 an oppressive burden. 
 
 271. — In 1847 a stock owner in Xew South Wales started 
 ■with -2,500 head of cattle for Adelaide. He engaged five stock- 
 men, for four of them he was to find horses, the other undertook 
 to find his own. The distance driven w^as about a thousand 
 miles. He provided three good fresh stock horses for each of the 
 four stockmen, besides a number for himself, and was disgusted 
 to find the man who undertook to horse himself came with only 
 one. AVe overtook the party after they had travelled about 800 
 miles, and then the only horse amongst them that had a whole 
 skin, or that was fit to take a man on his back, or that could 
 yard the cattle, or overtake them when they ran away, was the 
 one horse that had never had a day's rest, and had done all the 
 fastest galloping, but whose rider never stuck on his back for an 
 hour together, but drove the horse feeding before him three parts 
 of the day. The other horses only worked about twice a week, 
 but then a man cruelly stuck on their raw backs from morning 
 till night. 
 
 272. — There are a number of simple ways by which you can 
 :secure a horse sufficiently whilst you drive him before you, or stop 
 him for a short feed. With most hard-worked horses, it is enough 
 to simply run the reins between the stirrup leathers and bring 
 them over the stirrup iron. This does not interfere in the 
 slightest degree with the feeding or easy motion of the horse, and 
 can be made very eflFectual with a piece of very easy education. A 
 long piece of string, tied to the stirrup, and brought back in your 
 hand will, if judiciously used, soon make the horse believe that 
 you have always got him in hand when the reins are so fastened. 
 
USEFUL DEVICES. 
 
 131 
 
 If more restraint is needed put the i-e ins between tlie fore legs and 
 then fasten tbem a little shorter, so that the horse cannot get his 
 head very high. If that is not snffieient, pass them through a 
 loose hoop, tied or buckled under his knee. You will soon find 
 out how much restraint is necessary to ensure catching him easily 
 when wanted, and it is your interest to inflict no mure. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LOCAL SYSTEMS. 
 
 273. — Scotch heads are the largest and most intellectual in 
 the world. "Whilst nominally submittina; to the overwhelminof 
 power of a more populous, more wealthy, and more fertile 
 country, they have actually ruled it, giving it King's laws, Prime 
 Ministers, and Cabinets, To the best of these heads we owe the 
 steam engine, our steam ships, and our gas lighted streets. The 
 English and German head is not far behind the Scotch. All are 
 ruling heads, all inventing heads, all eminently persevering heads, 
 full of resources to meet every emergency. 
 
 274. — But so long as these fine heads stay at home, there is 
 some overpowering conservative influence that binds them toa 
 long to time honoured practices, keeps them contented with 
 inferior tools, and even gives them a secondary place in the race of 
 inventors and improvers. When the same men put their foot on 
 a virgin soil, when they mingle together on an unimproved 
 country, when they compare under the same surroundings the 
 merits of the different tools that each has brought from a native 
 country, when they survey the wealth of nature's resources and 
 realize the dearth ot labour to appropriate them, they are at once 
 roused to exert their faculties in the production of improved tools, 
 and seek every means to exchange the drudgery of the no longer 
 cheap field worker, or house builder, for the more available labour 
 of the patient ox, the willing horse, or the untiring steam engine. 
 Thus, the lightest and most convenient tools, the only complete 
 and expeditious saw mills, the effective screw pulverizer, and 
 above all the triumphant reaper and binder, giving cheaper and 
 better bread to the whole world, have originated not with Britons 
 at home, but with Britons abroad ; not with those who have 
 
WORLD-WIDE GLEANINGS. 133 
 
 hovered around the old nests, but with those who have taken a 
 wider flight, and learned more both of what the world possesses 
 and of what it still needs, and have seen what ample room there 
 yet is for every willing hand and every able head. 
 
 275. — In such new fields of enterprise the Scotchman is soon 
 persuaded to give up his venerated swing plough, the labourious 
 scythe, the slow sickle, and the back-trying shovel ; and learns to 
 rely more on the better and cheaper muscles of the horse. No 
 horses are better broken, upon the whole, than the horses of 
 Scotland ; but a colonist smiles when he reads, in a book revised 
 by a Scotchman in 1883, of the weeks, months, and years that are 
 to be devoted to the education of one horse. " As it was in the 
 beginning, is now, and ever shall be," is stamped on every page of 
 that well-meaning and more than usually accurate book. 
 
 276. — Nor is it from his own big-headed countryman alone' 
 that a British colonist or traveller will learn something about the 
 treatment of the horse. Some of the brightest and best ideas of 
 the numerous American horse tamers have been borrowed, without 
 acknowledgement, from the red Indians. Those rope bridles that 
 are truly said to control the most vicious horse, are the exact 
 imitation of the bridles used, both in North and South America, 
 by men who have long controlled very wild horses without either 
 iron, rope, or leather ; but have made bridles, saddles, stirrups, 
 lassoes, lounging and tether lines, from raw hide, or from the 
 woods and weeds of their own territory. The wonderful eyesight 
 of even the barely human headed Australians, have taught us 
 something, and we shall show presently that by far the best and 
 most valuable lesson we have' ever learned in horsebreaking we 
 got from a half civilized native of New Zealand, whose father had 
 never seen a horse. 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 277. — South America is the country in connection with which 
 romancing travellers delight to spin their " tallest yarns" about the 
 wild horse. The nominally wild horses, in any settled part of that 
 country, are less fleet, and are not less handled, nor more wild, 
 than some of the largest herds owned in Australia. But English 
 
134 TALL YARNS. 
 
 books do not get criticised in South America as they might do in 
 Australia, and therefore it is more safe to describe impossible 
 feats with the lasso, and the wonderful success of brutal whips, 
 spurs, bits, and men, which never produce good horses in any 
 other country. 
 
 178. — We cannot understand why so many English writers 
 on the horse have given credence and publicity to such clumsy 
 and mischievous romances. 
 
 We will copy one from Basil Hall's journey to Peru and 
 Mexico, which we take because it is a fair sample of the rest, and 
 has been published, as if it were true, by many writers, including 
 Youatt, and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 
 
 170. — "When a Gaucho wishes to take a wild horse, he 
 mounts one that has been used to the sport, and gallops over the 
 plain. As soon as he comes sufficiently near his prey, the lasso 
 is thrown round the two hind legs, and as the Gaucho rides a 
 little on one side the jerk pulls the entangled horse's feet laterally, 
 so as to throw him on his side, without endangering his knees or 
 his face. Before the horse can recover the shock the rider 
 dismounts, and snatching his poncho or cloak from his shoulders 
 wraps it round the prostrate animal's head. He then forces into 
 his mouth one of the powerful bridles of the country, straps a 
 saddle on his back, and bestriding him removes the poncho, upon 
 which the astonished horse springs on his legs, and endeavours by 
 a thousand vain eflfoi'ts to disencumber himself of his new master, 
 who sits quite composedly on his back, and by a discipline which 
 never fails, reduces the horse to such complete obedience, that 
 he is soon trained to lend his whole speed and strength in the 
 capture of his companions." 
 
 280. — Now, in the first place, let the English reader remember 
 that the Gaucho's horse is described as a poor starved thing, 
 merely caught and worked 'without any proper feeding, until used 
 up, and that the wild horses on the dry plains of Peru and 
 Australia, are not soft, fat things, but are as hard, and often in 
 far better condition for work than the horse the Gaucho rides. 
 How then are they overtaken so easily by one of their own jieers, 
 loaded with a man and all sorts of heavy paraphanalia on his 
 back ? 
 
IMPOSSIBILITIES. 135 
 
 281. — Then having overtaken him, how does he throw the 
 lasso over the hind legs of a galloping horse, unless the liorse 
 could gallop on his back and throw his legs upwards ? Then 
 having thrown the lasso on the hind legs of a galloping horse, 
 how does he persuade it to stop on them, whilst he tightens the 
 noose, and puts himself in exactly the right position to throw 
 him so artistically ? Then how does he persuade him to stay with 
 his head on the ground until he gets up to him with the poncho ? 
 and how does he put the bridle on a head completely covered up ? 
 And why does he perform all these miracles, when a lasso, thrown 
 round the horse's neck, would choke him down more gently, 
 and keep him there till hol)bled ? And how can any man get the 
 girths round a horse lying on the ground ? 
 
 290.— Surely every writer on the horse ought to have seen 
 at once that the whole story was a pure fabrication, and one 
 calculated to convey a very false impression in favour of successful 
 brutality. We could more easily and much more harmlessly 
 believe Lady Barker's description of boar hunting in ISTew 
 Zealand, where she figures as a David on horseback without a 
 sling, and the thick skulled wild boar as a soft headed Goliath, 
 which prudently omitted to bring a sword for his own 
 decapitation. 
 
 291. — It is quite true that the horses of South America, as 
 those of every other country where horses are excessively cheap, 
 are hastily and badly broken, and brutally treated ; and, until 
 exhausted with hard work, are proportionately uncertain and unsafe 
 to ride ; but they do not move best for spurs as big as a turnstile, 
 nor for whi])S that "horribly mangle their sides." Some of the 
 Gauchos become skilful with the lasso, so that when the wild 
 horses are driven to a corral they can do without a pole what the 
 Australians do with one, but they perform no miracles, and cannot 
 set aside the ordinary laws of motion and gravitation. We know 
 of nothing either in the humanity, the expedition, the economy, or 
 the success of their proceedings that make them worthy of 
 imitation. 
 
 AUSTRALIA. 
 
 292. — Australia is a vast island or continent, where the 
 
136 NERVOUSNESS. 
 
 fchoroiiglibred horse has reached great perfection, and where he 
 is ridden by men who are not surpassed as riders by any of their 
 own race. 
 
 293. — In January, 1847, we went from New Zealand to 
 Sydney, where we purchased a double-shafted dray, five unbroken 
 fillies, and harness for four horses. After we had paid for the 
 fillies, the vendor, who was a cripple, was kind enough to say, 
 pointing to the finest of the fillies, which we thought we had 
 purchased very cheap at nine pounds : " You see that filly ?" 
 " Yes." " Well, she has crippled me, and she will kill you if you 
 don't look out." The caution was very useful and enabled us to 
 break her in, as we did all the others, without any help, any yard, 
 or any mishap at all. As we broke them we drove them on 
 overland towards Adelaide, distant 1,200 miles, across a country 
 with few rivers, mountains, swamps, or natural obstacles of any 
 kind. We arrived in Adelaide, after a pleasant but rather 
 adventurous three month's drive, with five remarkably good cart 
 mares, which we sold, on trial, for £40 each. The highly 
 nervous mare, that nearly killed her breeder, went on one occasion 
 nine days without water rather than drink out of a bucket, and 
 her purchaser in Adelaide told us that during the whole of the 
 first winter that he kept her, she would never venture to lie 
 down in a stable. We mention this as one of the many proofs 
 we have seen that what we call vice and bad temper in a horse 
 is generally the result of an excessively nervous temperament, 
 most painful and unfortunate to the horse itself, and demanding 
 not harshness, but more than usual gentleness from those who 
 undertake to educate him. 
 
 294. — During this long journey we had many opportunities 
 of seeing what is done in the way of taming the extremely wild 
 horses of Australia, and the systems adopted in a country long 
 notorious for the best bred, and with the exception of South 
 America, the worst broken horses in the world. 
 
 On arriving at one large station within 200 miles of Mel- 
 bourne we were told that on the following day all available hands 
 and horses would be engaged in trying to drive a " mob" of 
 horses into the yards. We noticed that the paddocks, fences, 
 
HORSE HUNTING. 137 
 
 and yards, were all arranged so as to offer every facility for their 
 
 capture. 
 
 295. — In the mori]iii<>-, relays of first-class well-trained 
 horses and horsemen were directed to different parts of the run, 
 so as to relieve each other in the arduous exhausting chase. 
 Clouds of dust could be seen here and there, now nearer and 
 now farther from the station, and before noon one large cloud 
 steadily approached the homestead, with a noise of hoofs more 
 rapid than of a charging troop of cavalry, and with the crack of 
 silk ended whips, louder than the report of a rifle. Every thing 
 had been well planned for their reception, not a dog or pig was 
 loose, and every sack, hide, or sheep skin had been removed from 
 their track. As the way grew more narrow and the fences higher 
 the leaders snorted, stopped, hesitated, and essayed to turn back, 
 but it w^as too late. The steaming horses, the excited men, and ^ 
 the serpent-like whips, flying high in the air, and cracking like a 
 rending forest, were close upon them, and it was soon evident 
 that many in that beautiful herd of truly wild, though well-bred 
 horses, had seen the last free and happy day of their life. 
 
 290. — The immensely strong and high yard was well tried, 
 as the timid powerful mass pressed from side to side, to get as far 
 as possible from the human forms that conveyed so much terror 
 to them. About twenty-five horses were drafted into a small 
 yard surrounded with a top plank for a man to walk on. A rope 
 was adjusted to the end of a long light pole, and a running noose 
 skilfully dropped over the highest head. A single turn of the 
 other end of the rope was taken round a strong post and held 
 with give-and-take enough to save the horse's neck. A gate 
 now opened into an adjoining little yard, into which ti-.e loose 
 horses ran, leaving the captive alone. He makes a frantic pull 
 backwards, and threatens to smash himself to pieces against the 
 strong timber, but the merciful rope has cut off' the supply of 
 oxygen to his brain, so that it no longer issues its mandates to 
 the powerful muscles. The legs bend under the load, and the horse 
 sinks helpless to the ground. One man is instantly at his head, 
 two lean over his back, his legs are hobbled, the rope is slackened, 
 .and he returns to consciousness to find himself dejtrived of the 
 
1 38 COLONIAL URGENCIE.S. 
 
 use of his limbs, and in actual contact with animals more terrible 
 to him if not more cruel than lions. 
 
 297. — Much has been said and written against this system of 
 capturing the wild horses of Australia. It is undoubtedly too 
 dangerous for adoption in any country where horses are valuable, 
 and quite needless where they are moderately tame. But knowing 
 what these horses really are, and what the men cost, and what 
 the men are who have to handle them, and the price the horses 
 fetch in the home market, where thousands of good light colts 
 have been sold for 10s. each, we are unable to think of any plan 
 less cruel that could be made to answer the purpose. To prescribe 
 Earey's straps, or Sample's holding by head and tail, would be 
 like the old nursery receipt to catch a wild bird by putting salt 
 on its tail. Nc Karey could creep up to them, no Sample could 
 hold one of them for a moment, even if the head and tail were 
 put in his hands. They would knock themselves to pieces in a 
 crush pen, and would batter themselves far more if thrown in any 
 way we know of without the temporary garrote. 
 
 298. — To our mind, the cruelty comes in at the next stage of' 
 the business. A little more time and patience spent with the 
 wild horse when on the ground (357 to 363), far less than such a 
 timid, neglected animal might be expected to require, would soon 
 put him on a par with younger handled hoi'ses, would save a lot 
 of rough, cruel, dangerous fighting with him afterwards, and often 
 make him a trustworthy and valuable servant up to a reasonable 
 old age. 
 
 Whilst unable to hurt himself or anyone else, enough time 
 should be taken to convince him that he may come in contact 
 with man without being consumed, or suffering any serious injury 
 (357). An extra hour so spent would make all the difference, 
 and would be returned with interest in after dealing with him. 
 There are not a few men in Australia now who have found this 
 out and act upon it, but unfortunately colonial life is still prone 
 to be fast, men's time is costly and horses are cheap ; there is no 
 fun where lives and limbs are not endangered, and the peace of 
 mind or comfort of body of the poor horse is too often a matter 
 of no concern to any one. He is too soon allowed to rise, either 
 
MADE FOR SALE. ISS' 
 
 to liis kuees or to tliree legs, so that the saddle can be girthed on 
 him ; a " black fellow" is hoisted to his back, his foot is let 
 down, and he starts to a series of efforts to rid himself from 
 the frightful object that clings to him like a jaguar, and 
 thus becomes a buck jumper for the rest of his short and 
 suffering life. 
 
 299. — Like Peter Pindar's razoi's, these hastily handled 
 horses are not made for use, but for sale. They do to export 
 where they get more broken on the voyage to India, or to sell by 
 auction, and are not unfrequently bought by those who keep 
 horses for some cruel destructive work, trusting to fatigue to 
 quiet them. They are harnessed to four-horse coaches without 
 any farther breaking in, and form the far travelling, illused,. 
 jibbing horses that are everywhere to be seen drawing the public 
 conveyances of Australia. The poor things have never been 
 taught to walk a step in harness, and are afraid to do so. It is 
 no uncommon thing to see an Australian coach delayed five 
 minutes, or even quarter of an hour, after changing horses, before 
 any two of the nervous, untaught, timid, illused brutes, can 
 be made to rush in one direction long enough to start the coach 
 on level ground, a piece of ignorance for which they are 
 belaboured and galloped the whole stage by the infuriated 
 coachman, most of the passengers declaring that the " obstinate 
 brutes richly deserve it." 
 
 300. — So limited is the education of these wild, high-spirited 
 horses that they will often carry a man without a coat, but not 
 with, or vice versa. If his hat comes oflP they mistake him for 
 some wild animal that they have never seen before. If his foot 
 slips out of the stirruj) they jump from its threatening swing, 
 and we hear how cunning and artful they are to take such an 
 advantage in a moment. 
 
 301. — It was one of these half-broken horses that killed the 
 Rev. Mr. Johnson in Adelaide. He had hired a horse that 
 seemed quiet enough under him, with his hat on, but when his 
 hat blew off the untamed animal flew away at a frantic pace 
 and threw him on the hard road, with fatal velocity. A smith,, 
 an engineer, or an architect is liable to be tried for manslaughter 
 
140 ANTIPODES. 
 
 if death results from his faulty work. It would be a happy thing 
 for the horse and his purchaser if his breaker were subjected to 
 the same penalty. 
 
 302. — As we got a few hundred miles further on towards 
 Adelaide we were fortunate enough to hear of another horse 
 muster that was to come off at the head station of another 
 great horse breeding squatter, and we stayed to see the result, in 
 the hope that we might see some better method of catching and 
 handling such horses. 
 
 It was past mid-day before a herd of horses came in sight of 
 the station, and just before they reached the narrowing way a 
 stray pig unfortunately trotted across their path. The whole 
 herd turned back and dividing into two or three lots, were soon 
 past all recovery. The stockmen came in some hours after this, 
 with exhausted horses, and it was evident that there woUld be no 
 horses fit to try again for at least a week. 
 
 NEW ZEALAND 
 
 303. — Is the antipodes of England, yet there is no country 
 in which an Englishman could so readily fancy himself at home, with 
 its green fields, its hawthorn hedges, its comfortable looking dairy 
 cows, its Hansom cabs, its toiling horses, its well fed saucy children, 
 scolding women, and gambling men. It is within 1,200 miles of 
 Australia, yet very widely differing from it. Rivers, swamps, 
 snow clad mountains, water falls, and precipices, arrest the 
 traveller's progress at very short intervals. 
 
 804. — Half a century ago an Englishman travelled in New 
 Zealand with an abiding sense that he might any day or any 
 night, constitute the principal dish at a Maori feast, and nine- 
 tenths of the inhabitants of the country had never seen a horse. 
 Now, mutton is so cheap that a Maori would not think a white 
 man worth cooking, and horses are so abundant that shepherds 
 and even stone breakers, ride to their work, and the Maories 
 own more horses than they use. 
 
 305. — Even twenty years ago the inland traveller was 
 oppressed and awed by an absence of animal life, and a dreary 
 silence of the air ; now his ears are everywhere dinned fi'om 
 
MAORI WIT. 141 
 
 dawn to dark with the song of the skylark, which has proved 
 only second to the rabbit for its destruction to vegetation, and 
 its insiippressible fecundity. Hares breed from three to five 
 young ones in a nest, and five nests a year, and grow too strong 
 for the greyhound to overtake them, so that a country from, 
 which the gigantic Moa has perished, and which until recently 
 had no quadrupeds, except the Cook imported pigs and rats, is 
 now threatened with an excess of animal life, which outruns the 
 more than wonted increase of mankind, and is unchecked by 
 floods, frosts, drought or disease. 
 
 306. — Although light horses are now as cheap in New Zealand 
 as in Australia, and very large heavy ones are cheaper, the New 
 Zealand colonists have not yet forgotten the habits formed when 
 horses were very scarce and costly, so that their horses are better 
 broken than those of Australia, and the good old systems of 
 England and Scotland are only modified with the greater cost of 
 labour, and the time saving lessons of American horse tamers. 
 As the young horses require no winter care, they are often 
 entirely unheeded, until fit for work, and sometimes, though 
 rarely, come to the breakers hands almost as timid and wild as 
 those of Australia. 
 
 307. — The Maories have taken eagerly to the luxury of the 
 horse's services, and whilst they watch and easily imitate all that 
 they see done with him by their European neighbours, they go 
 to work with him in their own way, and with their own resources^ 
 in a manner quite consistent with the courage, cleverness, and 
 cunning, which has enabled them to hold their own in their own 
 country as no other uncivilized race has ever done. The men 
 who obtained all the lead they wanted to defend a fortification by 
 showing up imitation Maories for our soldiers to fill with bullets^ 
 and who defied every general and every army by a skilful use of 
 their native swamps, are not likely to be very much outwitted 
 in the management of their own animals. 
 
 308. — It was in 1862 that we joined a riding party that was 
 going on a sort of picnic excursion from Nelson to the lake and 
 mountain country, in the interior of the middle island. Some 
 ladies were in the party, to ride where ladies had never been 
 
142 A ROUGH FRIEND. 
 
 before, so that we took pack horses, tents, and a great supply 
 of blankets and changes of clothes, for the extreme altitude and 
 temperature which we were to pass through. We started towards 
 the end of November, corresponding in the South Hemisphere 
 with the English May. This was known to be rather too early 
 in the season for the altitude we were to reach, but we wanted to 
 see the high mountain waterfolls, which lew persons do see, 
 because they dry up as the summer advances. 
 
 300.— These white waterfalls are far more beautiful, and six 
 times as high as those of Niagara, though tiiey only drain the 
 winter accumulations of mountain tops, do not last long, and in 
 the volume of water falling are not a droj) in a bucket to the 
 great American cataract. 
 
 ;'>10. — When nearly at our highest altitude in the neighbour- 
 hood of Tarndale, we found ourselves one morning completely 
 hemmed in with snow. Our horses were none too well off in 
 such a country before, and our first fear was that they would now 
 get nothing to eat, but we soon saw that the short, thick-leaved 
 spear grass which had given them so much trouble to walk 
 through was now their staff of life. 
 
 Although most of the horses in the party had never seen either 
 snow or spear grass before, we Avere much comforted to see that 
 nature taught them to seize the strong shai-p spikes carefully with 
 their teeth, and pull them up by the root, then dropping the plant 
 on the snow, they took it by the root, drawing the spikes behind 
 -and after devouring the root, dropped the tops of the spikes. 
 The root has the smell and taste of a parsnip, and proved a very 
 good food for the horses under very trying circumstances. 
 
 311. — We had pitched our tents some little distance outside 
 ^ forest, or dry stony ground, so that we had some way to fetch 
 our firewood. We had no draft harness, or harness horses with 
 us, and our shod horses could not stand well on the snow. There 
 was one well bred mare, named " Grace Darling," in the party, 
 that had shown herself extremely quiet and tractable about 
 everything, and that had such wonderfully good hoofs that she 
 had not been shod, even for that rough journey. 
 
 As she was the most likely subject for instruction and could 
 
"(IRACE J)ARLING." 143 
 
 Stand on the snow much better that the shod horses, we under- 
 took to haul logs to the tent with lier, by the use of such girths, 
 straps, and ropes, as we could muster. This she did to perfection, 
 so that we soon had large roaring fires in front of the tents, in 
 which we heated large stones, which, when carried into the tents, 
 gave us plenty of heat under our canvas, without tlie Knglish- 
 man's chimney, or the Irishman's smoke. 
 
 312. — Throughout the whole journey no horse faced a rough 
 river, or clambered a rock, or kept a track of brushwood over a 
 swamp so quietly as " Grace Darling." On one occasion some 
 -of the most gallant gentlemen in the party, gathered some large 
 bundles of a peculiar, dry, rattling grass, for the ladies beds, and 
 put tliem on the pack horses to carry to our stopping place. The 
 strange burden and noise alarmed the old pack horses and 
 started them otf, sending our pots and kettles flying on the " 
 track. 
 
 Only " (irace Darling" could be got to carry such bundles 
 quietly. Indeed, nothing alive or dead turned up on the journey 
 that " Grace Darling" could not be got to quietly receive on her 
 back. 
 
 313. — On our return to Nelson we eagerly inquired who had 
 broken in " Grace Darling," and were disgusted to learn that she 
 had never been in a breaker's hands, but had been bred by a 
 Maori, who broke lier in liimself. With all the pride of our 
 race, we thought it impossible that there could be anything to 
 learn about horse breaking fi-om a Maori, especially as horses 
 were comparatively new things to them. The Maori, too, who 
 bred her, lived nearly 150 miles from Nelson. Still we could not 
 get "( h'ace Darling" out of our head, and felt sure that there 
 must be something good about the way she had been handled, 
 and as we had to travel that way some months afterwards we 
 determined to call on her breaker. 
 
 314. — We found a man worth seeing in every respect ; a fine 
 specimen of his fine race. A land owing chief, without any of 
 the besotted appearance of those who have used their wealth of land 
 to poison themselves with alcohol and to surround themselves 
 with vicious flatterers. 
 
144 TEACHING THE WHTTY MAN. 
 
 315. — We had passed a small herd of lively fat horses on the 
 road to his house, and in his yard we saw pigs, fowls, ducks, 
 geese, and turkeys. In the fields children of all sizes, more or 
 less naked, were pulling away at the teats of some comfortable 
 looking cows. We had no complete knowledge of his language, 
 nor had he of ours, yet we never felt more at home with a man at 
 first sight. We both knew some leading words in the language of 
 the other, and Maorias are so clever both at giving and under- 
 standing signs that it is never difficult to converse with them. 
 
 316. — After a feed of very nice potatoes and peaches, we 
 told our host what we had come for, at which the whole family 
 seemed surprised and pleased, and the women especially laughed 
 very heartily. They remembered all about " Grace Darling," 
 though not by that name, and especially expatiated on her good 
 hoofs. In reply to our inquiries, they told ns that they knew 
 very little about horses, that they had no stable, no yard, no 
 whip, no straps, no breaking tackle of any kind, but they would 
 show us next morning how they caught and broke in " GTrace 
 Darling." 
 
 317. — The chief then gave orders to the women to dress a 
 little native flax, and to plait two very thick strong mats of 
 undressed flax, the use of which in horse breaking we could not 
 understand at all. The women went to work very cheerfully, 
 and were evidently much amused at the curiosity of the " whity 
 man" as to the use of such mats for horse breaking, and in bursts 
 of laughter seemed to enjoy the thought of what we were to be 
 shown in the morning. 
 
 818. — Xext morning the herd of about 50 were driven into 
 an adjoining paddock, and all but two were turned out of the 
 paddock through a gate and across the river. One of the two 
 that had been kept back at the river gate was on old quiet thing 
 that was easily caught, the other appeared a wild unhandled colt. 
 The herd of horses ran up the river on the North side, and the 
 old horse was ridden up inside the paddock at nearly the same 
 pace on the South side, followed of course by the colt. Near the 
 house they were let out of a gateway and went near the river, 
 opposite to where the herd had been stopped. The women and 
 
RAREY ECLIPSED. 145 
 
 chiklren now surrounded the old and young horse. The ground 
 became softer as they neared the river, and we thought that botli 
 horses woukl get swamped. The hoy got off the old horse, and 
 led him to where a woman was standing with the strong thick 
 mats. It was a strip of bulrush swamp, which is always soft at 
 bottom. The woman laid down the mats and shifted them to 
 the front of the horse as he walked alternately on each. Attracted 
 by his companions in full sight on the other side of the river, and 
 deceived by the success of the old horse on his flying bridge of mats, 
 the colt took the same direction, when his legs disappeared in the 
 swamp, and all farther progress for him was rendered impossible. 
 
 ?)19. — Rarey's plan is nothing to this. There were no legs 
 swinging about to hurt any one ; the colt could not batter his 
 head on the ground ; the very babies could jump on his back with 
 perfect safety, and they were not slow to avail themselves of the 
 opportunity. Their little naked feet danced along him from 
 mane to tail ; the women sat on him, the men got astride him, 
 and put a little log under his tail, and handled his head and ears. 
 When all had had something to do with him, and a great deal to 
 say to him, the chief produced a very ugly looking overcoat, 
 made of rough shaggy flax, and took it to the colt's head. He 
 first rubbed his head and body all over with it, then beat or 
 dusted him with it. The women shook their dresses in his face, 
 and put their hands over his eyes. The chief opened his mouth 
 and put his hands in it, and sat on his neck. 
 
 320. — Two men were now put to dig a road for the colt to 
 get out, and others to fetch brushwood. Whilst they did this 
 the chief put a piece of long strong flax fibre into the colt's 
 mouth, and tied it loosely round the lower jaw. Another piece 
 was put over his head and tied to the mouth piece, so as to form 
 a complete bridle. A long line of the raw flax leaf was tied to 
 the loop round the jaw, for a lounging line. 
 
 321. — As soon as a few feet of the soft black earth was 
 removed from the front of the colt, and a brushwood and clay 
 road substituted, the old horse was brought up to the river end 
 of the road with a naked boy on him, and the colt driven after 
 him, the chief holding the flax line. 
 K 
 
146 NO "WHIP. 
 
 Tlie boy took the old horse into a deep quiet part of the 
 river and brought him round again. The colt followed, getting 
 a complete wash, which he much needed. They were then taken 
 down the river bed to the gate, where the horses had been 
 first separated, and entered the paddock, after which the old 
 horse was taken away. 
 
 322. — The colt was now half led and half lounged, and was 
 kept moving, not with a whip, but with a tree called a gin tree, 
 which grows twenty feet long without a branch, and not much 
 more than an inch in diameter at the butt, with thick narrow 
 leaves at the end more than a foot long. 
 
 This was at first shaken at him, then put on him, then 
 under him, then between his hind legs, and when he would no 
 longer take any notice of it, a short stick was used in the same 
 way, and then the hands. 
 
 323. — The old flax overcoat or cape was again produced, 
 and was used in the same way that it had been in the swamp 
 after which nothing seemed to alarm the colt. A saddle was put 
 on, as easily as on an old horse, the old ugly cape was fastened to 
 it, then a number of other soft materials, and finally one of the 
 barefooted boys that had danced upon him in the swamp. No 
 attempt was made to throw anything off, and we were obliged to 
 confess that we had never seen a wild horse broken so thoroughly 
 and so well in so short a time, and that without a scratch or a 
 single whip mark. 
 
 324. — The same sensible treatment was followed up. All 
 the tribe had something to do with the colt. Small branches 
 were tied to his tail, and then larger ones, that dragged on the 
 ground, until it was impossible to frighten him with anything, 
 and we saw at once why " Grace Darling" had hauled the logs 
 and carried the bed feathers so quietly. 
 
 NORTH AMERICA 
 
 325. — Is a great country in every sense of the word. It is 
 especially great in steam engines, railways, horse cultivators and 
 engines, horses, mules, or anything connected with locomotion. 
 The largest section of the English speaking race is there, spread 
 
A GREAT COUNTRY. 147 
 
 over a space that gives full scope to all their energy, and demands 
 greater facilities for travelling than were ever needed within 
 the narrow ocean bounds, in the island homes of their 
 forefathers. 
 
 The dominant Scotch, the dignified English, the demonstra- 
 tive Irish, the domesticated Germans, and the docile Afi'icans 
 are there, united in one country and one language, destined, 
 perhaps slowly, to amalgamate as one race, but at present 
 exhibiting all the diversity of character, and variety of pursuits, 
 which, with its frigid, temperate, and tropical climates, its woods, 
 oils, and minerals, make it a complete commercial world in 
 itself. 
 
 326. — Who can pretend to have seen or to understand such 
 a country. A resident in the hot summers and cold winters of 
 New York could little judge of the mild and equal climate of 
 San Francisco ; a dweller in Florida would know nothing of the 
 ice and snows of Labrador. The man who has resided either 
 North, East, South, or West, may get a very inaccurate idea of 
 any other part of that great country, whilst those of us who have 
 only travelled through them all, will be liable to all the mistakes 
 which visitors so commonly fall into in their descriptions of any 
 country. Our remarks on the horses and horse educators in such 
 a country must be very general, and are advanced with a clear 
 sense that they may not be so reliable as they might have been 
 after a long residence in each part of the country. 
 
 327. — We have had something to say about the varieties of 
 the horses that have found their way into and have flourished 
 in North America ; our business now is to say something about 
 their education. It has been claimed that the foals in North 
 America are commonly better handled than those of England, on 
 account of being more often handled by owners, or their owner's 
 family. There is a good deal of truth in this, and a large pro- 
 portion of the horses show that they have been kindly treated 
 from their birth. AYhilst both the writers and breakers of the 
 country show that they never expect to meet with really wild 
 horses. But good handling of the young horses is by no means 
 an invariable rule. The farmers' sons and daughters are very 
 
148 OWNERS VERSUS HIRELINGS. 
 
 generally good to animals, but we cannofc say the same of the farm 
 servants of that country, when compared with those of Britain- 
 Too many of them are new to their work, and know nothing 
 about either horses or cattle ; not a few of them are mere birds 
 of passage, and very few attach themselves in the slightest 
 degree to the animals on their master's farm, or appear to 
 realise the kind of imaginary ownership in " our osses," which 
 is still not unknown, and is so advantageous and pleasant to 
 all parties, amongst some of the best, servants under the best 
 masters in G-reat Britain. This disadvantage is quite general 
 and apparent enough, in Xorth America, to outweigh the 
 undoubted advantage of more general contact with actual 
 owners, so that upon the whole we should say that the young 
 horses of America are not better handled than those of Britain. 
 
 328. — In Canada and the North Eastern States the severe 
 winters necessitate more or less attention to the young stock in 
 winter, and wherever animals are artificially fed, they are of course 
 never very wild nor difficult to catch. In the mild climate of 
 California horses require little attention, and are proportionately 
 wild, but even there, and still more in the Southern and warmer 
 states, horses are surrounded with some dangers that do not exist 
 in Australia or New Zealand, and are rarely left to run so entirely 
 without attention. 
 
 329. — The professional, travelling, exhibiting horse breakers 
 of the country call themselves horse tamers, but the name is not 
 an appropriate one. They have, of course, no opportunity of 
 showing their power as horse tamers, and all that we hear or see 
 of them is, their great ability to cope with some exceptionally 
 vicious or badly broken animals. Even if wild horses abounded 
 in North America there would be no opportunity of producing 
 them in all their original wildness before a city audience. The 
 only difficult part of the taming would have to be performed 
 before chey could be delivered at Washington or New York. 
 Anyone can kill a lion, or a rat, the only difficulty is to catch 
 them. The extreme timidity of a wild horse is a totally ditterent, 
 often a totally opposite thing, to the insubordination of a 
 "Cruiser," an "Anfield," a " British Ensign," or a " Duke of 
 
NOT CODDLED. 149 
 
 Normandy;" and we fear that those whose real business is horse 
 taming, do not always sufficiently remember that the treatment, 
 necessary for the most daring, may not be right for the most 
 timid. 
 
 - 330. — The horses of America, as a whole, are by no means 
 badly broken. The average riders are less graceful in their seat 
 than the English, less secure than the Australians. In harness, 
 more horses are driven without blinkers and without breechings 
 than in England, and more of them are wisely taught to let the 
 vehicles they draw press or knock against their hind quarters 
 without alarm. Such horses can be, and are, harnessed to 
 carriages too frail to suit an Englishman's ideas of safety. The 
 horses are not coddled and protected from every unorthodox 
 touch, but taught to expect and to bear it, and the result is that 
 they are safely driven in harness and in shafts that have a very 
 flimsy appearance. 
 
 Inferior roads make weight of more consequence in America 
 than in England, whilst the very superior character of the wood 
 used makes it safe to trust to a very small quantity of it. To 
 meet the roughest roads the wheels are high and the axles wide, 
 and the drivers sit very low, showing that they have less fear of an 
 unruly horse than of an unequal road. 
 
 331. — Jibbing is more common than in England or Scotland, 
 but by no means so prevalent as in Australia. The extensive 
 use of mules in the great civil war, as well as for shifting railway 
 waggons, and other work requiring a long, slow, waiting pull, gives 
 a visitor at least a suspicion that the horses are broken too 
 hastily to be reliable at a dead lift. Hasty breaking is not com- 
 patible with steady pulling, and although each American showman 
 has given us some almost worthless prescription for dealing with 
 a horse that has been spoiled as a puller, none of them have 
 clearly and strongly laid down the one golden rule by which all 
 such spoiling can be prevented, and horses taught to hang on to 
 a pull as long as mules (375). We do not underrate anything 
 that saves time in the education of a horse, but we venture to say 
 that anything that will prevent jibbing will save you more time 
 in the end, is of far more consequence, and more worthy the 
 earnest attention and patient trial of any nation. 
 
150 TROTTING. 
 
 332. — No class in America seems quite free from a mania 
 for showy trotting horses. Some of the most aristocratic 
 equipages may be seen to abandon the dignified eight miles an 
 hour for a regular butcher's tear-a-way at sixteen miles an hour, 
 whilst the ordinary farmers' sons will let their horses crawl, when 
 out of sight, to prepare them for a fly past of the crowd. The 
 effect of this taste on the horses of the country has not been very 
 different, and certainly not worse, than the taste for galloping races 
 in England. In both cases strong propelling hind quarters have 
 been demanded, good heart and lungs, good pipes, good circulation, 
 and good constitution. In both cases the strong, powerful, short 
 knit, enduring horse has been sacrificed to one with weaker, because 
 more reaching and lighter limbs. The ugly, ungainly, straddling 
 action that allows the hind feet to pass outside the fore ones, 
 is naturally tolerated by those who seek great trotters. 
 
 333. — The most common national fault that we noticed in 
 the education of North American horses is the hardness of their 
 mouths. In not a few cases the horses are taught to trot their 
 best when the reins are tightened, and to stop when they are let 
 slack. Drivers are constantly seen with the reins wound round 
 their hands, and evidently doing the work that ought to be done 
 by the traces. 
 
 334. — Several modern American books on the horse are very 
 rough on the horse's mouth. With them mouth punishment is 
 the general remedy for all vice, and is made too much the medium 
 of instruction to the colt. In such books too we find instructions 
 given as to how a horse's mouth is to l)e systematically hardened, 
 and the animal taught to " pull up to the rein." Even in their 
 public trotting matches, hanging on to the mouth seems to be 
 regarded as an essential condition of making the best of a trotting 
 horse. The same books instruct their readers how to teach a horse 
 to stand stock still with a whip cracking in his ears. We must say 
 that we prefer the old fashioned method of teaching a young 
 horse to move for the whip and stop for the reins. 
 
 335. — So long too as persons generally use their right hand 
 we can see nothing gained by the American and French system 
 of meeting a vehicle by turning to the right. The danger to fast 
 drivers is greatly increased by this departure from English custom. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EXPEDITIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 336. — The education of " Grace Darling" by the Maori 
 chief (319 to 324), exhibits all the essential conditions of 
 expeditious and complete horse education, in a form equally 
 applicable to the most refractory or the most timid auimal. There 
 the horse had no opportunity of trying his physical powers 
 against those of man, but was at the outset placed in a position 
 in which he could neither hurt himself nor anyone else, and 
 compelled to learn by the closest and most active contact with 
 man in a variety of shapes, that man was not an animal seeking to 
 devour him, but one that he might even allow to dance on his 
 back without any. serious result. We do not expect owners of 
 horses to adopt the svramp discipline with the horse. Even if 
 they could command all the requisites it might not be so harm- 
 lessly practised in every climate as in the mild temperature of a 
 New Zealand autumn, but we should like to see every educator 
 of the young horse show the same power to adapt their own 
 resources, whatever they may be, to the conditions required to 
 convey the necessary knowledge and discipline to the young 
 animals in their care. 
 
 337. — The more wild, timid, and uneducated the horse may 
 be, the more time will be saved by adopting some process by 
 which he will be deprived of all power, either of resistance or 
 flight, and be forcibly introduced to all tlie common objects of 
 his prevailing fears. It would take a large volume even to 
 clearly describe the various methods that have been recommended 
 for this purpose, and we have already occupied so much space, 
 by going into minute practical details, that we must avoid 
 anything more that will alarmingly extend these educational 
 chapters. 
 
152 ADAPTATIONS. 
 
 338. — All writers avoid the most difficult part of this subject, 
 and take it for granted that the colt to be tamed is not really 
 wild, and that he is already quietly fixed in a stable ready to 
 allow you to handle his head, body, and legs, and put anything 
 you please on them. As the great majority of our readers have 
 never seen, and may never see a really wild horse, perhaps we had 
 better follow the same course so far as to pass very superficially 
 over the diiferent ways of getting at such an animal. 
 
 339. — For an animal that has run wild and uncared for all 
 his life, and dreads man just as much as he dreads a lion or a 
 tiger, we know of nothing better than the Australian practice 
 (296) of dris'ing them into a strong safe yard, and putting a 
 running noose over their heads with a pole. Two or three men 
 may then hang on to the rope until the horse is garrotted, or 
 brought senseless and helpless to the ground by stopping the 
 supply of oxygenated blood to the brain. His legs must be quickly 
 hobbled, the rope slackened, and then he may be treated on the 
 ground to a similar education to that given to "Grace Darling" in 
 the swamp. 
 
 340. — A half wild horse, that will not dash^ himself to pieces, 
 may be decoyed by a tame horse to follow him into a smooth- 
 boarded crush pen, where he can be closely hemmed in, gently 
 handled and haltered, and get the necessary tackle put on him 
 to lay him down easily, when let out into a yard or loose box. 
 
 341. — A still less wild horse can be jammed into a corner of 
 a loose box, by getting him to push behind an old one, and then 
 putting a long strong plank through a hole in the wall or other 
 support on the left side of his shoulder ; the long plank being 
 held at the other end by a strong assistant, AYith a commonly 
 quiet colt all that is necessary can be done by using the old 
 horse without a plank. With nine-tenths of the English bred 
 colts, even the old horse is unnecessary, and an experienced man 
 may see at once that he has nothing to fear from the colt. But 
 we would advise inexperienced persons to always keep an old 
 horse between them and an entirely unhaudled colt, so as to 
 make sure that they will never have either to fight or to retreat 
 from a colt at their first interview with him. 
 
rarey's mistake. 153 
 
 342. — Rarey's advice to take a whip with you and to cut a 
 pugnacious animal on the hind legs when he turns his heels to 
 you has done a good deal of mischief. It is a total violation' 
 of his professed principles, and although a man with his 
 eye, courage, and experience could do almost anything with a 
 horse, without getting or giving much harm it was by no means 
 the best way for him to go to work, and was very bad advice to 
 the general public. Most of his American followers fall into the 
 same mistake, and approach the colt for the first time, in a way 
 which they admit may possibly call for a fight with him with his 
 own tools. Nothing makes a man so cruel and violent as fear, 
 and for that reason, if for no other, we would always approach 
 a colt in a way that implied no unnecessary danger. The 
 presence of the old horse is calculated to establish a desirable 
 degree of coufidence both in the breaker and the colt. 
 
 343. — The horse that has never been handled, instinctively 
 dreads the approach of your hand, just as he would dread the 
 paw of a wild beast, so that before you attempt to put anything 
 on him, you must show him that your hand has no sting, or claw, 
 or tooth connected with it, or anything about it to hurt him. It 
 is often easier and safer to do this by lengthening your dreaded 
 arm by taking something in your hand and touching him with 
 the end of it. It must be something quite smooth and pleasant 
 to the touch. It matters little how long it is, as he will take it 
 for a part of yourself, and you can shorten it by degrees until 
 you are near enough to use your hand. 
 
 344. — Encourage him and meet him half way in the attempts 
 he will make to touch your hand with his muzzle, as he will not 
 be satisfied with it until he has done so. Then let him feel it on 
 his neck, with a pleasant rub and pat. Rub backwards and 
 forwards until you get to his head. Rub under and between his 
 jaw bones, and then very cautiously round his eye, and don't 
 leave his head until he will bear your concave hand over his eye 
 without much impatience, as you will find that the best evidence 
 of having gained his confidence. Don't grip him tightly round 
 the lower part of his face, as so many persons do ; that obstructs 
 his nostrils and always irritates a horse. Eub back over his back 
 
154 HALTERING. 
 
 and sides, until you get to his hind quarters and can handle his 
 tail. 
 
 345. — You may next get a halter in your hand. A leather 
 halter with no line on it is best. Take it to his muzzle and let 
 him feel it as long as he likes. Then touch his head and neck 
 gently with it, taking care that no part of it falls or strikes 
 against him, or touches his eye. Keep your hands behind rather 
 than in front of his ears, and move them very slowly. If you 
 use a common hemp halter, be sure that a knot is tied in the 
 rope, so that the halter cannot draw at all tightly round his face, 
 as that will irritate any colt. It can of course be opened very 
 wide to pass over his face, and may be put on with a pole, but 
 we do not like hemp halters at all. 
 
 346. — As soon as the halter is on, you can begin to rub the 
 colt again, working back until you reach his tail. Take the hair 
 of the tail in your hand and tie it in a secure knot. If there is 
 plenty of long hair you can do this with the hair itself, giving the 
 hair two turns instead of one before you tighten the knot. If 
 there is any doubt about its security, and hair does not easily tie 
 securely, make sure of it by using a little tarred string to secure 
 the ends. If the hair of the tail is not abundant, some tarred 
 string can be wound tightly round the end of the tail, instead 
 of tying a knot, which is perhaps the best way in any case. 
 
 347. — Xow take a light halter rope eight feet long, and tie 
 one end of it to the left side of the halter, in a bow that will be 
 easily untied. Bring the other end back to the tail, and dividing 
 the hair into two equal parts, pass the line through it. Gently 
 tighten, drawing the horse's head and tail both towards yon, 
 as you stand at his side, and fasten the rope round the tail as 
 soon as it is tight enough to give the horse's head a very decided 
 bend to the left side. 
 
 The neck should be bent enough to form about half a right 
 angle with the body, that is half way between straight and 
 square. "With an ordinary fall sizad horse there should be 
 about five feet of clear rope betweeii the hair of the tail and 
 the halter. This you may mark on the rope before you begin 
 to draw it. You had better err on the side of being too slack 
 
ADJUSTING LINE. 155 
 
 than too tight with your first or any other pupils. So long as it 
 is tight enough to enforce a very decided bend of the head to the 
 left side it will do. 
 
 34S. — Now take away the old horse and leave the colt to 
 follow his own head and tail about the yard as he pleases. He 
 will thus get his first experience with a halter where he cannot 
 contend against you or anyone else. He has only his own tail 
 to pull on, and that under circumstances that will greatly 
 bewilder him. 
 
 349. — If he walks nearly straight on or round the yard, 
 without making rather short circles, the rope is too long, and you 
 had better bring back the old horse and get the colt in a corner, 
 where you can draw the rope a little tighter. If on the other 
 hand he turns round fast, in very short circles, the rope is too 
 short, and the colt will be giddy and will probably lie down,. 
 He generally comes down gently enough but may very likely 
 hug the fence and get into an awkward place, and come down on 
 the left side, where you cannot get at the rope. This is why we 
 advise the rope to be tied to the head in a bow that can instantly 
 be slacked, either before or after he gets down. He is almost 
 sure to stop turning before he lies down, and then you can go to 
 his head and slack off the rope. 
 
 350. — There is a very great difference in the tightness that 
 different horses will require to be tied for this purpose. A well 
 bred fine mouthed horse will turn round freely with a line that 
 bends his head very little. xVn unhandled colt will usually require 
 to be tied more tightly than a horse that has been taught to lead, 
 and a cart colt more tightly than a thoroughbred, but no certain 
 rules can be given on the subject. We have seen the clear 
 length of rope vary from two and a half to five and a half feet. 
 
 351. — This is a very quick way of subduing a horse for any 
 purpose. A horse bad to handle, bad to mount, bad to shoe, or 
 determined to get his own way, can be subdued by this practice 
 in a few minutes, but it is not a very satisfactory way of going 
 to work for educational purposes, as it partakes something of the 
 same nature as drugging or starving, or wearing down a horse, or 
 in any other way disabling him. A horse so treated is subdued 
 
156 PUTTING DOWN A HORSE. 
 
 for the time being, but is not really educated, and is seldom 
 reliable when full health and vigour are restored. Like Rarey's 
 system, it compels a horse to submit to contact with many 
 alarming objects without delay, but unlike the simple act of 
 laying him down, this circling muddles the horse's head, and 
 although it makes him very submissive for the tune being, its 
 permanent effect is uncertain, and seldom satisfactory in an 
 educational sense. For some purposes it is a useful and easy 
 piece of discipline, and we shall have occasion again to refer to it. 
 
 352. — Rarey's system of putting down a horse has been 
 considerably improved on by some of his disciples. His plan 
 was to strap up the left fore leg, by bending a strap once or twice 
 round the left pastern, and then lifting the foot, buckle it tightly 
 round the arm. Then put the end of a long strap round the 
 pastern of the right fore leg, and bringing the long strap over 
 the back, or through a surcingle strapped round the body, draw 
 up the other fore leg as soon as the horse lifts it from the ground. 
 This brings the horse somewhat violently to his knees on which 
 he may j)ossibly, though very rarely, stay ten minutes before he 
 will lie down on his side. 
 
 353. — A much better way to put a horse down is to take 
 him to some high or open enclosed place, free from all single 
 posts or obstructions that a horse could strike against, with 
 deeply covered soft floor of tan, short straw, or dung. The 
 enclosure should not be less than twenty-five any way. A dry, 
 ploughed field, or a soft meadow is still better in fine weather. 
 Put either a surcingle or a rope round his girth, with an iron 
 ring about two inches diameter, on the wither, and another below, 
 at the bottom of the girth. The surcingle, or rope, must be 
 fastened back, with a crupper, or by a small rope passed through 
 a large i)iece of strong soft rag, tied round the root of the tail. 
 Now take a small strong rope, about 20 feet long, and tie one end 
 of it round the lower jaw, quite loosely, but with a knot that will 
 neither give loose nor draw tight. You next take the rope up 
 the left side of the horse's face, and down the right side, putting- 
 it through the loop on the jaw, and carrying it back on the right 
 side of the neck, through the iron ring at the wither, bring the 
 slack down on the left side. 
 
HOW. 157 
 
 Take a strong hame strap, or any plain strap, about 12 or 15 
 inches long, put it round the left fore pastern, with the buckle 
 outside, and passing it through the keeper, so as to form a loop, 
 di'aw up the foot, put the end of the strap through the ring at 
 the brisket, and buckle quickly. 
 
 354. — The horse is now on three legs. Take the rope 
 coming through the ring at the wither, put on a pair of strong 
 rough leather gloves to save your hands, and pull steadily and 
 firmly, but not violently to draw* the horse's head to the right, 
 standing well away from him on the left side. After a little 
 struggling he will come down quietly on the left side, and must 
 stay there until you loosen his head. If you are without an 
 assistant you may fasten the head back to the ring at the wither, 
 whilst you reach over and strap up the other leg. He will lie 
 more easily if his head is then loosened ; he can only rise to his ^ 
 knees at the worst, and this you can always prevent if you have a 
 quick eye and keep the rope in your hand. Do not trust yourself 
 amongst his legs, as a prostrate horse can strike very violently in 
 his struggles, but you can safely do anything by standing at his 
 back and reaching over his body. 
 
 If the horse whilst standing is too wild, or restive, or vicious 
 to give his fore leg up easily to the strap, a soft rope with a loop 
 may be thrown round the pastern, and brought either through 
 the lower ring, or between the surcingle and the hodj, drawn 
 up and tied. It is not necessary or even desirable, that the foot 
 should be drawn up very close to the horse's body under this 
 arrangement, although it requires to be tightly strapped round 
 the fore arm, when Rarey's plan is adopted, or it will not be 
 secure. When so strapped the circulation is impeded, the leg 
 is often ben numbed, and cannot be depended upon for some 
 time after it is let down. 
 
 355. — Instead of the jaw loop bridle, which we have recom- 
 mended, for twisting the horse's head when putting him down, 
 some American writers have advised to tie the end of the long 
 rope round the neck, and then passing the rope from the neck 
 into the left side of the mouth and out at the right side, bring 
 it back on the right side of the neck, through the ring at the 
 
158 JAW LOOP BRIDLE. 
 
 wither. This is effectual in twisting the horse's head although 
 we have not found it more effectual than the loop bridle, and 
 it has some serious objections. Unless the rope is kept tight 
 the horse easily gets it out of his mouth. It is very rough on 
 the angles of the horse's lips, sawing them severely, and making 
 them first sore and afterwards callous. It is so painful that it 
 diverts the horse's attention from his lessons, and like a twitch, 
 prevents him from noticing anything else. The loop round the 
 jaw is only painful as long as the horse pulls on it, and is easy 
 directly he yields to it. Xo soreness is likely to be produced by 
 the loop bridle, and if a little friction does take place, it is not on 
 the same nerves that will be used by the iron bit, and has not 
 therefore the same tendency to harden the mouth. 
 
 356. — This same loop bridle may be used for any purpose 
 where it is desired to have good control over a horse, but for 
 leading a horse on the usual or left side the rope attached to the 
 loop must be passed up the right side, and brought over the 
 head at the back of the ears, and down the left side, through the 
 loop round the jaw. Without being painful this will be found 
 preferable to any other bridle for leading or holding a horse 
 under fear or excitement. It is also the best bridle for leading 
 Q, horse by the side of another, or behind a carriage. 
 
 357. — By an additional turn round the head and under the 
 top lip, it can be converted into an irresistible check upon the 
 movements of any horse. This is done by putting a second turn 
 of the same rope round the head, the upper part of which rests 
 like the other behind the ears, but the lower part presses on the 
 outside of the gums of the upper jaw nippers, that is outside 
 of the gums of the upper front teeth, and inside of the heavy 
 upper lip. In other words, the rope that comes to the hand 
 through the loop in the loop bridle, is bent back under the lip 
 and over the gums, then passing up the right side of the face, 
 behind the ears, it comes down the left side of the face where it 
 completes a second circle round the head, by taking a bend round 
 the rope at the point where it passes from the jaw loop to the lip 
 and gums. A pull on the rope thus bent round that junction, 
 will press both on the lower jaw, and on the sensitive and 
 
LAST RESORT. 15'J 
 
 unprotected nerves, inside of tlie upper lip, Sucli a ferocious 
 instrument is not to 1^ thought of for any young horse, but 
 offers an ett'ectual means to control any animal tliat may have g'ot 
 beyond ordinary restraints. 
 
 This bridle will make the most vicious and headstrong horse 
 as powerless as a gouty man with his toe in a vice. If added to 
 the bewildering effect of a little circling, and the exhaustion of a 
 struo-o-le, either on his knees or on three legs, it will subdue a 
 " Cruiser" with the exercise of less skill, courage and patience 
 than is demanded to gain the confidence of a nervous unhandled 
 
 colt. 
 
 35g, — The treatment which the horse should receive when 
 on the ground will depend upon the object for which he has been 
 put here, upon what the horse is, and what he is intended to be 
 used for. In case of a young, wild, timid horse, put down for 
 the first time, the first aim must be to give him some little 
 confideuce in man, to lessen his natural paralyzing fear so far as 
 to enable him to give some attention to the objects around him. 
 The first impression that his nature will give him will 
 be that you are going to devour him, or tear him to pieces. 
 This is the first idea that the horse entertains about most 
 strange animals that attempt to approach him or that have 
 succeeded in getting hold of him. It is this fact that causes 
 the wild horse to soften his whole attitude so much to man, after one 
 forcible contact with him, even though that may not have been 
 entirely harmless to him, and to have more confidence in the 
 individual man who repeatedly puts him down and handles him 
 on the ground than he has in any man with whom he has come 
 less closely in contact. 
 
 Your first business therefore is to show him that you have 
 no desire to hurt him, and that he may allow you to stand or 
 sit, or lie on him, and to pull him about in any part without any 
 pain or harm resulting. All his senses must be reconciled to 
 your presence. He must see yoti, hear you, smell you, and feel 
 you, and that not on one side only, but on both sides, and about 
 every part of his body. Only experienced persons can have any 
 idea how completely wild a horse or cow can be left on one side 
 
] 60 TAMING. 
 
 after being quite tame on the other. All that was done by the 
 New Zealanders to their colt in the swamp (ol9) may be done 
 here. All that will be necessary to reconcile him to the touch, 
 or sight, or sound of any description of harness, or of any 
 vehicle may now be practised on him. The sensitive skin inside 
 his hind legs may be freely handled. All his superstitions about 
 taking liberties with his tail must be overcome. Show him that 
 you can even handle his sensitive lively ears, and his delicate eyes 
 without hurting him, and that he must trust you to do so whether 
 he likes it or not. 
 
 " 359. — One of the most expeditious and elfectual means of 
 reconciling a horse to the application of all foreign bodies is, to 
 get a large piece of cloth or sacking, free from all buckles or 
 buttons, or hard seams, or anything that would hurt him, and 
 swing it roughly, with plenty of flourish, about every j)art of him. 
 Beat him all over with it, throw it at him, cover his head and eyes 
 over with it, and eifectually show him how harmlessly it may be 
 brought in contact with even his most ticklish and tender parts. 
 When reconciled to the cloth, get various kinds of skins or furs, 
 and use them in the same way. 
 
 360. — Every article of male or female dress may be exhibited 
 and placed on any part of the horse, or the most glaring or 
 hideous costumes may be worn by those who ride on or scramble 
 over him. Take off your hat and swing it about his head, and 
 put it over his eyes. Do the same with your coat. Throw your 
 arras and legs about, near his head, and roll over on the ground. 
 Roll a bale of chaff, a barrel, or large logs near him. Wheel a 
 wheelbarrow, a bicycle, or a perambulator in his sight, and any 
 other common or uncommon object to which you wish him to be 
 reconciled. 
 
 301. — You may next educate or "gentle" his ears, by pro- 
 ducing close to him every possible variety of sound. A drum, 
 some large empty tin, an iron tank, or any other noisy article may 
 be beaten round and about liini, and give him every possible 
 description of rough music. Strike matches and fire fusees or 
 pistols close to his head. Rattle chains or any description of 
 harness about him. A bell, a watchman's rattle, or a box with a 
 few loose stones in it. 
 
A LA MAOI'.I. Kil 
 
 302. — Put harmless articles under his tail, and ]mll hi> tail 
 about in every direction. Handle the inside of his thijihs, or any 
 sensitive part about which he is likely to be ticklish, and 
 particularly practice handling hiin on any part that you know he 
 has objected to being touched. Sit on his back or side, sti'ide 
 him, crawl over him, put bridles of various kinds on his head, and 
 take them off repeatedly, and don't leave him until he is thoroiiuhly 
 gentle about his head. Lift his hind legs about witli a pok', or 
 ])ull them with a strap, or soft rope or webbing, and put various 
 articles between them, always repeating anything that he resists 
 until he quietly submits. If he wilfully tries to kick you, which 
 verv few horses will do when down, get half a sack of straw and 
 dangle it about his legs as long as you can get him to kick at it. 
 Don't mistake meie struggling for wilful kicking, as, although it 
 may be quite as dangerous to you, it is not a vice, or anytliing 
 that you need or can deal with. 
 
 3Go. — The more comfortably the horse lies whilst all this 
 goes on, and the less his attention is diverted by any bonds or 
 pain, the more he will learn. You shoitld therefore attend to his 
 comfort, and use as little restraint as will keep him where you 
 want him. Most horses will make some resolute efforts to rise at 
 first, so that you will require to keep a watchful hold of the rein 
 for the first five minutes or so, but by that time they generally 
 give in, and often so completely that it is difficult to get them to 
 rise when you want them to. With a merely timid animal it is 
 best to keep them quietly down whilst you go through all the 
 above lessons, and then unstrap their legs, give them their head, 
 and let them get up easily. 
 
 oG4. — If on the other hand you are dealing with a refractory, 
 resolute, determined animal, whoso confidence in himself you 
 want to lessen, protect his knees well, strap up both his fore legs, 
 give him his head, and let him get up and strtiggle on his knees 
 as long as he will. 
 
 This will exhaust him very mucli, and wonderfidly lessen his 
 confidence in himself, and increase his respect for you. With 
 such a horse you must be very careful to have no unsuccessful 
 fighting. For instance, if he get> his head and springs to his 
 
 L 
 
162 PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 feet before yon have got the second fore leg strapped, don't 
 attempt to resist liis doing so. Let him get up without inter- 
 ference, and take a dance on three legs if he likes. Then put 
 him quietly down again, without any hurry, bhister, or hard 
 work. Don't let liim see you in a hurry or putting out your utmost 
 strength. When both liis legs are strapped you may let him rise 
 to his knees, and sit down and watch him as long as he likes to 
 keep on tb.em. It will not be many minutes, and he will be 
 covered with foam when he at last resigns himself to lie helplessly 
 down. The advice usually given to push with all your might at 
 his shoulder is worse than useless. The straps will do all the 
 work, and the less you do the better. 
 
 oGo. — The mere act of putting down will be a wholesome 
 lesson to any refractory horse, and may be repeated as often as 
 necessary. The more often he is put down, the less resistance he 
 will make to it. If very often repeated he will get to lie down 
 without strapping up his leg, as soon as you pull his head on one 
 side, and eventually will lie down at the word of command, or with a 
 gentle touch behind the knee. This, however, is not a desirable 
 accomplishment to teach a horse for ordinary purposes, and a few 
 proofs of your power to lay him helplessly at your feet whenever 
 you please, will usually be suifficient for the most refractory 
 horse. 
 
 3G6. — Nearly all that we have advised to be done to the 
 timid horse, whilst on the ground, should be repeated when he 
 returns to his legs. Begin with him first on three legs. Place 
 smooth harmless objects under his tail, and give him plenty of 
 pulling and handling between the hind legs. Then let dowm his 
 foot, and whilst he is either well held or tied up, or tied to his 
 tail (347), work a smooth pole all over him, and especially 
 about his hind legs and tail. Continue this without hurting 
 him as long as he resents it in any way, and never think of 
 attaching any horse to any kind of vehicle until you have 
 made him quite indifferent to the roughest, harmless handling 
 about his hind quarters. Push the pole on every part of the 
 hind legs, and bring it against the horse in every way that it 
 would be possible for the cross bar of any carriage to run on 
 
AVOI]).\);i.i: DANGEPt. HIO 
 
 liim, and use ihe pole on liis sides, just as the shafts of a carriage 
 )iiiulit strike on them. Do tliis first whilst the horse sees it 
 all, and tlien put on a pair of blinker^, and repeat everything 
 when he cannot see it. 
 
 367. — Aim to do all this without starting the horse to kick, 
 but if the horse is bent on kicking, as mares especially will 
 sometimes be, don't abate one jot of the poling on that account, 
 but rather be careful to do it more thoroughly. Let him do all 
 the kicking you can get out of him, where he can neither hurt 
 himself nor anyone else. This may possibly take a long time, 
 but never so long as it would take to cure him of kicking after 
 he has once hurt himself. 
 
 Why should you put a horse into shafts with wood, iron, and 
 wheels fixed in dangerous proximity to him, thtis giving him an 
 opportunity to run away, or to smash himself and the carriage to 
 pieces, when you can certainly and completely reconcile him to 
 every kind of friction, sight or sound, without running any 
 such risks r A horse that has once run away, or kicked, or hurt 
 himself in harness, is never again the same safe trustworthy 
 horse under all circumstances that he might otherwise have been 
 made. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THEORY OF BREAKING TO HARNESS. 
 
 oG8. — Creaking the horse to harness is a more important, 
 world-wide work than even breaking him to saddle, not only 
 ])ecause a much greater number are used in harness than are used 
 exclusively in saddle, but also because the labour of the harness 
 horse contributes far more to the national wealth of most countries, 
 and his commercial value is more capable of being definitely and 
 almost universally increased as a drawer of A\'eights, than as a 
 carrier of living burdens. It would l»e difficult to over-estimate 
 the increased value that might be given to the harness horses of 
 the world, or the amount of suffering and ill usage that might 
 be saved to the animal itself, if his instructors and drivers 
 generally understood their business, and came to their work duly 
 impressed with some knowledge of the natural instincts of 
 the animal they so commonly spoil with their ignorance, 
 impatience, and unreasonable cruelty. 
 
 o'i'J. — It no doubt will sound a rash statement to most of otir 
 readers when we say that what are called "false," '-baulking," or 
 "jibbing" horses, all of which names are given to horses that 
 will not pull at anything that does not come with a first effort, 
 and tliat not a very resolute one, are all without exception made 
 what they are with bad teachers and drivers, or to speak more 
 correctly, for want of good teachers and drivers. Whilst there is an 
 immense difference in the nature of horses in this respect so that 
 some will go wrong without the greatest care, and others go 
 riu'lit in very careless hands, it is nevertheless true that any 
 unspoiled horse can in time be made to prill again and again, and 
 anv horse can very soon be treated so that he will not pull a 
 second time. No one can completely cure a horse that has by 
 
UNCONSCIOUS OF IlIS OWN POWER. 105 
 
 ill usage ever been taught to jib, but careful, reasonable, patient 
 treatment from the first, will prevent any horse from being made 
 a jib, however naturally inclined to be so. 
 
 370. — There is a remarkable peculiarity about the instincts 
 of a horse which puts him easily, completely, and helplessly in our 
 power, adds immensely to his value as a servant of man, and to 
 the i)leasure and ease with which the most feeble and timid 
 riders or drivers are enabled to exact his utmost services. 
 
 We gladly and very largely avail ourselves of this well 
 known instinct, in the many cases in which it serves our purpose. 
 We too often ignore its existence, or savagely, mercilessly and 
 stupidly attack it, where it adds a little to our diOiculties. We 
 find it convenient to see the powerful quadruped so unconscious 
 of bis own strength, as to stand all day kept from company, food, 
 water, and every enjoyment, because he will not try to break a 
 slender rope ; and we expect, as a matter of course, that he will 
 let a little child guide him from his pleasure to his work, or allow 
 a lady's hand to restrain him, when either fear or animal spirits 
 would send him off at a reckless gallop, but we beat and torment 
 him mercilessly when the same want of confidence in his power 
 prevents him from pulling again and again at a chain by which 
 we have fastened him to some object which he believes to be 
 immovable, and which is really far less easily moved than the 
 child's arm or the lady's hand. 
 
 371. — In our utter thoughtlessness about the nature of the 
 animal we undertake to instruct, we too often jump to the 
 conclusion that the horse will know ^that he is wanted to pull 
 forwards steadily into a collar, and that he is not wanted to pull 
 backwards at his halter. How is he to know anything of 
 the kind when his nature tells him just the reverse ? When he finds 
 himself entangled nature tells him to back out of it, not to rush 
 farther into it. AVe have seen hundreds of wild horses caught and 
 entangled in various ways, but we never remember to have seen one 
 that expected to get out of his difficulties by a steady pull forwards. 
 A rush backwards is generally the first and most persistent efi'ort, but 
 if nothing gives way in one direction another direction is soon tried. 
 If we saw a horse that had rushed into a thicket which would not 
 
IC.B A SIN OF IGXOUAXCK. 
 
 yield to him, we slionld think him a most stupid animal if he 
 kept on pushing further into it, and did not at once back out of 
 it, IS'ow what is the collar to him but an unyielding thicket, 
 through which he sees no chance of thrusting his large bodv, but 
 out of which he believes it possible to draw his little head. He 
 knows nothing of our language, or why we beat him, and is just 
 as likely to suppose that we beat him because he does not go 
 backwards, as because he does not go forwards, especially as we 
 actually do beat him for either purpose when it suits us. He knows 
 nothing of mechanics, or of the facilities which wheels offer to 
 motion. 
 
 The big Carriage looks far less moveable to him than 
 the little manger to which he is so easily tied, and his first 
 hasty forward rush having l)een checked by traces far stronger 
 than the rope of the halter, he comes to the conclusion that to 
 attempt to move forward would be hopeless, and that the best 
 way to escape from beating or persecution will be to plunge 
 backwai'ds out of the restraining collar. 
 
 The more gentle, and tractable, :ind timid his disposition, 
 the less likely he is to pull steadily and continuously iu any 
 direction, and especially to make a continuous lean forward. 
 Hence we find that the most lively and gentle horses are 
 generally jibs, under bad treatment, whilst dull, unexciteable, 
 headstrong horses are more likely to be steady pullers. 
 
 ;)72. — It is too commonly taken for granted that the horse 
 does not pull at his bit because it hurts him to do so, and that he 
 will pull in his collar because it does not hurt him. This may 
 be a natural mistake, but it is a mistake, and a very great and 
 misleading one, and one that should not be fallen into by anyone 
 who has thoughtfully studied the peculiar instincts of the horse. 
 AVc have seen (180) how prone the horse is to submit to 
 martyrdom, and that severe pain has often the opj)osite effect 
 upon him of what it would have with an animal of more 
 reasoning power, or with more accurate instincts. We may 
 here give further examples of this peculiarity. 
 
 If we tie a young horse up with a broad leather strap round 
 his neck, so that when 1ie pulls violently back it will restrain 
 
ECCENTRICITIES. 1G7 
 
 liiiu effectually without hurting him, lie will often not pull a 
 second time, but if we tie him up with a chain that cuts into his 
 neck, he will generally pull at it again and again, and not 
 unfrequently until he kills himself. If we fix a bundle of straw 
 behind a kicking horse, he will not kick long at it. but if he cuts 
 his legs at each kick against the splinters or iron work of a 
 carriage, he will probably kick as long as he has a leg left to kick 
 with. If we carefnlly take off a young horse's bridle, so tliat 
 the bit comes out of his mouth without hurting him, he will soon 
 quietly help us to take it out of his mouth : l)ut if in taking off a 
 bridle, we awkwardly twist the bit so as to seriously hurt his 
 tongue or jaws, he will for months or years afterwards pull 
 violently on it whenever he finds the slightest hitch about it. 
 The horse that has again and again been put into the collar, and 
 finds that no harm comes of it, gets at last to suspect none, and 
 takes it easy under all circumstances, but if lie gets seriously 
 beaten or hurt, in any of his early lessons, he is always ready to 
 expect some great calamity in connection with a tightly pressing 
 collar, and will stick up to receive any amount of punishment in 
 the most unexpected and unaccountable manner, whilst each 
 beating that he receives will cause the habit to be more confirmed, 
 and the sticking up to be more frequent and more obstinate. 
 
 ;373. — There are other strange facts in connection with the 
 horse's habits, which it is desirable to understand in dealing with 
 him. Thus, if he hurts his neck or head in pulling back, he will 
 pull back the more, but if he hurts his tail in doing so, he will 
 often not pull back at all ; on the other hand, if he hurts his tail 
 or legs by kicking, he will kick the more, but if he seriously hurts 
 his mouth by doing so, he will not kick again. By carefully 
 observing the peculiar instincts of any animal in our charge, and 
 meeting them with our superior reason, we can make the horse our 
 obedient servant without being our tortured victim ; we can cure 
 most of his bad habits and secure our own safety by some simple 
 stratagem ; we only convert his eccentricities into real dangers, 
 and abandon our natural superiority when we attack them with 
 savage cruelty. 
 
 074. — Xo horse would guide easily and pleasantly to a bit 
 
108 THE CARDINAL RULE. 
 
 that hui'D liiin much. It is not because he has ever been hurt by 
 the !)it, but because he has been taught that he cannot resist it, ^ 
 that he yields to it with the gentlest touch ; and the ease with 
 which we have taught him that, should make us expect that the 
 same animal will only be too ready to believe that the collar is at 
 least e'jually irresistable. 
 
 375. — It is only necessary to think thus reasonably of what 
 the horse's nature really is, to see the course that we must adopt 
 with him to get him to treat the restraint of the collar in exactly 
 the opposite way to that in which we wish him to treat the 
 restraint of his neck tie, his halter, or liis bit. Wc have made him 
 believe that he must yield to the bit, by tying that l)it to an un- 
 yielding post, we must now make him believe that the collar will 
 always yield to him, by tying it at first to something that will 
 always give way to the very gentlest push against it. For 
 
 THE SAME REASON THAT THE YOUNG HORSE MUST NEVER PULL 
 SUCCESSFULLY ON A BIT OR A HALTER, HE MUST NEVER PULL 
 
 UNSUCCESSFULLY ON A COLLAR. This will be found the simple 
 and all-sufficient key that, properly used, will make any horse a 
 steady puller. 
 
 ;j7(J. — Many very gentle liorses will stop for a slighter pull 
 on the traces than would stop other horses on the reins. The 
 weight of a finger may be too much for their first pull : but by 
 degrees the resistance may be increased until we have so entirely 
 altered their nature as to get them to pull (juietly and repeatedly, 
 without fear or impatience, at a collar which they cannot move at 
 all. A^ery few horses are ever brought to this state of perfection 
 as pullers, because very few are ever treated with the long 
 persevering patience necessary to produce it. Once whip or hurt 
 a horse ;it what he cannot or does not know how to pull, and you 
 have ruined him as a puller for life. He will ever afterwards 
 be more or less impatient and restive whenever he finds himself in 
 a similar fix. Very few things are more contrary to his nature 
 than to try again and again at what he cannot move, consequently 
 very few things are more difficult to teach him or more easy to 
 unteach him. We can in a single day teach him to stojj or to 
 turn for a bit in hands that liave no power over him if that 
 
CLAIM J-'OR INDULGENCE, 1 G'J 
 
 power were disputed, or to give up his much prized liberty to the 
 restraint of a rope that he could break with half his weight ; but 
 it may take months to give him so much confidence in his own 
 power as to inducL' him to exert it, patiently and repeatedly, 
 in one direction, long enough to remove a heavy resisting object, 
 and one minute's tlioughtless passion may render this ever after- 
 wards impossible. This want of confidence in himself, which 
 tells so much in our fa^'our in every other direction, is very 
 inconvenient here ; but surely we ought to deal patiently with a 
 weakness by which nature has placed the horse so helplessly and 
 completely in our power. 
 
 377. — We have spared no space to make this subject 
 as clear as possible to all our readers, because it is the 
 most important subject in connection with the treatment 
 of the horse, and one which, if clearly understood, and con- . 
 sistently and patiently carried out, would add many millions 
 sterling to the value of the harness horses of the world, and 
 increase to an incalculable extent the comfort, safety, and mutual 
 confidence of horses and their drivers. Daily observation, too, in 
 every part of the world but too plainly shows how little the subject 
 is understood, and that nine out of ten drivers still expect to cure 
 a horse of jibbing by the very means that have made him a jib. 
 ^\e could add volumes of facts to illustrate the correctness of our 
 theory, and give hundreds of instances to show how certainly the 
 most unlikely horses can be made perfectly reliable at a pull if 
 properly treated from the first, but each reader's own experiments 
 will satisfy him better than any records of ours. 
 
 378. — The education of the young horse, intended for draft, 
 may be the same up to a certain point as if he were intended for 
 saddle. All the careful, patient training we have advised (183 to 
 272) may be advantageously spent on any light horse, but the 
 more hasty methods (336 to 367) will answer quite as well in pre- 
 paring the horse for harness as for saddle ; and with the horse for 
 slow, heavy draft it is useless, and even injurious to spend much 
 time in giving the animal the fine mouth and gentle habits 
 required for a pleasant saddle horse. The average carter or plough 
 man. accustomed as they are to horses whose mouths have been 
 
J 70 
 
 EOTJGH HANDLIXG 
 
 case-hardened, would call an animal with a fine, sensitive mouth a 
 useless fractious brute, and would be almost certain to make such 
 a mouth the means of perpetual torture to the horse, and of 
 spoiling him as a steady puller. For this reason, and for several 
 others, we will treat separately of breaking to light and to heavy 
 draft. 
 
CHAPTER W. 
 
 BREAKINC; TO LIGHT HARNKSS. 
 
 o79. — The horse intended for liiiht, quick draft should first 
 be taught to liandle quietly and lead well (188), and to bear a 
 crupper quietly under his tail (190). Vat on a strong bridle, with 
 large secure side guards and strong nose band, and to the left side 
 of the bit buckle a leather strap, long and strong enough for a 
 lounging line. Choose a collar with soft, even face, and one that 
 fits the colt well. It must not be wide and loose, nor must it be 
 so short as to press on his wind pipe. The skin of the colt's 
 shoulder is as tender as that of a hand unaccustomed to hard 
 tools ; and although, like a rower's hand, it will harden to almost 
 anything by degrees, a great deal of time is lost, and a permanent 
 l)lemish often inflicted if the skin is blistered, or the hair rubbed 
 off at the commencement of the horse's work. The collar should 
 be the same as the colt is intended to work in, as a change of 
 collar always demands time for another hardening of the skin in a 
 different place, just as we find on our own feet with a change of 
 boots. 
 
 380. — Let the colt take a turn round you with ihe collar on, 
 and, if he is at all alarmed about it, keep him moving until he 
 cares nothing for it. Add the other articles of the harness he is 
 intended to wear, one at a time, and walk him about, so that he 
 can see them moving on him. Tie the breeching rather tightly to 
 the collar or tugs, so as to accustom the colt to the pressure of the 
 collar ou his shoulders, and of the breeching on his thighs. Walk 
 and trot the colt round you, in full liarness, until its appearance, 
 pressure, or movements entirely cease to alarm him. Then attach 
 two reins, or light leather straps, about twenty feet long, to the 
 collar or hams, and get a steadv, reliable assistant to lead the colt 
 
172 TEACHING TO PULL. 
 
 whilst you take the loose ends of the trace reins back behind the 
 colt. Hold them wide at first, so as hardly to touch the colt's 
 sides, whilst he leads the colt about, and gradually press them on 
 the sides, and lean a very little weight in the collar. The lean 
 may be very gradually increased as long as the colt walks freely 
 and unhesitatingly on with his head down, but the pull must be 
 lessened if the colt carries his head up and his ears back, and 
 the straps must be slackened oif altogether if the colt shows the 
 least inclination to stop with his pressure on his collar. If he 
 does stop, get him started again, without the slightest weight on 
 the straps, and when he is freely going again, let the pull on the 
 straps be very gradually and cautiously apjDlied, so as not to stop 
 him again. Increase the pull gradually, until he walks freely 
 away with all that you can hold back. Keep him going at a slow 
 walk fifteen or twenty minutes. Then stop him and try him at a 
 start, with a very little weight in the collar, holding yourself ready 
 to slacken off" instantly if there is the slightest hesitation 
 about starting it. Continue this more or less cautiously as you 
 may see to be necessary, until the colt will start unhesitatingly 
 with forward ears and a low head, all that you can hold back, 
 Never urge the colt into the collar in the least, but give him slack 
 straps wherever there is the least sign of a stop, or any hesitation 
 about starting. 
 
 381. — When the pulling and starting have been made quite 
 satisfactory place one of the straps so that the colt will step over 
 it with one of his hind legs, thus putting it between his hind legs. 
 Then whilst your assistant leads the colt on, holding his head 
 securely, you may very gently tighten the strap, first on the inside 
 of one leg, then on the other, sometimes low down at his heels, 
 then high up his thighs, but never rubbing hard enough to hurt 
 him. It is better if this can be done gently and soothingly, and 
 the colt reconciled to the line amongst his legs without a kick, 
 as most colts can be, but whether he kicks or not the strap must 
 be rubbed against all parts of his hind legs, inside and out, until 
 he becomes quite indifferent to it. 
 
 382. — Having progressed so far with an open bridle, you 
 may next take it off and put on blinkers, and repeat in tlie 
 
POLING. 173 
 
 blinkers all that yon liavc done before with the oj^en bridle ; 
 that is teach your horse to pull kindly in the collar, start, and 
 bear the reins amongst his legs without seeing what is behind 
 him. If more convenient the blinkers for this purpose may bo 
 put on over the bridle. 
 
 ■jS'd. — Now get a light smooth pole, about ten feet long, and 
 touch and rub the colt all over with it. Begin on his neck and 
 shoulders, come over his back under his belly, down his hind legs 
 and under his tail. Give the hind legs and tail plenty of it, and 
 when he takes no notice of rubbing on the legs, give him some 
 hard pushes M'ith the side of the polo, just as the cross bar of a 
 cart or waggon would push on him without a breeching. When 
 he cares nothing for hard pushing, give him gentle knocks in the 
 same direction, and increase their velocity up to the point of 
 almost, but not quite, hurting him. Your assistant should of 
 course sooth and pat the colt ^\hilst you are doing all this, and 
 you should stop and do the same occasionally, and take as much 
 time about it all as you see necessary, which may be little or much 
 according to the nervousness of the colt. Take any length of 
 time about it rather than start him kicking, but if he will kick 
 with all your care, make sure that he does not strike your pole or 
 anything else. He will not kick long if he finds that he cannot 
 strike anything, and that nothiug really hurts him. When all 
 outside movements cease to alarm him put the pole gently between 
 his hind legs, and rnb and gently tap them on the inside. When 
 quite reconciled to that, stand behind him and ply the pole well 
 on his sides, just as the shafts of a cart would knock against 
 them. All this had better be repeated on the following day, and 
 indeed until the colt will take no notice of it, or would stantl it 
 all without holding. Even after that it would be well to tie him 
 up occasionally, and give him plenty of poling, as you cannot 
 make too sure that he will not be alarmed about a shaft, swingle- 
 tree, or cross-bar, touching him, wlien he is in a position to hurt 
 himself and others with his fear. ^Fany a horse has been mined 
 and many a life sacrificed for want of this precaution. It 
 is almost equally important that no such movements should drive 
 him rashly into the colhii', when first hitched to any carriage, as 
 
174 BEFORE ■WHEELS. 
 
 they might produce exactly the same practical eflPect as whipping 
 a colt to the collar. 
 
 384. — For the next lesson yon take off both l)ridle and 
 Winkers, and put on a strong nosebag halter, to which attach 
 your long leather lounging line. Take the colt alongside of any 
 quiet horse, or pair of horses, drawing any kind of wheels, in a 
 field, common, or some quiet place, where you are not liable to 
 meet any objects that will very much alarm the colt. Put the 
 •colt on the right side of the old horse or horses, and draw your 
 lounging line under the strong saddle or surcingle on the old 
 horse's back, leaving the colt about a yard of loose line. Take 
 the loose end of the lounging line up in the carriage with you, 
 along with the old horse's reins, and start them both off together. 
 If the colt runs forward you must shorten his line a little to 
 prevent him getting in front of tlie old horse's head if he pulls 
 away to the side, or hangs back, you can give or take line to 
 prevent any breakage. He will thus get his first experience 
 before wheels and other objects of alarm, without being driven 
 into a collar with a force that would be sure to produce a recoil, 
 -and thus give him the impression that the collar would not yield 
 to his efforts. Get the old horses off at any steady pace, and 
 keep the colt walking or trotting beside them. He will be a 
 little frightened at the wheels behind him at first, but that will 
 not last long, and he will soon let the traces of the old horse rub 
 against his left side without alarm. "When quite reconciled to 
 the right side, put him on the left side, and go on as before. 
 When he is on the left side it will be safe enough to drive him on 
 any wide quiet road. The more practice he gets in that position the 
 better ; eight or ten miles is generally enough, but some free 
 timid horses require more. Their traces should not be fastened 
 i)0 any carriage of any kind, until they are quite reconciled to 
 walk before it, and show no alarm at any faster pace. 
 
 385. — When you have thus made sure that the colt will pull 
 
 -a little, and that he will not be driven to any desperate acts by 
 
 the sight, or sound, or feel of a carriage behind him, he may be 
 
 •considered ready to put into a break or some other carriage. For 
 
 -this purpose you should have the assistance of a good horse, and 
 
MKLl'iU;!. A D.I UNCI'S. 175 
 
 at least one good man. Tlie lioiae should l)e perfectly quiet, yet 
 free and willing, and always steady and true at a pull. There is 
 nothing so infectious anioiigsD horses as jibbing. Far bettei- to 
 break the colt in without any other horse than to put hiui 
 alongside of a jil». ^'our man siiould be good tempered and have 
 courage enough to keep his senses about him, and to keep away 
 the too common a|)prehension thit every horse is full of some 
 Avicked designs upon him. \<m\v break, or (.-arriage, should be 
 light, and you must see that it is put in a clear open place, 
 where no stopping or turning will be required, and the wheels on 
 hard ground where they will start easily. See that pole straps, 
 and every article of harness, are in their right place, and both 
 horses securely and comfortably harnessed with reins and every- 
 thing else in good order and correctly adjusted. We have never 
 known an accident or mishap that was not the result of some 
 deficiency in these precautious. 
 
 38G. — Have no talkers or alarmists about you. Put the old 
 horse in first, on the right side, and with a chain attached to his 
 bar, short and strong enough to allow him to draw the carriage 
 without any assistance, and even with some resistance from the 
 colt, though none is likely from a colt prepared as he should be. 
 
 387. — If you have good assistants you had better get up and 
 take the reins as soon as the colt has been placed alongside of the 
 pole. Let one assistant stand before his head and hold the colt 
 in a way that he will hardly feel or know it, not with a 
 trembling, flurried hand shaking each side of his mouth. Let 
 the other assistant first fasten the pole strap and then the reins, 
 and you must see that all is right and clear before he fastens 
 either of the traces. Then let him fasten first the right and then 
 the left trace quickly. The moment this is done your best 
 assistant should come from the front to the side of the colt's 
 head, whilst you give the old horse the signal to start, and 
 your assistant 'gently restrains the colt from rushing into the 
 collar until the break is well started. He should run beside the 
 colt until he sees that he is not wanted, and then get up in the 
 break without stopping. (Jet oti" at a slow pace if possible, but 
 it is better to go fast for a little way than to check the colt 
 rashly. 
 
170 FIRST DRJVE. 
 
 388. — Avoid anything that the colt has not seen before, or 
 anything' likely to drive him too eagerly into the collar. If he 
 will work hard at it he must uot work long, or he will blister his 
 shoulders. In that case do not drive him more than two or three 
 miles, before you take him out. If he takes matters very quietly 
 and does not pull hard, and the carriage is very light, you may 
 drive him five or six miles. Take him out carefully so that he 
 gets no alarm, as if anything frightens or hurts him in his first 
 experiences it is very difficult to make him forget it. When you 
 take off his harness wash the skin that has been under the collar? 
 and when washed put a little salt and water on it. When the 
 hail' has had time to dry, look carefully at it, and see if there are 
 any spots on the wearing parts not as dry as the rest. If such 
 spots are there the skin has been rubbed too hard, and the colt 
 must not be put to draw again for a day or two. You should 
 look to the collar and see if there are any corresponding lumps 
 on it that want attention. 
 
 389. — If proper care has been taken to have the collar small 
 and smooth, and soft enough to begin with, the colt will most 
 likely be fit to work a little every day, and should have the 
 distance gradually increased as his skin hardens to the work. 
 His shoulders will stand more work if you put on a soft, woollen, 
 rush collar every alternate dav. After three or four davs on the 
 left side, on frequented roads, the colt may be put on the right 
 side, taking care to meet any alarming objects with him at a 
 i-espectful distance at first. Keeping him too long on one side is 
 liable to give him a one-sided mouth, ff his skin fails at collar 
 work, and he is inclined to be free and restive, he shotild be 
 driven occasionally alongside of the old horse without any traces, 
 with only the halter on his head as at firs' (384). Never let him 
 stay a day altogether idle in the stable, and give hiin very little 
 corn until he can do steady work. The exercise can always be 
 contrived so as to teach him something. 
 
 ;')liO. — After a few days work, without blinkers, you may take 
 blinkers out with you. and let your assistant put them on the 
 colt's head, over the bridle, after the colt has gone a few miles. 
 The blinkers may be taken ofi" again lefore you take the colt out 
 
THK PARENT OF JIBBING. 177 
 
 the break. On the following day the colt may be put in and out 
 with blinkers on, and continued to work in them if it is intended 
 that he should do so. No horse is safe to drive, nor should be 
 considered broken in, that has never seen wheels and carriages 
 close behind him. The slightest accident to the blinkers will pro- 
 duce a catastroplie with such a horse, and it is a fraud to call him 
 broken in. 
 
 391. — Although there is room for a great dillerence of 
 opinion, we think, after a great deal of experience with both, that 
 it is safer to drive a high-conditioned horse with blinkers than 
 without, and especially that it is safer to allow ladies and in- 
 experienced drivers to do so ; but that does not justify anyone in 
 shirking the trouble of showing a horse from the first all that is 
 behind him, and teaching him that what he naturally dreads so 
 much will not hurt him. Every horse should not only be broken 
 without blinkers, but he should often be driven without them 
 when in good hands, and under all necessary precautions. The 
 most timid persons often ignorantly incur the greatest risks ; and 
 it is a strange ftict that thousands of timid, wealthy persons, who 
 would spend a fortune rather than knowingly incur any risk to 
 their lives and limbs, are daily riding behind maguificent horses, 
 which are left really dangerous for want of an extra pound being 
 spent on their education. 
 
 892. — When the colt has learned to go steadily in harness, 
 give him a good deal of practice at stopping and starting. 
 Always choose good ground for a start at first, and encourage the 
 colt to start slowly, with a quiet lean in the collar. Start the 
 old horse at the same time, so that if the colt happens to fail in 
 any way at his start, he need not know it, as the old horse will 
 get quietly away with the carriage. You must never forger that 
 impatience is the parent of jibbing, and encourage the colt to 
 take at much time as possible at his starting. You can very 
 easily make him quicker if necessary, when it is safe to do so, 
 but your first and most important, and most difficult business is 
 to teach him to take a pull slowly and patiently. Plenty of 
 practice at a slow walking pace will soonest bring him to steady 
 pulling. 
 
 M 
 
 ft 
 
178 THE SHAFTS. 
 
 393. — The uneducated jibs that we see in South American 
 and Australian coaches will all pull at a gallop, but get frightened 
 directly they find a collar pressing on them at a slow pace, and 
 become paralysed with fear in the expectation of the brutal 
 assaults they have learned to associate with that misfortune. 
 They appear as unable to move as the horse is when surrounded 
 with a burning stable. On such an occasion we have seen a 
 coachman, who was said to be a most skilful driver, smashing 
 up his horses with a spare swingletree, amidst the apparent 
 approbation of his passengers, including the enlightened champions 
 of the rights of women, negroes, and working men. If such men 
 only knew what was paralysing the poor brutes, that they see are 
 always willing to gallop to death at the sight of a whip, a coach- 
 man, with such propensities, would occasionally be tarred and 
 feathered as some small reward for his brutality. 
 
 394. — The colt may next be put in single harness, about 
 which there will be no difficulty if all has gone well so far. A 
 light two-wheeled conveyance, with moderately strong shafts, 
 should first be used, and put in a good clear place, where it will 
 start easily, and have room to deviate considerably from a straight 
 line. Put on good strong harness, which must include a well 
 placed strong rump or kicking strap, passing over the haunches. 
 To meet this, straps with suitable buckles must be fixed on the 
 right part of the shafts. The breeching should be permanently 
 attached to the backhand, so as to require no buckling or 
 unbuckling when putting the colt in or taking him out. The 
 leather rings of the backhand should be so small, or the stops on 
 shafts so large, as to make it impossible for them to pass through 
 the backhand. 
 
 395. — Stand the colt in front of the sulky, or gig, and let an 
 assistant quietly hold him there whilst you bring the shafts over 
 his back and put them into the backhand. Hitch the traces 
 quickly, and buckle the bellyband gently. Take your seat and 
 let your assistant walk by the colt's head, just to see that he 
 guides well to the reins before he takes his seat by your side. Go 
 ofi" at a walking pace if you can, but avoid any unnecessary 
 pulling at the colt's mouth, and let him have as much of his own 
 
PUT IN TOO SOON. 179 
 
 way as you can at first. Take him on no heavy bad roads, and 
 do nothing that will be likely to cause him to stop. There should 
 be no danger of his stopping if all the precautions have been 
 previously taken that we have advised, but if from previous 
 neglect or bad management, that should happen, you must on no 
 account urge him forward either by voice or touch. Such a 
 thing should never happeu, and never will happen if you have 
 properly taught your colt to pull in the collar before hitching him 
 to any vehicle (380), and have done nothing foolish to spoil him 
 afterwards. But if from any cause it does happen, you must 
 at once recognise the fact that you have now to face the greatest 
 danger that can befall your colt's education. One touch with the 
 whip in that position will now make him an incurable jib for the 
 rest of his life. You must in no way urge the colt into the collar 
 with that vehicle attached to him. 
 
 396. - If the stop occurs, as is most likely, at the starting, 
 take the horse out immediately and proceed to teach him to pull 
 (380), and let the lesson be safely inculcated before you again hitch 
 him to any vehicle. If it occurs at a distance from home, you 
 must let no consideration of inconvenience, or mortification, or 
 ridicule induce you to risk spoiling your horse. If he stops 
 going up a hill you must take him out at once, put the vehicle 
 on one side of the road, and drive your horse on to the top of the 
 hill. If you have an assistant who can hang on to the traces 
 and keep him pulling up the hill so much the better (380), but 
 let there be no delay, no noise, or fighting, or anything that will 
 impress the event on the horse's memory. When you reach the 
 top of the hill turn round and come down again, and put the 
 horse into the vehicle with his head down hill and towards home. 
 Then get up and start as at first (395), but drive home at a brisk 
 trot. In nineteen cases out of twenty it would be quite easy to 
 turn round when your horse first stops on a hill, and to start 
 down hill home ; and that would be far better than any whipping 
 or fighting, but there would be some danger that the horse would 
 pick up the idea that he could get taken home at any other time 
 by the same process. 
 
 397. — If he has stopped on good, hard, level road, where 
 
180 SIGNS. 
 
 there is little traffic, and at a distance from home, you can try if 
 he seems inclined to back, and if so, you can get out and take 
 him by the head and keep him going , backwards for at least ten 
 minutes, your assistant helping to back and guide with the wheels 
 if necessary. Don't be rough with him, but urge him backwards, 
 and keep him at it, until he is evidently tired of it, and desirous 
 to go forward again, when you may get up and drive towards 
 home at a brisk trot. 
 
 398. — If he stops on a soft rough road, where the pulling is 
 really heavy, treat him the same as directed for up hill (396), 
 but instead of putting him into the vehicle on your return, take 
 him home without it, and send another horse to take the vehicle 
 back. 
 
 399. — In all cases you may regard the stoppage as a proof 
 that you have put the colt to draw a vehicle before you had 
 properly prepared him for it, and you must repair your error as 
 quietly as you can, without spoiling the colt over it. You will 
 also be generally right in concluding that the colt which stops in 
 that way is not likely to be headstrong, or rash, or a runaway, 
 but a gentle, easily restrained animal, that must have a good deal 
 of patient training to reconcile him to pull at any restraining 
 object. In other words, he will generally be found to be an 
 animal that can easily be made a worthless incurable jib, but one 
 that with sufficient care and patience, will make one of those free, 
 gentle, controllat)le horses, that are so highly prized by those 
 who know Avhat a pleasant horse really is. 
 
 400. — A still more safe and expeditious way to start a colt 
 in single harness, is to hitch a steady horse on before him, in 
 charge of a trustworthy rider. In this way the colt can be taken 
 without risk of spoiHng him over any bad roads, or past alarming 
 objects. Of course the colt is not broken to single harness until 
 he will go alone in harness. But the old horse can be taken off 
 on the road home and ridden behind, when the horse has proved 
 that he will pull steadily in the shafts. 
 
 401. — There is no real necessity to have a broken horse at 
 all in educating a colt for harness, although it is more easy to use 
 one than to do entirely without. But with careful preparation 
 
FINISHING STROKES. 181 
 
 before hitching to any vehicle (380 to 384), even the wildest colt 
 can be made a safe and excellent harness horse, without the 
 assistance of any other horse, perhaps, upon the whole, a rather 
 better horse for single harness than you can get in any other 
 way. 
 
 402. — The finishing strokes of the education of a horse for 
 light harness consist of nothing more than good careful driving 
 for a time. Introduce him to alarming objects as you would do 
 any other horse (214 to 217). Handle his mouth gently, and 
 insist in the same way (211) upon obedience to every rein signal. 
 Good habits can only be confirmed by time. Any young horse 
 can be easily spoiled, so that unskilled drivers should only under- 
 take to handle horses that have for months, if not for years, 
 gained experience at their work in good hands. 
 
 403. — Nothing will take so long to ensure in the young horse 
 as the habit of pulling steadily and slowly. The more constantly 
 he is kept at slow, hard, but always possible pulling the sooner he 
 will get reliable at it. But he must never be overdone, never 
 be asked to take a heavy pull at starting, especially with a cold 
 shoulder. Never whipped or hurried at his starting, never worked 
 with a jib, and never asked to pull a second time without a 
 change of position at anything that has proved too much, either 
 for his strength or his attainments. Be especially on your guard 
 not to ask him to take a bad start after a day's rest. Supposing 
 it to be necessary that he must start something heavy after a few 
 day's rest, put him first at something light, and get his shoulders 
 warm before you ask him for a heavy steady lift. Carefully study 
 your colt's temper, watch his ears at every start, and you will 
 soon see how much you may ask him to do, and at any rate don't 
 overdo it. Keep a sharp look out to avoid sore shoulders, sharp 
 bits, tight reins, and above all, impatient, thoughtless, stupid 
 drivers. 
 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 BREAKING TO SLOW HEAVY DRAFT. 
 
 404.— The education of the heavy draft horse is one of the 
 few arts in which we have certainly made no progress during the 
 present century. The magnificent animals that drew the funeral 
 car of the Great Duke, in 1852, were less docile, less staunch, less 
 under command, and less capable of simultaneous and united 
 action, than animals that could have been procured for the same 
 purpose if the Duke of Wellington had been slain at Waterloo. 
 Half a century earlier a team could have been supplied that would 
 not have demanded a leader at the head of each horse, and that 
 would have caused us to hear less than we did about the difficulty 
 of starting that ponderous carriage. 
 
 405. — The great and much needed improvement in the 
 condition of the farm labourer, that has taken place durmg the 
 last half century, and the equally improved state of our roads, 
 are two blessings for which we may well be thankful, but are 
 nevertheless changes that have both tended to cause less care and 
 attention to be given to the education of the draft horse than was 
 given a hundred years ago. The soft roads that called for the 
 use of harness bells to give timely notice of the approach of 
 another team, so that the best place could be chosen for pulling 
 out of the deep ruts, demanded horses that would hang on to a 
 long, slow pull, and that would pull altogether at the word of 
 command. But one of the strongest motives for first class 
 education was supplied to the driver by the fact that the law 
 would not allow him to ride without reins, and the master would 
 not let him have reins to drive with, his muscles being supposed 
 to be a cheaper article than those of his horses. Thus when he 
 stole a ride, even on [the shafts, he was at the mercy of every 
 
IMPROVED HORSES. 183 
 
 passer by, and could only expect that mercy by having a team so 
 completely under command of his voice that no one could complain 
 of his driving-. Though it is painful to think of those weary 
 footed, overworked, and care worn men, who could only earn the 
 price of a bushel of wheat by working seven days from five in the 
 morning until seven at night, it was a pretty sight to see those 
 patient drivers and well cared for horses steering to an inch to 
 miss stumps, clumps, stones and holes without the use of a rein, 
 
 406. — We do not mean to say that the draft horse has not 
 been improved during the present century. He is as much 
 improved as the Shorthorn, the Leicester, or the Southdown, but 
 it is the breeding, not his education, that has improved, and that 
 improvement has been physical, and not mental. He is less 
 lymphatic, and more fibrous ; more active and more enduring ; 
 has better wind and better limbs ; but he is treated less as a • 
 companion and more as a machine, and is dragged about with 
 the reins instead of being directed by the voice. The much 
 heavier loads that he draws over much better roads, calls for 
 perhaps more continuous, but certainly far less discriminating 
 exertion. Though it is common to hear much of the intelli- 
 gence of the Arab, and to speak of an uneducated man as being 
 " as ignorant as a waggon horse," the waggon horse of Great 
 Britain has commonly acquired far more education, and has 
 brought more intelligence to bear on his work than our fast 
 horses usually do, though that is only the natural consequence of 
 his being often the almost constant companion of one driver, and 
 of being usually allowed to live long enough to become intelligently 
 familiar with his work. 
 
 407. — But whatever may be the relative amount of intelli- 
 gence in the cart horse, it is certain that he has been long bred 
 with an eye to the work that is required of him, and that he takes 
 to that work as kindly and as naturally as a well bred sheep dog 
 takes to his, with wonderfully little attention and less trouble in 
 the way of education. To begin with, he is usually introduced 
 to the stable, the mangei', the harness, the plough and harrows, 
 the cart, and the highway with its engines, roads, bridges, and 
 other sights and sounds, whilst running by its mother's side. 
 
184 NO CHANGE OF DRIVERS. 
 
 His winter feeding gives him still more confidence in man. His 
 natural good temper, his thick skin and thicker coat of hair, 
 prevent him from being very sensitive, so that we have often seen 
 him successfully, though very imprudently, put to work without 
 any special preparation whatever, 
 
 408.— A professional breaker is seldom employed. He has 
 not the appliances at command that are found on every farm, 
 and it is not usual to meet with a horse breaker who understands 
 the work of a draft horse, and if he did it is far better that either 
 a horse or a dog should be broken in by the man who is after- 
 wards to work him. A change of drivers during the first year is 
 very undesirable. The pride which every man takes in his own 
 good work will always ensure a colt being taken more care of by 
 the man who is responsible for his education than he will be by 
 any one else, and nothing improves a carter or a ploughman so 
 much at his work as compelling him to learn how a young horse 
 should be treated from the first. 
 
 409. - Having been taught to tie up (184), to lead well (188), 
 to bear without fear, any kind of articles rubbing about his hind 
 legs (;381 to 383), and above all to lean gently but resolutely into 
 the collar, with the full confidence that it will move when he pulls at 
 it (380), there is not one colt in twenty that will give any trouble 
 in introducing him to actual woi'k. Too often even these wise 
 precautions are not taken, and the raw colt that has just been 
 harnessed for the first time, is put in traces with a quiet horse 
 before, and another behind him, and left to take his chance. The 
 good tempered animal occasionally passes through even that 
 ordeal quite unharmed, and makes a good horse in spite of it, 
 but more frequently he gets to treat the collar as something 
 immovable, and is never afterwards so reliable at a heavy start 
 as he would have been with more care to give him the necessary 
 confidence in his power (375, 380). Sometimes the colt is even 
 put to begin with where he must pull hard to be able to get on, 
 and even whipped or tortured, or frightened in some way to urge 
 him against a resisting collar. Such treatment cannot fail to spoil 
 any colt, and is only practised by men too ignorant to be trusted 
 even with a donkey. 
 
IN CHAIN HARROW. 185 
 
 410. — Having then been duly prepared, bring the colt to the 
 field, with nothing on him but a good strong leather halter, 
 and tie him to the side of a quiet, good tempered horse, 
 and let him walk by the side of a team at work until he 
 learns to walk before any farm implement without any alarm or 
 any desire to keep further forward than his companions. When 
 he has learned to go well on one side put him on the other 
 side. It will do him good and will be very little trouble to let 
 him walk two or three days like this, although a much shorter 
 time can be made to do. 
 
 411. — The next step will depend on what you have found 
 the colt to be as a puller, and how easily he is restrained. If he 
 is a gentle, easily restrained colt, that was at first reluctant to 
 pull resolutely in the collar, he must not be hitched to a large 
 team, or to anything very heavy. Put him on a light chain 
 harrow alone, and drive him carefully for two or three hours 
 on several successive days, increasing the weight a little each day, 
 until he will pull without hesitation all that be is fit to pull alone. 
 When his starting and pulling in this way have been made quite 
 satisfactory, put him to the same kind of work, and to not more 
 than the same weight between the two, alongside another horse, 
 and take care that he has not much to pull until he has become 
 entirely reconciled to the restraint of being tied to a mate. AVhen 
 this has been done the transfer to a two-horse plough will be 
 easy, and his hours of labour may be increased, carefully watching 
 his shoulders so that they shall not be made even tender (388). 
 The longer such a colt works on the balanced swingletrees of a 
 light two-horse plough, before he is transferred to a larger team 
 the better, as there will for a long time be a danger of his getting 
 alarmed at a pull that will not yield to his unassisted effort. 
 
 412. — This is the safest way to treat any young, quiet horse. 
 Ploughing is often heavy pulling, but is constant, and being 
 generally on balanced swingletrees, and never demanding a pull 
 that cannot be eased ofi" without much trouble, a colt is seldom 
 spoiled at it, so that in ordinary hands, it is upon the whole the 
 best school for a young draft horse, and turns out the greater 
 part of our very best pullers. When carefully handled at light 
 
186 FOUR-HORSE ROLLER, 
 
 plottghing, and well supplied with roots or green food, and very 
 gradually inured to the collar, even a two-year-old may be daily 
 worked for a few hours with great advantage, as it will make a 
 far more reliable collar horse of him at four years old, than he 
 could be made if hastily broken at a later age. Double and treble 
 furrow ploughs, with large teams, offer great facilities for breaking 
 in young horses of a less gentle nature, as the ploughman is more at 
 liberty to attend to his horses, and the wildest or most vicious colt 
 can be put where he can do no harm ; but in any large teams great 
 care and watchfulness are necessary to prevent spoiling the colt as a 
 puller, by driving him at a pull too heavy for him to take alone. 
 A long waiting pull at a heavy start is a most important thing to 
 teach the horse ultimately, but it is a task that should not be 
 demanded of a young horse until he has had a good deal of practice 
 at a collar that will move for a shorter exertion. 
 
 413. — If the colt in his early lessons has shown symptoms 
 of vice, has attempted to bolt or plunge, and has kicked long 
 and viciously at his lessons with the pole (383), and especially if 
 he is evidently a headstrong, resolute puller, it will be safer not to 
 work him in a chain harrow alone, but after plenty of walking 
 by the side of a working team (410), put him on to a four-horse 
 roller, on the near side before. Take great care to restrain him 
 at a start, and to make the old horses start before him. After a 
 day or two in the traces, he may be put into the shafts. Shorten 
 the tugs and breeching, so as to leave him little play backwards 
 or forwards, and put a strap or rope over his rump to prevent 
 the possibility of a kick. You must still take great care to make 
 the old horses start first, without any noise or fuss, and don't let 
 the colt get cowed by pulling at what he cannot move alone. 
 Be careful in putting him iu and out at first, that nothing is done 
 to frighten him. Let the tugs be the first things to hitch, when 
 putting him in, and the last things to unhitch when taking him 
 out Let the shafts down gently without hurting bis legs or 
 feet with them. Any hitch, or alarm, or injury at this stage 
 will be long remembered, and cause a great deal of after 
 trouble. 
 
 414. — If it is intended that the colt should be worked in 
 
MOUTHS. 187 
 
 blinkers they may be put on over the bridle (390) whilst 
 he is at work, and after he has worked some weeks without them. 
 No farm horse is safe that has not been accustomed to see all 
 that is behind him at every description of work. There are not 
 quite such good reasons for using blinkers at all with the farm 
 horse as there are with a lady's horse in the streets of London ; 
 but without them he often gets too knowing, and can judge too 
 well when there is no whip about, or when he is out of its 
 reach. 
 
 415. — The best way for a young horse to get familiarised 
 with high, shaking, noisy loads, or general harvest work, is by 
 ■working alongside a steady horse in a double-shafted waggon. 
 Where only carts are used, he may be worked a few days as an 
 outriffser. In either case he should work without blinkers whilst 
 in charge of the old horse. 
 
 416. — We have already said (378) that it is not desirable to 
 give a draught horse a fine, sensitive mouth, and, for the same 
 reason, plough horses' bridles should contain nothing but the 
 mildest description of bit. A ploughman is almost necessarily, 
 but still more habitually, heavy handed with the reins, and 
 thoughtlessly ignorant of the sensitive character of the 
 horse's mouth. His placid, good tempered animal will bear more 
 rough usage than light horses would do, but they, too, often get 
 more than they can bear, and we are often shocked to see the 
 extremely thoughtless, stupid way in which the mouth of the 
 plough or team horse is literally torn to pieces. 
 
 417. — It IS no uncommon thing to see two or even three 
 horses tied together, not by the halters or heads, but by the actual 
 bits, so that every fly that alights on either of them causes a 
 violent jerk on all their mouths, and no horse can yield to the 
 ploughman's rein, however violently used, until his companions 
 will permit him to do so. To tie their heads together all day by 
 the upper rings of their bridles, or by a high placed, broad 
 strapped halter is bad enough, though often convenient and 
 necessary ; but to tie them together by the bits is a wanton piece 
 of cruelty that keeps the horse in the most painful restraint all 
 day, and must, at first, make him a sore mouthed, mop-headed 
 
188 DANGER OF BITS. 
 
 sujBFerer, and probably a jib. Fortunately, nature will often 
 eventually case-harden his mouth under such treatment, so that 
 he learns at last to guide as little to the reins as to the traces. 
 
 418. — Tying together, in any way, is fatal to anything like a 
 good mouth, each horse is subject to the rough jerks of his com- 
 panions, and cannot answer to a pull on his own bit, until he can 
 overcome the resistance of his companions ; but when fastened 
 together, either by the collars or the halters, each horse will soon 
 learn that he must give his first and best attention to the action 
 of the bit on his sensitive mouth, and overcome any resistance 
 fi'om halter or collar as best he can. 
 
 When, on the other hand, they are tied together by the bits, 
 each horse gets a direct horizontal pull from his companion to 
 which he must guide, and only a straight back pull from the 
 driver for which he can only stop. His stopping may, after a 
 while, cause his comjDanions to walk round him, and so cause the 
 team to turn in the direction required, but it is a slow, cruel, and 
 clumsy way of steering the poor animals, and one especially 
 adapted to spoil the horse as a puller, and to make it impossible 
 for him to guide to the voice. A practice so cruel and mis- 
 chievous should be prohibited by every owner, and even by every 
 legislature. 
 
 419. — So great is the danger of spoiling the draught horse by 
 an injudicious use or accidental abuse of the bit, that any 
 experienced horseman will avoid, even a gentle pull on either rein, 
 or taking hold of the horse's mouth, in any way, when requiring 
 him to hang long and steadily on to a pull. Many of the best 
 horse drivers will even take the bit out of their horses' mouths 
 altogether, when drawing logs out of a bush, or on to a timber 
 carriage. Sharp bits and tight reining up have spoiled thousands 
 of horses for pulling, and any tying of the head, far more of the 
 bit, must injuriously interfere with the confidence and vigour 
 with which the draft horse is required to put out his utmost 
 energy at a heavy pull. This is a fact which amongst many 
 others gave a great advantage to the now too much neglected 
 practice of guiding all draft horses by the voice. 
 
 420. — Reins are now almost universally supplied to road 
 
DIRECTED BY VOICE. 189 
 
 teams, and the drivers permitted aad expected to ride, so that 
 they have no longer the same strong motive to make their horses 
 guide readily to the voice, and it is now a rare thing to see a team 
 guiding better to the voice than any man could guide them by 
 the reins. For all purposes, but especially for agricultural work, 
 the di-aft horse is tar more valuable that has been taught to obey 
 a few simple verbal directions. Even on the road no team can 
 be so pleasantly and completely guided by reins as by the voice, 
 but with the manure, or harvest cart, or waggon, the horse hoe, 
 and the veering plough, where the driver is not riding, and wants 
 both his hands for other purposes, much time, or an extra hand is 
 often saved, and a better result produced, when the horse's 
 attentive ear is made the only medium of directing his course. 
 
 421. — It would, perhaps, not be correct to say that it is very 
 easy to teach this. The fact that whilst every one admits it to 
 be a most desirable accomphshment, not one horse in a hundred 
 is ever taught to do it well, must go far to show that it is 
 either not easy, that few persons know how to go to work about 
 it, or what is more like the truth, few persons are made of the 
 right stuff to succeed in the attempt. "We may very soon see 
 how to do it, or how not to do it, by carefully watching the men 
 who always succeed, and those who universally fail at it. 
 
 ■122. — Whenever you see a driver whose horses lean confi- 
 dently into the collar, however slowly they may be able to move 
 the weioht behind them, and turu to the right or to the left in 
 obedience to his voice, without tossing up their heads or altering 
 their pace, you may depend upon it that there is something about 
 that man that has eminently qualified him for dealhig with the 
 animals in his care. There is no passion in his eye ; there is no 
 agitation in his voice ; his whip is not held savagely in the palm 
 of his hand, but loosely between his fingers and his thumb, and 
 now and then dropped slowly, with half its own weight on the 
 shoulders of a horse that he surveys witli pride, whilst he calmly 
 repeats the word "comather," "comather," "comather." His 
 horses twist one ear round to listen to his unruffled voice, and 
 turn to the left without raising their heads or altering their 
 pace. 
 
190 HOW NOT TO DO IT. 
 
 423.— Look on the other hand at the more common sight, 
 the man who is trying to teach a team of horses to guide to his 
 voice and can never succeed. He cannot utter the same word 
 twice in the same key, nor without sundry additions that cannot 
 fail to confuse the horse. He first says " comather," then 
 ''come hither you brutes," then "come here you great thick 
 heads," then '' darn your stupid ears, if I don't make you come 
 here when I tell ya." Then the whip goes to work, and a lot 
 of jerking on the horses mouths. The horses toss up their 
 agitated heads as soon as they hear the threatening sounds, put 
 back both ears, and rush off in the contrary direction to that 
 in which they were wanted to turn, only anxious to get as far as 
 possible from the threatening voice. 
 
 424.— There is another foolish, thoughtless practice, often 
 systematically adopted, which is almost equally certain to spoil 
 the horse for guiding to the voice. If you stand off at a little 
 distance from many ploughmen and horse drivers you would 
 think that they were constantly ordering their horses to stop and 
 to back ; but the horses do neither, and would be thrashed if they 
 did. "Jawhay," "ja back," are constantly uttered, with the 
 whays and backs loud enough to drown every other sound ; but 
 although the horse has been taught to stop for " whay," and to 
 walk backwards for " back," he is now forbidden by whip and 
 reins to do either, and is only expected to turn to the right. 
 When wanted to turn to the left the same whays and backs are 
 loudly sounded with the almost imperceptible difference that 
 instead of the corrupted gee, we have the corrupted haw, so that 
 instead of "ja back," we hear "ha back," and the poor horse 
 is expected to know that the one means turning to the right and 
 the other to the left. 
 
 425. — So good and discriminating is the horse's ear, when 
 not frightened, that with a very quiet, good tempered man, he 
 will sometimes eventually learn to distinguish the difference 
 between whay, and ha way, and jay whay, though how he does 
 so will puzzle anyone who has ever listened to that monotanous 
 jargon. When the same words are uttered passionately and 
 accompanied with jerks and blows, the result is what we so often 
 
USE SINGLE WORDS. 191 
 
 see, the horse holds up his head and runs, and soon will neither guide 
 nor slacken pace for anything you can say to him. The supposed 
 object of adding whay or back to every guiding order is, to get 
 the horse to turn steadily without rushing forward, but the actual 
 effect is just the reverse of this, as the horse is almost necessarily 
 stupified and rushes about in fear, 
 
 426. — For obvious reasons all sentences or any combination 
 of words should be avoided. Anything we are likely to require 
 from the horse should be represented to him by some short, simple 
 word, quite distinct from any other word we use to him. With 
 the ordinary draft horse, we only want about eight words to be 
 well understood and obeyed, to make him a very handy horse, 
 and there can be no difficulty in getting them all simple, distinct 
 sounds, that will not over tax his very limited power of under- 
 standing language. 
 
 427. — No word must have two meanings with the horse, nor 
 be pronounced in two diff'erent ways, nor even uttered in a 
 different key. Even his name must not be used both as a word 
 of endearment or petting, and as a word of stirring up or reproof. 
 The latter is its proper use with the cart horse, and if you also 
 want a pet word to address him in his resting hours you should 
 choose some softer word for that purpose. 
 
 428. — Any guiding words should be soft in themselves and 
 be softly uttered, so as to have no tendency to increase the horse's 
 pace when addressed to him. In the South, West, and Midland 
 counties of England, the words "Comather" and " Wooaged" 
 are used for their their leaders, and " Yea" and " Hoot" for 
 their shaft horses, and no horses are better driven than those. 
 But the Scotch guiding words " Haw" and " Gee," like the 
 Scotch men and horses, have spread farther over the world, and 
 are very suitable, being short, soft, simple, and distinct, so that 
 there is no objection to their adoption. With their single horse 
 carts, and single furrow ploughs, the Scotch had no need of a 
 duplicate set of guiding words ; but in turning long teams there 
 is an immense advantage in teaching your leaders to guide for 
 one set of words, and your hind horses for another. In any 
 case, *' haw" and " gee" may be used for left and right for your 
 
192 VOCABULARY. 
 
 leaders, and if different words are taught to the hind horses, the 
 old Wiltshire word " hoot" will do very well for turning the 
 hind horse to the right, but their other word " yea," can be 
 too easily mistaken for " whay," and we would therefore use 
 "hie" in its place. The two words yea and whay are not at 
 all similar in Wiltshire dialect, but we are not now writing for 
 any one county or dialect. 
 
 429. — Of course each horse in a team must have a name of 
 his own, and a name that should not resemble the name of any 
 other horse in the same team. We have known four horses working 
 together to be named Hob, Nob, Rob, and Bob, It will be 
 seen at once that they might as well have had no names at all. 
 Bob, Jack, Dick, and Rough ; or Boxer, Trooper, Sharper, and 
 Smiler are examples of names that cannot be mistaken for each 
 other. Each horse should understand that when his name is 
 sharply called, he is going too slow, or doing something wrong, 
 and this impression is easily kept up by calling his name when- 
 ever it is necessary to touch him with the whip. In this way 
 an indolent horse may be roused, without exciting any other 
 horses that may be already doing too much. 
 
 430. — Each horse must be taught a general word that the 
 whole team will understand to be a command to start, such as 
 the word " gently." He must also understand an urging word, 
 such as " now then." He can with great care be taught to under- 
 stand and obey a slowing word, as " steady." He is easily taught 
 to stop, and to stop instantly, for the word " whay," and with no 
 great difficulty to walk or push backwards for the word " back." 
 431. — This completes the eight simple words to which every 
 draft horse should be taught to attach a distinct meaning, and 
 promptly to obey, thus — 
 
 Jack — You are going too slow, or are doing something wrong. 
 
 Gently — Lean forward slowly and gently into the collar. 
 
 Now then — (tO faster or pull more. 
 
 Steady — Go slower or pull les-s. 
 
 Whay — Stop instantly. 
 
 Back — Walk backwards or push backwards. 
 
 Haw— Turn to the left. 
 
 Gfe — Tm-n to the right. 
 
EASIER PUPILS. 193 
 
 432. — A horse that is always to be used as a shaft liorse, or 
 to go behii)d in a long team may advantageously be taught the 
 guiding words '* Hie" and " Hoot," instead of " Haw" and 
 " Gee," so that he can be directed in one direction whilst his 
 leaders are turning in the other. 
 
 433. — It will be seen that we have given the word " whoa" 
 no place in our small vocabulary. It is a word so universally 
 abused, and one so liable to be apphed, with an endless 
 variety of meanings, by each thoughtless busy body that 
 approaches a horse, that it is best to let it alone altogether, and 
 not confuse your horse with the use of a word which you vrill not 
 be able to limit to any one meaning. 
 
 434. — Having settled upon the words to be used, the next 
 business is to teach the horse to understand them. You cannot 
 too distinctly bear in mind that your difficulty will be in getting 
 your words understood, not in getting them obeyed. Once get 
 them understood and they will be obeyed fast enough. Your 
 pupil is only two wilhng, too nervous, too timid. Any careless 
 man can teach an ox to guide to the whip and voice, because the 
 ox is less timid, less sensitive, less willing to exert himself, 
 so that careless blows and loud words have not the same fatal 
 effect upon him that they have upon the horse. For the same 
 reason the old fashioned lymphatic cart horse was more easily 
 taught this business than the more nervous horse of the present 
 period, and the cart horse more easily than the blood horse. 
 
 435. — You must approach the young horse as you would 
 approach a foreigner who does not understand a word of your 
 language, not as you would approach a deaf man, or an inatten- 
 tive boy. He can hear better than you can, and is never 
 inattentive to any new sound, so that shouting and whipping 
 will only hopelessly confuse and alarm him, and render it impos- 
 sible for him to give you the calm attention and placid obedience 
 you want to ensure. 
 
 436. — All the words demanding action and exertion will be 
 
 N 
 
194 GUIDING WORDS. 
 
 learned fast enough, indeed you cannot prevent his learning them. 
 He will know his own name almost as soon as you have fixed 
 upon it ; he will be trying to go on before you can say " gently," 
 and will very soon associate the word *' now-then," with a 
 threatening swing of the whip, and quicken his pace accordingly. 
 It is only the guiding and the slowing words that present any 
 difficulty. These will never be taught very quickly, and will 
 never be taught well, except by the most patient, forbearing, 
 consistent attention. 
 
 437. — The guiding words should be taught at the daily 
 work. When you first put the colt into the light chain harrows 
 (411) will be a good time to begin this. Every time you pull 
 either rein, let the corresponding word "haw" or "gee," be 
 uttered, and continue slowly repeating the word as long as you 
 pull the rein or want the colt to turn in that direction. As you 
 drive him towards a fence or other obstacle keep him straight up 
 to it, and as he hesitates which way to turn from it give him the 
 order, quietly and distinctly, " haw" or " gee," and pull the 
 corresponding rein. As he gets to understand the word turn him 
 to the word alone, keeping the rein ready to enforce obedience. 
 When he is yoked to another horse (411), continue the same 
 treatment, and make both horses obey the guiding words at every 
 turn. 
 
 438. — The result could be hastened by a sharp bit or a loop 
 bridle severely used, but the calm unagitated turning that is so 
 desirable in a team would be lost, so that it is much better to 
 quietly continue the lesson at every day's work than to excite 
 the colt by any rough handling of that sort. 
 
 439. — The lesson can be equally well taught, although still 
 more slowly, by working the colt alongside of a well taught 
 horse that is constantly guided by the voice, the colt being so 
 tied that the old horse can command his movements. 
 
 440. — The slowing word " steady," is the one most rarely 
 taught effectually. We constantly hear it used, but we seldom 
 see a horse that pays much attention to it. It is most effectually 
 taught by driving the horse with reins in any kind of single 
 harness where he has not much to pull. You can soon teach 
 
STEADY, AND STOP. 195 
 
 him to slow down fi'om a trot to a walk at the sound of the word 
 ** steady," softly and calmly repeated, enforcing at first obedience 
 with the reins. After he has been made quite obedient at that, 
 teach him to slacken a walking pace to a very slow walk as he 
 hears the word repeated, gently enforcing obedience with the 
 rein. This will be far more difficult, and will only be taught to a 
 lively horse, with very persevering consistency, unfrustrated by 
 any thoughtless act calculated to excite the horse. For instance, 
 after you cease to repeat the word, and want the horse to quicken 
 his pace, take care that you do not spoil the slowing business 
 altogether by suddenly touching the horse up with a whip, but 
 give him plenty of harmless verbal notice of the change you 
 desire. It is chiefly a question of confidence, and is of course 
 far more easily taught to a trusting, easy going animal than to an 
 impatient eager one. 
 
 441. — Stopping altogether to the word " whay," is very 
 easily and quickly taught to any young horse, and often more 
 quickly taught to a lively than to a sluggish animal. Only a 
 harshly treated horse that has not been allowed to stop whilst 
 the word or some combination of it has been shouted in his 
 ears (424), ever gives any trouble about stopping to order. 
 
 442. — There is perhaps nothing in which horses differ so very 
 much as their willingness or unwillingness to go backwards. 
 Some horses take to it naturally, and can hardly be prevented 
 from doing so in season and out of season. Others are most 
 unwilling to take a single step backwards, and can neither be 
 forced nor frightened into any action in that direction. The 
 difficulty is generally increased by blinkers, and sometimes 
 rendered very great by forcing the colt backwards into some 
 danger, injury, or alarm to begin with. 
 
 It is no good to threaten or to strike him from the front, or 
 to drag savagely at his bit. Take off his blinkers, and standing 
 behind him, keep a firm, strong, steady pull on both reins until 
 he gives back a step and then instantly slacken the rein, and let 
 him feel that he has relieved his mouth by giving a step back- 
 wards. Pet him a little, and then repeat the process. In this 
 way you will slowly get him reconciled to the unnatural move- 
 
196 
 
 BACKING. 
 
 ment, and get him to find out that no harm results from it. As 
 you use the reins repeat the word " back," and he will not be long 
 in learning what you mean by it. 
 
 443. — Never attempt to teaoli any horse to back a load until 
 you have taught him to go backwards without a load, and then 
 teach him to push a load backwards in the same gradual way, 
 and with the same precautions, to give him confidence in his own 
 power, as you use to get him to pull forwards (380). Make him 
 thoroughly understand the word back, by using the word and 
 the reins together, as long as may be necessary. It is a great 
 advantage to have a shaft horse that will back without any one 
 near his head, and when thus taught the horse always backs far 
 better that when pulled about with the bit. 
 
CHAPTER XVIT. 
 
 VICES AND BAD HABITS. 
 
 444. — These are for the most part easily prevented in the 
 horse by careful education and by the precautions we have 
 recommended. They are not so easily cured, nor is the reclaimed 
 horse any more than the reclaimed man so entirely trustworthy 
 as one that has never gone astray. Persons are always more 
 willing to pay for reclaiming than for preserving either health or 
 virtue, although they get a much worse article at a higher price. 
 We may carry the comparison between man and horse under thia 
 head a little farther, and say that the " perfect cures," paraded 
 with so much ostentation before the public, are generally perfect 
 failures, and often fraudulent deceptions. The man or woman 
 who wants a really good reliable horse to serve them well, under 
 good treatment, had always better get a horse that has been so 
 educated from the iirst that it has never had any serious vices to 
 eradicate, and leave either vicious or reclaimed horses to those 
 whose hard work, or poor fare, or steady company will put them 
 beyond the reach of temptation. 
 
 KICKING 
 
 445. — Is an accomplishment at which the horse has few if 
 any equals. The hard and often iron clad hoofs, the supple 
 joints, and the velocity given by the long levers, moved by the 
 powerful mass of muscles above them, give a force and velocity 
 to one of his blows that may well be dreaded by all who have to 
 deal with him. He is perfectly conscious that it is his best 
 means either of offence or defence, so that he naturally resorts to 
 it for either purpose. If his confidence in himself were equal to 
 his power, there are few if any animals that could face his well 
 
198 KICKING. 
 
 applied heels. The propensity has, to a great extent been both 
 bred and educated out of many strains of the domesticated 
 horse, so far as to make them resort to it unwillingly, and to 
 threaten long before they strike. 
 
 446. — There are many different ways in which a resort to 
 this natural weapon is dangerously developed by faulty education, 
 each requiring to be met in a different way, because proceeding 
 from very different causes. The most common exhibition of the 
 dangerous propensity is kicking in harness. We can only wonder 
 that an animal whose natural defence is kicking and running 
 away, can so commonly and so soon be made to allow all kind of 
 sights, sounds, and sensations to follow him up without trying to 
 do either. When he does kick or run away in harness, it is 
 almost always the consequence of fear, and generally the dread of 
 a repetition of something that has really hurt him. The remedy 
 is to show him that a carriage may follow him closely without 
 hurting him, and that therefore neither running away nor kicking 
 are necessary to protect himself. 
 
 447. — The first lesson may be directed to the sense of touch. 
 Use the smooth pole (381 to 383) on every part of the body, 
 first without and then with the blinkers on. For this purpose 
 the horse may be either held by a reliable assistant, tied up, tied 
 to his own tail (346), or secured by strapping up one fore leg 
 (353). It may take much longer to reconcile a horse that has 
 been hurt in harness than an untouched colt, either to sights, 
 sounds, or touch. All that we have said about doing it thoroughly 
 with the young horse, applies equally here (383). 
 
 448. — You must next reconcile him to the sight of anything 
 that has alarmed him. Put him into some plain light fourwheel, 
 without blinkers, with a strong bridle, and with one fore leg 
 securely strapped up (353). However wild or vicious he maybe, 
 he cannot kick on three legs, and he cannot run far. The only 
 danger is that he may throw himself down, so that his knees 
 should be protected with caps, the ground under him be soft, and 
 the shafts should not be very frail or valuable. An experienced 
 man will soon see when he first straps up a leg, what danger there is 
 that the horse will not stand up, and if it is great will not trust 
 
CONTACT WITH CARRIAGE. 109 
 
 him in shafts, but put a quiet horse iu the shafts and fasten the 
 kicker on as out riti-o-er. 
 
 449. — If the horse is in shafts alone, and has never been 
 before a carriage without blinkers on before, it will be desirable 
 that a man should be on each side of his head with a moderately 
 long strap attached to his bit, so that they can keep him in any 
 desired direction, and cannot be thrown from his head however 
 violently he plunges. He will exert himself pretty actively when 
 he first sees the wheels rolling after him, but will soon be obliged 
 to stop, and thus prove that the wheels stop when he stops. 
 You must not keep him on the same three legs long, but put one 
 leg down and strap up the other. If you are not very skilful at 
 this, or have not a practised eye to see when the horse can be 
 trusted a few moments, it will be wise to unhitch the horse 
 whilst you do it. 
 
 450. — When he has ceased to be alarmed about the wheels and 
 carriage running after him, unhitch the breeching and traces, and 
 taking the shafts out of the backhand, draw the carriage on to 
 his hind legs. Push it backwards and forwards on to him 
 without hurting him, and get him to care as little about it as 
 about the poling you have previously given him, before you 
 desist. 
 
 451. — ^You have now gentled him to the senses of touch 
 and sight, you may next deal with his ears. Tie a common sack 
 to his tail and let it drag on the ground after him. Then tie a 
 large tin can of some kind to the end of the sack, and let it 
 jump about and rattle after him. If he has any particular alarm 
 for any kind of sound, give him plenty of it, and let him see that 
 noise is very harmless. 
 
 452 — In this way a horse will find out that a carriage may 
 follow him up, or run on him, or make any amount of noise 
 without hurting him, and will soon cease to make any desperate 
 efforts to run away from it. 
 
 453. — You may now get a piece of email strong rope, about 
 18 feet long. Double it, and taking the middle of the rope, 
 put it over the horse's head, behind his ears. Bring it dow^n on 
 each side of his face, and cross it in his mouth, taking the ropes 
 
200 CHECK LINE. 
 
 up again over his forehead and between his ears. The two ropes 
 must be loosely tied together with loose loops of small rope, one 
 on the forehead and one behind the ears, the latter being 
 securely fixed to the head of the bridle. If a ring were fixed in 
 the top of the bridle for this purpose it is rather better than 
 a loop. Bring the I'opes back through some secure rings, or 
 ropes, or straps on the saddle, to a strong ring on the rump, 
 about fifteen inches from the root of the tail. From this rump 
 ring bring down one rope on each side and tie securely to the 
 shafts, leaving no more slack than is necessary to let the horse 
 move freely. The traces and breeching must be so hitched that 
 the horse cannot get far forwards or backwards, so as to much 
 alter the position or tightness of the rope. With a powerful 
 bridle and strong reins, you may now take your seat behind the 
 horse in a carriage with a powerful break at your command. 
 Your assistant may then let down the foot and yon may drive 
 away. If the horse attempts to kick he cannot succeed, and 
 will punish himself so severely in the mouth that he will not try 
 many times. 
 
 454. — This is a rough lesson and one that will never be 
 necessary except with a horse that has been spoiled, or allowed 
 to hurt himself in harness. Whilst the check line is on try 
 everything that is likely to set him kicking and let him clearly 
 see the instant and invariable connection between kicking and 
 punishing his own mouth. When you cannot provoke the horse 
 to kick any more in that gear, you may alter it by fastening 
 the check line to each side of his bit, instead of crossing it in his 
 mouth. You may drive him in that way for several days, and 
 when that is discontinued, a secure, well-placed, common kicking 
 strap should be used for a long time, or until you are quite sure 
 that there is no disposition left to kick. If at any time he should 
 attempt to kick with the common kicking strap on, put on the 
 punishing gear again, and let him give himself another lesson. 
 This will make the most dangerous horse quiet enough for ordinary 
 purposes, and will keep him safe with constant hard work, but 
 such horses are often liable to kick again after a long rest, or in 
 very frisky condition, or under any special provocation, and 
 
A KICKER llEFOHMED. 201 
 
 should not for a long time, if ever, be trusted like a horse can be 
 that has been handled without any mistake from the first. 
 
 455. — Far more reliance is to be placed on the reconciliation 
 than on the punishment, as its eifect is far more permanent and 
 reliable. When a young horse, naturally good tempered, has 
 been spoiled by a single accident, and the habit of kicking has not 
 been confirmed by subsequent malpractice, it is often possible to 
 get him completely over it with sufficient care. Of this we will 
 give an illustration. 
 
 456. — In 18G1 we bought for less than one third of his 
 value a very fine four-year-old cart horse. He had been put 
 into a plough at three years old, had run away, and had so 
 lacerated his hind legs that he had to be turned out for a year. 
 When anything touched his hind quarters he would kick violently 
 and incessantly, so that we could not stir him up with a pole, 
 or even with straps, without danger of hurting him. We put 
 him in a narrow stall which was further narrowed and protected 
 with some well secured sacks of straw. We put blinkers on him 
 and tied his head forward, and at each side, so that he could not 
 much alter his position. We then got a large bundle of long 
 wheat straw, very firmly bound with three rope bands, and 
 suspended it behind him so that it would fall against his hind 
 quarters. He kicked at it until covered with foam and shaking 
 in every limb. If ever he got away from it we pushed it against 
 him so as to keep him going. We then took off his blinkers 
 and then let him see what it was that he had sj^ent so much 
 fury upon. We next got a small bundle of straw and suspended 
 it from his own tail, upon which he also wasted a great deal of 
 energy. 
 
 This was repeated three days, but we could never get him 
 to do much kicking after the first day, and on the third day 
 •could not get a kick out of him by anything we could do with 
 straw, pole, straps, or traces. The horse was never known to 
 kick afterwards, but proved a remarkably tractable and bidable 
 horse, either with or without blinkers. 
 
 457. — Kicking in the stable or at persons who approach 
 them is a very different habit to that of kicking in harness. 
 
202 KICKING IN STABLE. 
 
 Whilst the latter is a vice to which any horse may be brought 
 by accident or bad treatment, and to which the timid are most 
 prone, the former is not unfrequently displayed by horses that 
 have great confidence in themselves, and have been surrounded 
 by men or boys who have either teazed or been afraid of them. 
 Pointing or poking at a horse, using uncertain hesitating means to 
 make him stand-over in the stable, running from him as soon as 
 he turns his heels towards you, or showing any signs of fear to 
 approach him, or hurting him in the act of cleaning will often 
 induce a horse to kick. Some severity is necessary here, but 
 there must be no pitched battles, or doubtful conflicts, or striking 
 matches, which would be sure to make matters far worse. 
 
 458. — After your horse has done feeding put on a loop 
 bridle (356). Strap up one of his legs (353), and buckle a short 
 strap round the hiud leg, close above the hock, and another 
 close below it. Put another strap, loop, or ring through both of 
 them, in front of the leg, and draw them together. Bring back 
 the Une of the loop bridle through a ring in a surcingle, at the 
 horse's side, and fasten it to this front strap, so that when the 
 horse kicks he will violently jerk his own jaw. Then put down 
 the fore leg and approach your horse in a way most likely to 
 make him kick with that leg. This will soon cure him of the 
 habit, and may be kept on most of the time day after day if 
 necessary, merely taking oflF the loop bridle to feed him, although 
 he can feed fairly well with it on if required. A rope may be 
 brought back to each hind leg if necessary. 
 
 459. — Whilst the loop bridle is on you can attach a small 
 rope to the left side of the loop, round the horse's jaw, and bring 
 it to the left side of the stall near the manger. It may there 
 pass through a pulley, or a piece of wood with a large smooth 
 hole in it for the rope to pass freely, and come back to another 
 pulley on the inside of the left back stall post. When you are 
 going into the stall go in boldly, and taking hold of this rope pull 
 it smartly, and say distinctly at the same moment " stand-over." 
 Repeat this as often as necessary, and the horse will soon learn 
 to turn his hind quarters away from you whenever you approach 
 the stall, or whenever he hears the order to " stand-over." 
 
IN FIELD. 203 
 
 Every horse should be taught to do this, as it makes him haudy, 
 and prevents his beiug taught to kick by timid hesitating 
 approaches. 
 
 460. — A horse that has acquired the habit of kicking at the 
 stall can be checked in the same way. For this purpose a very 
 loose, easy loop bridle may be kept on day and night until the 
 habit is checked. 
 
 461. — Kicking in the field or at any one who approaches 
 him is a very dangerous vice. A horse liable to do this should 
 be severely checked without delay. Turn him out with an easy 
 loop bridle on, to which a very long and light rope may be 
 attached. The rope may be kept so that the horse cannot tread 
 on it by supporting it with the mane and the tail. Tie a strong 
 lock of each with a piece of waxed string, and dividing it in the 
 middle pass the line through it. In this way the line may trail 
 so far behind the horse that you can get hold of it, and effectually 
 order him to stop, and to turn the right end towards you. Do 
 this very often, and somewhat severely, whilst the bridle is on 
 him, always using the same words, and he will soon learn to 
 understand and obey the words, even when you have no means 
 to enforce your commands. 
 
 462. — The same means may be used with a horse that runs 
 away when you approach him, and for that purpose the line may 
 be left any length that you may know to be necessary. If the rope 
 is very small, and the loop loose round the jaw, it will not greatly 
 interfere with his feeding. Of course the dragging end of the rope 
 must be well bound to prevent it unravelling. The horse will 
 soon learn to drag it carefully, and it will make him for a long 
 time afterwards more gentle and submissive in his grass rambles. 
 
 REARING. 
 
 463. — High conditioned and lively horses that are least 
 liable to kick, are often most liable to rear, or stand on their 
 hind legs. They are most likely to do this when roughly handled 
 or checked with a curbed bit. With most horses gentle, sensible 
 treatment, and a mild bit will prevent this. "With all mild cases, 
 and with all young horses that remedy should I)e patiently tried. 
 
204 STICKING UP. 
 
 With some few horses the habit becomes very inveterate and very 
 dangerous, and then the old rough rider's remedy must be resorted 
 to, but without the risk that he very unnecessarily incurs. 
 
 464.— Put on a pair of blinkers with a severe curb bit. 
 Take your horse to a very deeply and uniformly covered dung 
 yard, or other very soft ground. Put on a pair of long reins, 
 and drive your horse about with them. In a good clear spot 
 check him, so as to make him rear, and when he rears pull him 
 over on his back. Repeat this until you- can get him to rear no 
 more. He will remember the lesson for ever afterwards, and will 
 probably never rear dangerously again. This is a very rough 
 lesson and unless the ground is very carefully chosen the horse 
 may be seriously injured by the high fall, but it is less dangerous, 
 even to the horse himself, to adopt this severe remedy than to 
 leave him to choose his own ground for a similar fall in 
 unskilled hands. A severe curb bit is always liable to make a 
 horse rear, and with such a bit a rearing horse should never be 
 trusted in unskilful hands. A loop bridle, a loop round the jaw, 
 or a ring bit, give great holding power without the same tendency 
 to cause rearing. 
 
 STICKING UP 
 
 465. — Or insisting upon going where they please, or upon 
 not going in any particular direction, is a vice very common with 
 badly broken horses, i.e., with horses that have been allowed to 
 find out their own power.. It must never be mistaken for jibbing, 
 which results from quite a different cause, and requires totally 
 different treatment. Jibbing comes from a want of confidence 
 in his own power ; '• sticking up " from too much faith in his own 
 power, and too little in yours. Sticking up is more often shown 
 in saddle than in harness, though it is common enough in both. 
 
 466. — It may be shown in a hundred different ways and may 
 require a hundred different stratagems to overcome it, but there 
 are some rules that will apply to all cases. 
 
 Never accept the horse's own challenge ; never make a 
 martyr of him ; never attack him in the way he expects to be 
 attacked, and has prepared to resist you. Never let the encounter 
 
BRAINS, NOT SPURS. 205 
 
 be a physical but always a mental one. Give him his own way 
 if you can, but take care to show him that he gets nothing 
 by it. 
 
 467. — With these horses it is generally a question of refusing 
 to go away from home, away from company, or turning some 
 road that implies a long journey. They often fix on some 
 particular spot beyond which they will not go in that direction, 
 or they insist upon taking some turn that leads in the direction 
 they want to go ; and some of them have learned some successful 
 way of putting their rider off at a particular spot and going 
 home without him. We have known a few horses who have 
 never failed at this, no matter who the rider was, but would 
 deliberately tumble over on their back when all other means 
 failed. 
 
 468. — We can only give a few illustrations of the way to 
 outwit such horses. You will find some of them very learned in 
 such matters, and perhaps up to more devices than you are. But 
 as soon as you find that they are up to one, change it immediately 
 and try another, until you hit upon one that they are not up to. 
 
 469. — We will suppose that the horse stops and prepares to 
 turn round. Don't resist the turn but give him a quiet horizontal 
 pull with the rein in the direction he wanted to turn, so as to 
 carry him further round than he intended to go, and if possible keep 
 him going quietly round half a dozen times. In mild cases this 
 will often upset all his calculations, and he will go quietly on 
 without more ado. If six turns will not do give him twenty. In 
 fact if he will keep on turning to your rein you are safe to 
 conquer, as enough turning will certainly confuse him and leave 
 him at your command. 
 
 470. — If he will not turn and will back to the rein, keep 
 him going backwards in the direction you want to go. He will 
 soon get tired of that and prefer to go wiih the right end 
 forward, but before you let him turn, give him decidedly more 
 backing than he likes. 
 
 471. — If he will neither turn nor back, or if you are not a 
 sufficiently skilled horseman to deal with him on his back, get off 
 and tie a knot in his tail, or tie a piece of string securely round 
 
206 STRATAGEMS. 
 
 it, and taking the reins over his head, draw them through the 
 hair of the tail so as to give his head a sharp bend towards 
 the tail (346 to 351). This is most easily and safely done if you 
 have provided a few yards of string in your pocket. Tie the 
 string to the end of the reins, and passing it through the hair of 
 the tail, draw the reins to the required tightness and tie the string 
 to the left side of the bit, in a bow that can easily be untied with 
 a single pull. 
 
 472. — Failing the string, unbuckle the reins from the left 
 ring of the bit, and pass the reins through the left ring, so that 
 the rein will remain buckled to the right ring and pass under the 
 jaw through the left ring. Pass the rein back through the hair 
 of the tail, and bringing it forward to the head, buckle or tie it 
 at the required length to the left ring of the bit. 
 
 If the tail is a short one, or if there is any difficulty about 
 hair, you can use one of your stirrup leathers to give all the 
 length you require. Start your horse turning round, and as 
 soon as he appeal's giddy or threatens to lie down, untie the rein, 
 get on his back and go on. If he has had enough circling all 
 thought of resistance will have left him ; if he has not had enough 
 give him another dose. 
 
 473. — A harness horse may be taken out of a carriage, and 
 served in the same way if necessary, but the backing remedy will 
 generally answer the purpose with them ; or taking them out and 
 giving them a short lounge round on the rein. Never fight with 
 them whilst hitched to any vehicle, or you may teach them the 
 far more incurable vices of kicking or jibbing. 
 
 474. — ^With some horses it has proved quite easy to break up 
 the habit by simply letting them turn their own way, and then 
 taking them where you want to go by some longer route. 
 
 475. — We once knew a horseman Avho cured his horse by 
 sitting quietly on his back for seven hours, on the spot where he 
 chose daily to stick up, and then doing the journey the horse 
 had objected to go. 
 
 LYING DOWN, 
 
 476. — So commonly resorted to by a refractory, or weak, or 
 weary, or overheated, or persecuted ox, is very rarely attempted 
 
JIBBING IDIOSVNCRACIES. 207 
 
 by a healthy horse, so that when he does He down, something 
 wrong with his health may be very seriously suspected. Either 
 an ox or a horse can be instantly brought to his legs by stopping 
 his breath, without resorting to any of those sickening cruelties 
 sometimes practised upon them. Stopping their nostrils with a 
 cloth, a turf, or a lump of stiif mud or clay, will compel them to 
 rise without a moment's delay. Turning up their muzzle and 
 pouring a little water down the nostril, is another form of the 
 same old and effectual remedy. 
 
 JIBBING. 
 
 477. — Is the most common and the most incurable of all 
 equine vices. We have shown that it is always the result of 
 faulty education, but nothing in the world will entirely cure it 
 after it has been beaten in to a horse, although judicious 
 treatment will prevent its exhibition under ordinary circumstances. 
 
 478. — No two jibs are exactly alike. Each horse will be 
 prone to exhibit the strange weakness most readily under the 
 circumstances in which he has learned it, or in which he 
 remembers to have suffered most. Thus, if he was whipped 
 when first put into the collar, he will always be prone to object 
 to a cold collar, though he may perhaps work fairly well in a 
 warm one, and even pull hard and well after he has been some 
 time at work. Such horses are usually called " collar proud." 
 If, on the other hand, he was properly taught to pull at first, 
 but whipped at some heavy pull afterwards, he may go all right 
 at first, but stick-up when he .comes to anything heavy. Others 
 will associate some particular kind of work, some part of a 
 particular hill, some voice, or sight, or sound, with their punish- 
 ment, and will stick-up, without any apparent rhyme or reason, 
 on the most unexpected occasions. 
 
 479. — Thus every jib will require somewhat different treat- 
 ment, some special precaution, although the object is the same 
 with them all, and that is to restore some confidence in their own 
 power, and to make them forget any ill usage they have suffered, 
 and learned to associate with the collar. 
 
 480. — The utmost patience and gentleness under every pro- 
 
208 PATIENCE. 
 
 vocation, combined with very regular rather slow, 'and sufficient 
 daily work, that will keep the horse constantly associated 
 with the collar, without any of the alarm or suifering he has 
 learned to connect with it, is the surest way to convert a jib into 
 a moderately useful worker. Such horses should never be fed 
 above their work. Grass, roots, or any soft or bulky food will 
 keep them less nervous, and consequently more reliable than too 
 much corn, or hard, concentrated food would do. 
 
 481. — Much that we have said on this subject under the theory 
 and practice of breaking to harness, will require to be borne in 
 mind in the treatment of these spoiled horses. The different 
 ways of retrieving a mistake (395 to 399) will often apply here, 
 as well as what we have said under the head of exercise (139, 140). 
 
 482. — The collar proud horse, or the horse that is prone not 
 to start well in a cold collar, should have the harness put on some 
 hours before he is wanted to work, and the traces tied tightly 
 back to the breeching, so as to press the collar on to the warm 
 shoulders. If that is not found sufficient to secure a quiet start, 
 the horse may be lounged with the collar so tied, just enough to 
 warm him a little before he is put into the carriage, or asked to 
 pull anything (139, 140). Take whatever precautions of this 
 kind may be necessary to secure a quiet start when first put into 
 the carriage. Under such treatment the horse will slowly but 
 constantly improve, and will ultimately forget the habit with 
 regular constant work, but if once you put him into the collar, 
 and whip him up to it, you will elfectually undo all the results 
 of months of careful training. There is something in cold itself, 
 which has a great effect upon these horses, so that you will find 
 that they want more precautions or preparation to start them on 
 a cold day, than on a warm one. This more especially applies to 
 a cold summer day, or to a clipped horse, as horses with fine 
 short coats are more affected by a cold collar than horses with 
 their winter coats on. 
 
 483. — The horse that will not pull when the load comes 
 heavily and slowly behind him, is not so easily managed, and the 
 habits of such horses are so various that 'volumes could not 
 describe them all. For heavy draft, such horses are useless on 
 
WHEN TO WHIP, 209 
 
 the road, and should be put to field work, where they generally 
 improve in anything like good hands. 
 
 484. — For fast work, if their wind is good, they can generally 
 he got through a bad place, by getting up plenty of speed before 
 you come to it, and driving them fast through it. They will 
 pull at a fast pace when they will not try to pull at a slow 
 one. Choose a place to rest them where the start and pulling will 
 be quite easy. Some of these that have been spoiled after learning 
 to pull well, will pull agaia, even in a bad place, after stopping 
 awhile, and others will back what they will not pull. 
 
 485. — ^If they stop going up a short hill, it is generally best 
 to turn them round and drive them gently down the hill, then 
 get up steam at the foot of the hill, and drive up it full speed. 
 If you have to whip to get up the speed, whip before you come 
 to the hard pulling, and not whilst they are at it. 
 
 48G. — Avoid touching the reins if you can help it whilst 
 any horse is struggling at a pull, a3 it will often stop him. Many 
 horses will pull when left alone, or very nicely led by the noseband 
 or upper part of the head, or guided by a push at the shoulder, 
 that will stop directly if pulled about by the reins or the bit. 
 Most of them will stop if they hear any whipping or 
 shouting, whilst pulling hard. Even a wild rabbit will often 
 stop at the height of his speed, if terrified with shouting close to 
 him. All these are only temporary expedients to get through a 
 journey, or out of some present difficulty. 
 
 487. — The only way to permanently improve such horses, 
 is to habitually load them with no more than they can certainly 
 pull, until they forget the habit, cautiously increasing the load as 
 they learn to pull without alarm. The Irish have a proverb 
 that "light loads make good drawing horses" and if any 
 horse is to be kept good, still more if he is to be made 
 good, he must never be asked to do more than he can 
 certainly accomplish. In our youth we knew a miller's horse, a 
 most intelligent animal, that w^orked at the same mill for twenty 
 years. He had been badly broken and taught to jib as a colt, 
 but when we first knew him he would take five sacks of flour up 
 a very steep narrow lane, leading away from the mill, ten times a 
 
 
210 TEY SOMETHING NEW. 
 
 day with certainty, without any one near him, but to the end of 
 his life he would never try to take six. 
 
 488. — If the horse stops afcer his shoulders have been 
 warmed, and where the pulling is not heavy, yoa have a puzzling 
 and very uncertain case to deal with ; most likely one upon 
 which many doctors have tried their mischievous hands. Horses 
 that have long been used in the saddle only, and have been quiet 
 enough to put into harness, at an advanced age, without having 
 been taught to pull (380), or getting any real harness education, 
 are most often seen to exhibit this form of jibbing. AYhen such 
 a horse stops, you will see by his every attitude that he expects 
 to be beaten or persecuted in some way, and yet he sticks up 
 and prepares himself, as if he practically wanted a repetition of 
 the suffering he has learned to dread and expect. 
 
 489. — Whatever you do with these poor but provoking 
 creatures you must not oblige them with what they are thus so 
 evidently prepared to receive, but at once direct their attention 
 from the strange fear, fancy, or frenzy that has come over them. 
 Do something that is not likely to have entered into the horse's 
 calculations. Fasten up the reins, so that they will be quite 
 loose on the horse's mouth, and within reach when you hastily 
 return to your seat. Put a handkerchief round one of his fore 
 pasterns, and hold up one of his fore legs for a few minutes, 
 or tie it up to his girth. When the foot is put down, if he shows 
 no desire to go on, take him gently by the head, and get him to 
 go backwards for a little way. Then leave his head and 
 going back to his shoulder, give him a sudden push, first from 
 one side, and then from the other, so as to make him move 
 sideways. When he starts forward, don't stop him to get into 
 the carriage, but get back to your seat without touching the 
 reins ; or failing that, run by his side for a while, and very 
 gently slow him down as much as may be necessary, but do not 
 stop if you can help it. 
 
 490. — Sometimes a start can be made by putting your 
 handkerchief round one of his fore pasterns, and pulling 
 the foot forward on the ground, holding it there until the 
 horse brings his other legs up to it, and then repeating the 
 
dwyer's martingale. 211 
 
 action. In this way he comes slowly into the collar, and finding 
 that it yields to him the strange spell is sometimes broken. 
 
 491. — But with the very best possible treatment, everything 
 is uncertain and unsatisfactory with these spoiled animals. AVe 
 have never seen one we could not start in some way without 
 violence, but we cannot give any one way that would be certain 
 to do it. Failing success in any otljer way, take them out of the 
 harness, and drive them about, or lounge them (473), and put 
 them in again. 
 
 RUNNING AM'' AY 
 
 492. — Is a term applied to an uncontrollable gallop, Avhich 
 may proceed from very different causes, and present very different 
 degrees of danger. There is the self-willed gallop of the hard 
 mouthed horse, who chooses to go his own pace, and in his own 
 direction. There is the uncontrollable gallop, excited by emula- 
 tion in company, or the determination not to be left behind, so 
 common in the hunting field, or riding parties. And there is 
 the far more dangerous panic flight of the terrified horse. 
 
 493. — The two former are little dreaded by a good horseman, 
 although no other should attempt to ride them. A more powerful 
 bit, or what is much better, one of Dwyer's running martingales, 
 which is shortened or lengthened by the rider, under great 
 mechanical advantage, and the head brought into any required 
 position will compel these horses to pay attention to the reins. 
 Harder work or lower fare, or putting them where they will get 
 more galloping than they like, will soon effect a great reform in 
 the manners of such horses. 
 
 494. — The panic-stricken horse running away in terror 
 under the impression that some frightful animal has got on his 
 back, or is following on his heels, is a pitiable sight, and one 
 full of danger. His exertions are so desperate and exhausting, 
 and the speed so terrific, that either a full or a collision is sure to 
 be something very serious, and the horse loses his senses so 
 completely that he is far more likely to run into, than to avoid 
 the most evident danger. It rarely if ever occurs with the well 
 educated horse, but sometimes attacks a half educated saddle 
 
212 HOLDING BY THE TAIL. 
 
 horse, like the animal that killed Mr. Johnston at Adelaide 
 (301), and is common with harness horses that have not been 
 taught to work before carriages without blinkers, and to see all 
 that is coming behind them. Such slop broken horses are 
 always liable to catch a sight or sound of something that they 
 have not been reconciled to, and to gallop off in frantic terror. 
 A horse that has once run away in harness, and injured or hurt 
 himself is rarely safe again, and should not be trusted in single 
 harness. Such horses should be consigned to work where their 
 companions, or a strong carriage, harness, and break, in good 
 hands, will securely restrain them. 
 
 BREAKING BRIDLES, 
 
 495. — Or anything he is tied with, is a habit prevented by 
 careful education (184), but when a horse has once found out 
 what a frail thing a bridle is, when opposed to his strength, it is 
 not always possible to make him again believe that he cannot 
 break it. The most probable way of destroying the habit is to 
 so tie the horse for a while, that he will hurt his tail whenever 
 he hangs back. Get a piece of good, new, small rope, about 15 
 or IG feet long. Put the middle of it under his tail like a crupper. 
 Cross the rope on his back, and bring an end down on each side of 
 his shoulder, and tie the ends together securely over his breast 
 Tie a strong cord to this, and passing through his halter tie it 
 securely to something strong. Tie his halter to the same post 
 with a line that the horse can readily break, and six inches 
 shorter than the strong line connected with his tail. 
 
 49G. — Xow roll a barrel, or do something in front of the 
 horse that you know will make him Qy back. The halter rope 
 will thus break, and he will receive a severe jerk of the strong 
 rope under his tail, and will find that he is not loose after all. 
 This may be repeated, but the horse will not repeat it many 
 times. After this he should for a week or two never be tied up 
 except with a strong halter, with the halter rope passing round a 
 smooth post, or through a ring, and tied at his breast to the rope 
 passing under his tail, so that when he hangs back the weight 
 will be divided between his head and his tail, and he will take 
 
BITING. 213 
 
 care to jnit very little weight on the tail. This elTects a cure ia 
 most cases, but a horse so cured is never so reliable as one that 
 has been carefully tied up at first, and never learned that he could 
 break anything. 
 
 BITING. 
 
 497. — Horses bite each other, bath playfully and aggressively, 
 though even amongst their own species there is a great deal 
 more threatening than execution. The wild, unhandled horse 
 rarely if ever attempts to bite a human being. It is not a very 
 common vice with the tame horse, but is most seen amongst 
 foolishly handled pets, horses that have been teased with boys, 
 or tantalized by timid, fussy, or thoughtless men. Entire horses 
 are more prone to a serious exhibition of this vice than any other 
 description of horse ; but, amongst them all, threatening is far 
 more common than performance, so that for one horse that will 
 viciously bite there are twenty that will warningly or playfully 
 threaten to do so. 
 
 498. — "We have had something to say about biting under 
 the head of cleaning (59). The large wooden bit there recom- 
 mended will be found a very simple and harmless remedy or 
 preventative in all mild cases, and will often prevent any more 
 serious development of the vice. Any groom can make one for 
 himself, as it need be nothing more than a piece of round stick, 
 eight inches long and nearly two in diameter, with a small hole 
 bored two inches from each end, through which to put and 
 fasten a piece of strong string, long enough to go over the head 
 behind the ears, and suspend the stick in the horse's mouth. 
 This will both divert his attention and make him feel helpless to 
 bite. In more serious cases, where the horse has become dangerous 
 and aggressive, the formidable gag bridle (357) may be used to 
 any extent that may be found necessary to make the animal 
 entirely submissive. 
 
 CRIB BITING. 
 
 499. — This curious, disagreeable, and unaccountable habit 
 has been made a great deal more of in horse books than it deserves, 
 
214 GETTING CAST. 
 
 and does not lead to colic, or to half the ill consequences usually 
 attributed to it. We have known an ardent crib-biter that never 
 had an attack of colic in his life. The habit may generally be 
 prevented by covering the edge of the manger, or any thing the 
 horse is in the habit of seizing, with sheep skin, with close short 
 wool on it, and well dusting the wool with cayenne pepper. 
 
 EOLLING 
 
 500. — Is not a bad, but a very good habit with the horse in 
 a state of nature, as it is nature's way to remove and deodorise the 
 excretions from the skin. But when practised in the stall, whilst 
 the horse is tied up, it is apt to get him into difficulties of several 
 kinds. Mischief is generally prevented by tying him moderately 
 short, and always to a weight that will draw in any slack rope 
 out of danger. If this does not prevent the horse getting cast 
 or entangled, he can be prevented from rolling at all, by tying 
 a small rope into a ring, sewn into the top of his halter, at the 
 poll, and bringing the rope over a pulley fixed just above his 
 head and carrying it on to another pulley fixed in the wall or 
 stall post. From this the rope should fall through a small hole 
 or staple, where it will be out of the way, and have a small weight 
 attached to it, at such a distance from the hole or staple, as will 
 allow the weight to rise high enough for the horse to reach the 
 ground with his muzzle, but not to lay his head flat, with his 
 ear on the ground, as he always does before rolling. Of course 
 a far better way when practicable is to give such a horse, or 
 indeed any horse, a loose box and not to tie him up at all. 
 
 501. — Rushing through a stable door, so as to strike 
 his hips or sides violently against the door posts, is a habit 
 that a nervous horse soon picks up, and which will get worse 
 every time he hurts himself at it. When a young horse is first 
 harnessed, or whilst little accustomed to stable doors, he should 
 always be led through them without blinkers, which are the 
 cause of the mischief. If this cannot conveniently be done, he 
 may be backed through the door ways with the blinkers on. 
 
 FEAR OF BIT. 
 
 502. — When a bridle has been taken off a young horse 
 
VIOLENT FEAR. 215 
 
 without unfastening a curb chain, or in such a way as to twisfe 
 the bit in his mouth, hitch it in liis teeth, or in any way to inflict 
 serious pain upon him, he will often repeat the mischief, in his 
 impatience to avoid it, until it becomes a habit dangerous to 
 himself, and to those who handle him, from the violence with which 
 he will throw up his head, rush back, rear, and sometimes even 
 strike with his fore legs. When it comes to this it is a very 
 serious business, and one that will get worse if the horse continues 
 to hurt himself at ic. 
 
 50;3. — The safest and quickest way to get over this habit 
 is to put the horse down (353), and hobbling his legs so that he 
 can only rise to a natural lying position, put the bridle carefully 
 on and ofl" him for an hour. After that, use a bridle on him in 
 which the bit can easily be unbuckled, and dropped quietly out 
 of his mouth, before the bridle is taken oif his head. 
 
 504. — A tall horse that will not let you quietly handle his 
 ears, his eyes, or any part of his head, or body, should be put 
 down in the same way, and kindly, but perseveringly handled 
 until he loses all fear of your hand or your brush upon him. 
 
 ^W^^ 
 
 
CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 RIDING, 
 
 505. — Or the arfc of equitation, canuot be learned from 
 books, nor can books render very much assistance. The nerves, 
 the muscles, the eye, and the hand, require to be early practised 
 at the work, or the rider never becomes like a natural part of the 
 horse, nor moves with him as if he could not help it. Perfect 
 riding is mainly a question of quick, easy adaptation to every 
 position a horse can assume. There is no time to think about it ; 
 the nerves must act as unconsciously as those in the fingers of a 
 pianist, or a shorthand writer. Some persons learn to ride very 
 well, and to manage their horses quite nicely, who did not begin 
 in childhood, but we have never met with a really distinguished 
 horseman who did not begin very young, and begin in some- 
 thing like the right way. The boy who takes his first lessons 
 on a cart horse, or a donkey, will spoil his bridle hand, and 
 rarely gets light and sensitive with it afterwards. A gentleman 
 has usually a better hand than his groom, though he may not get 
 half the practice, and a lady that has been early and frequently 
 on horseback can often keep a horse perfectly happy under her 
 that would fret under the hands of a gentleman. It is perhaps 
 not merely a question of hand, but of mesmeric influence — of one 
 highly strung and sensitive temperament — better understanding 
 and responding to another. 
 
 506. — A man with long legs and short body, though weak at a 
 pull or a push, has a great advantage in the saddle, as he carries more 
 ballast and less top sail. Flat thighs are also a great advantage, 
 but we have seen high class riding where neither of these 
 advantages were possessed. 
 
 507. — AYe cannot say much on this subject that would bo 
 
SALUTATIONS. 217 
 
 useful to the wealthy citizens of London or New York, nor to 
 any one who is within easy reach of a good riding-school, either 
 for themselves or their children ; but as we have, without any 
 such advantage, taught a large family of children to ride a good 
 deal better than their teacher, and some of them to ride in a 
 manner that has distinguished them as huntsmen, and successful 
 steeplechase riders, in more than one part of the world, where 
 good riders are not scarce, we hope that it may be useful to 
 record the simple unskilled, and inexpensive means that we 
 adopted for that purpose. Our plan will have at least the merit 
 of being within the reach of any one who keeps a horse, and a 
 source of pleasure rather than of trouble to any father who is 
 fond of his children. 
 
 508. — We have often been asked at what age our children 
 began to ride : we reply, six months old, but their first horse was 
 their father. Their first mount was astride of our shoulders, and 
 whilst we held on to one foot, they held on to our hair. At first 
 we were very steady, and never went out of a walk, but it was 
 never long before we were ordered to trot, gallop, rear, kick, 
 plunge, jump, and buck a great deal more than we felt inclined 
 to do. In this way all fear of the elevation, or rough motion, 
 was got over, and the little muscles began to adapt themselves to 
 hold on in any direction. 
 
 50 J. — Whenever we came home from a ride we expected to 
 be met a quarter of a mile from home, by about three children, 
 ranging from two to six years old, two of whom went on to our 
 saddle, and one on to our shoulder. 
 
 510. — At about six years old, the teaching began in earnest. 
 AVe found that the best way to teach the use of the reins was 
 from a gig, or some one horse vehicle. We fixed the pupil 
 securely between our knees, so that either he or she should have 
 no need to attend to their own security, and putting a rein in 
 each hand, we left the little one to steer, and on a very fine 
 mouthed horse, to see the eil'ect of his riglit or wrong movements. 
 After a good many journeys had been taken in this w-ay, the 
 child, sometimes driving and sometimes watching us, was 
 generally fit to be trusted with the reins on horseback, supposing 
 
218 NO FALLS. 
 
 that he had, with frequent short rides, learned to feel little 
 anxiety about his own seat, and to keep his arms moderately 
 still, 
 
 511. — You now want a well broken pony (240 to 255), and 
 if you have got that the rest of the business is very simple. Once 
 more, we must guard against the most common mistake in this 
 matter. "We have frequently seen parents purchase horses or 
 ponies that were very quiet with constant regular hard work, and 
 then put them to high keep and idleness, .and expect them to be 
 quiet still. This is unreasonable. Unless very regularly worked 
 the child's pony should be kept, not in a stable, but in a paddock, 
 and get little or no corn. Until the child is able to exercise it 
 himself it must be exercised for him, Most of the accidents 
 from horses result from half broken animals, and next to that 
 from corn and idleness. Neither you nor fifty servants can make 
 the child safe if the pony is not well broken, moderately fed, and 
 sufficiently exercised. The more you coddle the child the more 
 certain he will be to get amongst the pony's legs, or do some- 
 thing dangerous. It is the pony and not the attendants that you 
 can be sure to make and keep trustworthy. 
 
 512. — Put on a small saddle, securely girthed. Tightly roll 
 up a very small blanket, in a roll about twenty inches long, and 
 three or four inches in diameter, and strap it securely on to 
 the front of the saddle. This will prevent any falls, and help the 
 child to feel at home and confident. 
 
 513. — Give the child stirrups, and teach him the use of 
 them, whilst you have him and his pony in hand. The time to 
 go w^ithout stirrups will be when you first trust him out of your 
 sight. Let the stirrups be a comfortable useful length. Not so 
 long that they are constantly swinging away from the child's 
 foot, nor so short as to send him back out of the centre of the 
 saddle. 
 
 514. — The best kind of stirrup irons for a child are those 
 of the modern form used on ladies' saddles. Tliese look perfectly 
 safe, but it is remarkable how every kind of safety stirrup and 
 stirrup iron has sometimes failed in time of need. It is unsafe 
 to rely on any one of them. The only reliable thing is a horse 
 
REINS. 219 
 
 that has been tramed to stop the moment a rider is unseated, 
 and to have no fear of a swinging, or dragging child (240 
 to 255). Very light shoes, that would easily come oflP, and that 
 present no strong projections, offer more reliable security than 
 any patent safety stirrup irons. 
 
 515. — We need not trouble our readers with Major Dwyer's 
 excellent and elaborate directions about sitting on "the fourteenth 
 dorsal vertebra." The only thing necessary to say about that is, 
 put the saddle on the horse's back just behind the shoulder, 
 •where it naturally goes, and where it fits best, and put the rider 
 on the middle of the saddle just where he will naturally be 
 shaken to. 
 
 516. — Now attach a light rein, about eight feet long, to the 
 pony's bridle, by passing it through the left ring of the bit, and 
 buckling it to the right. Put the rider on the pony, and get on 
 your own horse, and lead off at a steady walk. Don't interfere 
 much with the child. He cannot do everything right at once, 
 and will, at best, only learn one thing at a time. 
 
 517. — For a long time the child should use nothing but a 
 single, soft reined, easy, snaffle bridle, which he should use at 
 first with both hands. The first thing to impress upon him is 
 that it must never be used in vain, and that whatever else shakes 
 the bridle hand must be kept steady. If the child cannot ride 
 well enough to attend to this when you first mount him in 
 earnest, give him no reins at all, but lead the pony yourself until 
 he gets seat enough to keep his arms still, letting him steady 
 himself by the blanket if he likes. Some children take to riding 
 as if they were born on a horse's back, and others get on slowly. 
 Give plenty of time in any case, and do nothing to shake their 
 confidence. Your business is to turn out a rider that will never 
 feel riding to be a task ; that will play at riding but never work 
 at it ; that will not only look fearless but will be fearless ; that 
 will not only look safe, but be safe ; that will not only look 
 happy, but be happy ; that will not only maintain a correct 
 position, like the stump of a dead tree, but that can bow and 
 bend, like a living reed, and yet always naturally return to its 
 right position to rest. Formal riders can be turned out by the 
 
220 CATECHISM. 
 
 thousand from any riding or military school ; natural equestrians 
 -can only be made from the children who play at riding as they 
 play at leapfrog. 
 
 518. — When quite happy at a walk, try a gentle jig-jog. 
 Never mind where the legs, or arms, or head, or shoulders go at 
 first. Don't trot much nor ride far, but let the skin be hardened 
 by a little riding very often. There is no hurry ; you have not 
 undertaken to finish off your pupils in six lessons. 
 
 519. — You will soon find yourself put through a catechism, 
 and that will be your time to get the shoulders, and head, and 
 legs, and arms right. It will not be long before you will be 
 -asked — 
 
 *' Who do you think, father, is the best rider we know !" 
 
 " I think Mr. French is." 
 
 " Is he ! I never saw him ride very fast." 
 
 "Good riders do not often ride as if tiiey were racing." 
 
 " Then why is he such a good rider." 
 
 " He always looks so easy at it, and his horse looks quite 
 happy under him. His arms are still, and his elbows not far 
 from his sides. His legs are still and close to the horse, and he 
 never sticks out his toes, or his heels, and nothing ever moves 
 him far off his seat, or far from the middle of the saddle. His 
 horse always does what he wants him to do, without any fuss, 
 although he uses the reins so lightly, and keeps his hands so low, 
 and so near to his body, that you cannot see that he is using 
 them at all. I think that his stirrups are a little too long, and 
 his feet not quite far enough in the stirrup irons for a safe, useful, 
 rough rider ; but he is a pattern of graceful, easy, faultless 
 riding." 
 
 520. — " But is not Tom, the butcher boy, a good rider, 
 father ?" 
 
 " He can stick on to a horse, but he is not a good rider. 
 You see his shoulders up to his ears. He leans forward as if he 
 wanted to go faster than his horse. His elbows stick out, and 
 flap up and down, like the wings of a sick goose would do on 
 horse back. His toes are turned out, and his heels are threatening 
 the horse all the time. He keeps one rein tighter than the other, 
 
MOUNTING. 221 
 
 and his horse has learned to turn his head that way without 
 letting his body follow his head. You can see that he liandles 
 the reins roughly, and that his horse is not happy, but takes 
 every movement in fear, not as if he enjoyed going so fast." 
 
 521. — Whilst saying this, you will see the shoulders go 
 down, and the little feet be turned straight. Mr. French and 
 Tom will be minutely surveyed when they next ride abroad, and 
 it will not be long before the little pupil will understand all their 
 perfections and faults as well as you do. 
 
 522. — A six or seven years old child cannot be taught to 
 mount a horse or pony in orthodox form. He will learn that 
 from some good pattern in after years. In the mean time his 
 pony must be taught to stand in a ditch, or to let him use 
 a box, a stool, a stile, a gate, a bank, or anything that will 
 answer the purpose. "With a pony as quiet as a child's pony 
 should always be, the child may often spend an hour with it in a 
 loose box, getting on and off by any convenient aid. He may 
 also be early taught to let down the left stirrup for this purpose 
 and to take it up again after he has mounted. A child that is 
 fond of riding, and that has established a good understanding 
 between himself and a quiet pony, will often discover some very 
 original method of reaching his seat. 
 
 Of course a child of this age has no business to be alone 
 with anything but the quietest of animals, but perhaps few 
 persons have any idea how ridiculously quiet some good tempered, 
 well used horses will be with a child that is much with them. 
 
 523. — Keep the child riding for years, if you possibly can 
 before you allow him to ride anything but a quiet horse. Avoid 
 falls, not only for the sake, of the child's safety, but to keep him 
 as long as possible under the happy delusion that he cannot get 
 hurt. The nerves and muscles will never adapt themselves to 
 every possible call on them so well as whilst fear is unknown and 
 danger unsuspected. When the boy gets twelve or fourteen years 
 old will be time enough for leaps and tumbles. If all has gone 
 well up to that, he will be so completely at home on horseback, 
 and his agility so great, that tumbles are not likely to harm him 
 much. He will be pretty sure to land on his legs, and to choose 
 
222 AGILITY. 
 
 the best place and the safest company. All our best riding boys 
 would have been killed early if they had not acquired that power ; 
 but they soon grew almost as confident of their power to fall off 
 safely, when the horse falls or turns a somersault, as in their 
 power to stay on as long as he keeps his legs. Accidents that 
 would be fatal to men with less experience are treated by 
 such riders with the ^same contempt as a cool, collected, agile, 
 Spanish matador treats the vain efforts of a bull to impale him. 
 Girls must not risk or recklessly court falls. Their dress and 
 their saddles make it impossible that they can meet them with 
 the same immunity and contempt. 
 
 524. — After the tumbling age has arrived the quiet old 
 pony will be despised, and a frequent change of horses will best 
 complete the boy's or girl's education as an equestrian. No two 
 horses require the same treatment, and one of the most 
 important lessons is to learn how to see at a glance whether 
 you have to deal with a nervous flyaway, some illused over free 
 victim, a willing useful drudge, a vicious spitfire, or an unexcitable 
 slug. The slugs will require some severity, and an occasional 
 touch with a spur that would spoil a nervous horse for a 
 month. The illused horses will require much time to recover 
 confidence and a great deal of patient forbearance. The nervous 
 horses should be handled with constant gentleness, and get food 
 as bulky, and succulent as the nature of their work will admit. 
 The spitfires should get constant hard work, and as little corn as 
 will keep them fit for it. For vicious horses see vices and bad habits 
 (444 to 504). 
 
 525. — The firmest seated riders we have ever met with, as a 
 •class, are the stockmen of Australia. Their horses when yarding 
 -cattle or heading a fugitive bullock, gallop like race horses, and 
 turn of their own accord, as short and as suddenly as a sheep 
 •dog. We have seen three of these horses put fifteen hundred 
 wild fat bullocks into a yard, with the reins loose on their necks, 
 «,nd untouched the whole time. They watched and chased each 
 fugitive like a sheep dog chases a stray sheep, the stockmen 
 merely sitting on their backs and udng their twenty feet stock 
 ■whips. The sudden drop, stop, and turn of one of these horses 
 
lady's seat. 223 
 
 would unseat, and dano-ei'ously unseat, tlie best horsemen in an 
 ordinary luinting field. These stockmen would make grand 
 cavalry riders in active service, though perhaps not on parade, as 
 their seat, though perfect of its kind, is not quite the seat for 
 llotten Row. 
 
 526. — No lady can be a good rider who does not sit down in 
 the middle of her saddle, and sit upright. The more weight a 
 gentleman puts in his stirrups the better for his horse, and his 
 horse's back, as it puts the weight low down and spreads it 
 equally over the saddle. But it is just the reverse with a lady, 
 who has only a stirrup on one side, and can put no weight in it 
 without inconvenience to her horse, injury to the horse's back, 
 and danger of putting her saddle round. She must ride by 
 balancing herself on the middle of her horse's back, and holding 
 firmly to the three crutches of her saddle with her legs. Her 
 legs give her a very firm hold of the front of the saddle, so that 
 she cannot be thrown back, and may lean back as much as she 
 likes, especially at a leap ; buc she can never safely lean forward, 
 as she is liable to be sent over the horse's head. 
 
 527 — A lady has really a firmer hold on her saddle than a 
 gentleman for a straightforward leap, but then she depends far 
 more entirely on her saddle and her girths, and puts a greater 
 strain on them. Xor can she be so well prepared for what is far 
 more difficult than leaping, that is the very sudden turn round 
 which a horse will often take, when his rider is expecting him to 
 go straight over a fence. Nor can a lady ever depend upon 
 falling cleverly, and clearing herself from a falling horse, as her 
 brothers may do. 
 
 528. — A lady sometimes gets through a hunt with flying 
 colours when she has a very reliable, well broken horse, and she 
 often shines as a pacifier of a timid, nervous, over-sensitive 
 animal ; but no one looks upon fool-hardiness as a virtue in a 
 lady, and the best lady rider in the woi'ld would show wretched 
 taste by taking a badly trained horse to a public hunt, or even 
 by taking very desperate leaps on any horse. 
 
 529. — A lady may go to a hunt to see, or to be seen ; to 
 learn, or to teach ; to seek, or to give happiness ; but if she goes 
 
224: GOOD EXAMPLES. 
 
 there to emulate the rougher and stronger sex in deeds of daring, 
 she is not likely to succeed, and if she did, she would find that 
 she had gained neither love nor esteem. The courage of an 
 Eleanor of Castille, of a Miss Nightingale, or a Sister Dora, will 
 never lack admirers, and will never be eclipsed by the lords of 
 the creation ; but foolhardy rashness will always, and justly, be 
 more admired in the natural defenders of our liberties, than in 
 the peace makers and safety valves of our homes. 
 
 530. — Xo written nor verbal instruction, no riding master, 
 not even any amount of practice, will give the finishing touches 
 seen in an accomplished, early taught, natural rider of either 
 sex. When you have made your seat so secure that you have 
 confidence enough to adopt any style, choose the best model 
 you can find of your own sex, and copy it as closely as possible. 
 The ease, security, and gracefulness of an early taught rider, are 
 almost as subtle and indescribable as that undefinable something 
 which tells us at once whether a lady or a gentleman was born in 
 good society, and learned to talk, to entertain, to act, and to 
 move from habit ; or whether they have been transformed from 
 something else, by learning grammar, deportment, and etiquette. 
 It is the ease and grace of nature contrasted with the restraint 
 and formality of art. 
 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DRIVINO. 
 
 531. — Good drivers are far more common than good rider?, 
 especially in England. There is more demand for them. They 
 are often paid for taking other persons' safety in hand as well as 
 their own, and it is an art that can be learned, and learned well, 
 at any age. It is quite possible to sit alongside of an accomplished 
 driver, and to inspect all his movements ; all the calmness and 
 presence of mind needed is soon acquired by regular practice, 
 and anything like desperate daring is by no means desirable. A 
 driver's courage should always be tempered with a good, deal of 
 caution, and he should always choose safe ground if he can get it. 
 In riding the natural instincts of the horse ensure himself and 
 his rider against many an accident. In driving the instincts of 
 the young horse tell on the other side, so that they are more 
 likely to produce than to prevent mishaps. With no difficulty 
 about his own seat, a driver's eyes and hands soon learn to judge 
 distances accurately, and to steer steadily, whilst with well broken, 
 well matched, and daily worked horses, it is not at all a difficult 
 thing to drive them very well. 
 
 532. — Still a very large portion of the drivers that get 
 through 'their daily drives with so much satisfaction to themselves 
 and their employers, are only fine weather pilots, who would be 
 utterly at a loss to know what to do with animals less highly 
 civilized than those in their care, or which did not answer the 
 simple signals with which they are accustomed to drive them, 
 and, which, in their blissful ignorance, they fancy that their 
 horses are obliged to obey. In many cases of the most showy 
 and applauded driving, almost everything has been done by the 
 educator, so that little is left for the driver to exercise any skill 
 upon. P 
 
22 G ONE HORSE. 
 
 533. — No person can be a really accomplished driver, who 
 does not know a good deal about the natural disposition of a 
 horse — why he obeys and when he will be liable to disobey ; how 
 to educate him, and how to take advantage of that education. 
 All that we have said about the education of the horse (165 to 
 443), and especially about breaking to harness (379 to 443), 
 should be read and understood by those who aspire to educate 
 as well as to drive, to foresee and provide against danger, and to 
 rule in a storm as well as a calm, ^Ve shall not repeat here 
 what we have treated so fully in the educational chapters. 
 
 534. — Let us first suppose that there is only one horse to be 
 driven. You must, of course, understand hoAv your horse should 
 be harnessed, and see before you take your seat, that he is 
 securely and comfortably fastened to his work. Pay particular 
 attention to your horse's bit, and if it is a curb bit, see that the 
 curb chain is not too tight, and that you have not too much 
 leverage on the horse's jaw. If you are a novice at driving 
 you hud l)etter avoid curb bits and chains, and if you have 
 complied with our directions in educating a horse to drive 
 yourself, he will not require such severe restraints. If the horse's 
 mouth is decidedly hard, you had better use a ring bit. 
 
 535. — Take the reins in hand before you put your foot on 
 the stej), but do so without interfering in any way with the 
 horse's mouth. If the horse is a free, nervous animal, hold him 
 very lightly, and speak soothingly to encourage him to stand for 
 a few seconds after you are seated, ^nd then let him walk quietly 
 on, without a touch or a tick, and walk a hundred yards before 
 you let him go at a slow trot, and gradually increase it until he 
 arrives at the pace you intend to travel. The more free an'd nervous 
 your horse, the more careful you must be never to start him off 
 in a hurry, or you will spoil him for standing, and very likely for 
 starting. 
 
 536. — See that there is no twist in the leather of either rein, 
 and as you hold them straight in your right hand put all the 
 fingers of your left hand between the reins. Bend the right 
 hand rein, at the fore finger, and the left hand rein at your little 
 finger, letting them pass over each other inside your fingers, and 
 
LIGHT HANDS. 227 
 
 closing your luiiid upon tlicm. This gives a finn hold of both 
 reins, in such a form that a twist of your hand will shorten either 
 rein, quite enough for guiding purposes. Adjust the reins to 
 such a length that you can feel the horse's mouth, with your 
 body upright, and your rein hand about eight inches in front of 
 your lowest rib. 
 
 537. — The lighiness with which you must use the reins, 
 will depend upon what horse you have to deal with, or rather upon 
 what other persons have been doing with the same mouth. One 
 horse will rear, and run, or fall backwards with a pull that another 
 horse will not notice at all. One driver will teach his horse to 
 stop, or guide, with a pull that might be given witii the finest 
 cotton thread, whilst another will compel the horse to draw the 
 carriage with his mouth, or what is still worse, teach him to go 
 faster when his mouth is jerked with the reins. Your business 
 will be to find out how little pulling will stop, restrain, or guide 
 your horse, and use no more than you find necessary to effect the 
 object you desire. 
 
 r)38. — Never use the reins for anything but their legitimate 
 purpose, and that is to guide or restrain, never to urge or to 
 punish. Watch the effect of each guiding pull, and desist before 
 your horse has diverged quite far enough ; don"t pull him too far 
 and then back again. Keep your horse up to a lively sense that 
 whenever you pull a rein you mean something, and never let him 
 be inattentive to any signal. If he is not too free to bear a whip, 
 touch him lightly on the left shoulder, if he does not instantly 
 answer to the right rein, or on the right shoulder, if he neglects 
 the left rein. This will soon make him attentive to the reins, 
 even thcugh his mouth has been made hard. 
 
 o39. — Let your right hand always be ready to assist with 
 the reins if necessary, and in any emergency take a rein in each 
 hand. Such cases will constantly arise with a young or ill-broken 
 horse. A horse that has been whipped for shying will often 
 make a long, dangerous plunge, and a gallop to one side. Here 
 mischief is often caused with blinker.", by holding the horse's 
 head round towards the object that alarms him, and away from 
 some real danger upon which he may be blindly rushing. In 
 
228 BEARING REINS. 
 
 such cases it is ofteu wise to reserve the pull, and force his head 
 towards the real danger, rather than let him dash your wheels 
 into it. A horse will generally contrive to avoid a danger that 
 is made evident to himself, and even if he is too excited to do 
 that, it is often choosing the least of two evils. Thus we have 
 sometimes put the horse into a ditch, rather than let him turn 
 the carriage over into it, and we once put a runaway horse up 
 into a heavy stone dray, in preference to letting him dash the 
 carriage at it. 
 
 540. — Bearing reins are less used every year, Miss Se well's 
 ** Black Beauty," and the energetic appeals and well told facts 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Flower, on this subject have done wonders. It 
 is not necessary to deny their possible utility in a few exceptional 
 cases. When a lady has to drive a horse of somewhat doubtful 
 docility, it is convenient to have a bearing rein short enough to 
 prevent the horse putting his head lower than he naturally carries 
 it at his work. This may prevent him from pulling hard on her 
 hand, or pulling the reins out of them, from getting his head to 
 the ground, from hitching his bit on the pole or shaft, from 
 rubbing off his blinkers, or even from sending up his heels^ 
 When the bearing rein is used to this extent we have nothing to 
 say against it. 
 
 541. — But vain, thoughtless, and ignorant owners and 
 drivers have not been satisfied to use it in such a way. Some 
 unfortunate animal with all the life whipped out of him, with the 
 muscles cut from his tail so that he cannot put it down, and with 
 his mouth forced into the air with iron and leather, is supposed 
 by such judges of horse flesh, to be an imitation of the beautiful 
 natural attitude of an animated horse, carrying his own head 
 and tail in the air. Unobserving ignorance has often concluded 
 that a horse was less likely to stumble or fall down when his 
 head was tightly fastened to his tail. 
 
 542. — It is not possible to understand the extreme cruelty 
 of this tight reining without inquiring for a moment what pro- 
 vision nature has made for carrying the horse's head. His head 
 does not rest perpendicularly over his body as curs does, but is 
 supported at the end of a long horizontal lever, like the weight 
 
THE PACK WAX. 229 
 
 at the end of a steelyard beam, so that like it, it requires a hundred 
 times more power to support it than it would do if the weight 
 were close to the shoulder. The leverage of the neck is so great 
 that it would demand muscles at the withers equal to lifting 
 several thousand pounds to support tlie horse's head at the end 
 of his long neck. But instead of such heavy muscles that would 
 greatly retard the horse's speed, nature has made provision to 
 sustain this great weight with a strong animal cord, or a very 
 powerful and slightly elastic ligament. This provides for bearing 
 the weight without fatigue, but only for bearing it at a certain 
 height. With this provision the horse can even go to sleep 
 whilst standing, and this strong ligament, called the pack wax, 
 will support his head at the exact height for which its length is 
 adapted, without any muscular effort, or any nervous supervision. 
 When the head is wanted lower, as for grazing, there are 
 muscles in the neck which pull it down, and stretch the strong- 
 elastic cord enough to let the horse's mouth reach the ground. 
 When it is wanted higher, there are other muscles strong enough 
 to lift the head for a little while. But the higher the head goes 
 the less the pack wax takes of the weight, and the muscles are 
 by no means strong enough to sustain the weight, without the 
 assistance of that cord for any length of time. 
 
 543. — We can soon form an idea of the pain that results if 
 we try to hold our arm straight out from our body for ten 
 minutes. We can lift that arm to a horizontal position with 
 considerable force, but nature never intended it to be kept there, 
 and has supplied no muscles strong enough to support it long in 
 that position. We can lift it up and down for twelve hours a 
 day, but we cannot keep it in an unchanged, horizontal position 
 for a quarter of an hour without absolute torture ; torture so great 
 that we should gladly rest our hand on the point of a needle, or on 
 a bed of thorns or nettles, rather than not rest it at all. So it is 
 with the horse. His small neck muscles cannot support the 
 weight so far above the natural angle as to get no assistance from 
 the pack wax, and he is therefore when tightly reined up obliged 
 to let the weight of his head rest on his sensitive, tender, foaming, 
 or bleeding mouth. Xature in time will make that mouth less 
 
230 THE RULE OF THE ROAD. 
 
 sensitive — more fit to roughly encounter iron without pain, but 
 far less fit to pleasantly respond to the gentle touch of a lady's 
 hand. 
 
 544. — You may use a bearing rein if you like to restrain 
 a horse's head where nature intended it to rest, but you commit 
 an act of wanton, destructive cruelty when you put a crushing 
 weight on muscles which are unfit to sustain it, bring his sensitive 
 mouth in violent contact with a fixed iron bar, and try to carry 
 on a piece of unyielding leather, the receptacle of all those 
 magnificent senses for which nature has provided such a perfect 
 and elaborate spring balance. 
 
 545. — In Britain, and British colonies, you turn to the left 
 when any one requires to pass you, and when you meet anything 
 except led horses. By the same rule you must of course go to the 
 right when you are going to overtake anything except led horses. 
 This exception is made in passing led horses because it is less 
 dangerous or embarrassing to their leader to have his led horses 
 frightened, or driven from him, than towards him — to have them 
 pull back and away from him, than to rush forward and towards 
 him, or towards each other. Under this rule too, a man with 
 a string of horses never requires to cross the road at all, but 
 keeps the right hand side, and lets everything pass or overtake 
 him on the side he rides. 
 
 546. — When meeting or overtaking loose driven cattle or 
 sheep you may take either side that offers the clearest course, but 
 drive slowly, as however awkwardly they may run under your 
 horse or wheels, you are responsible for any injury to them or 
 to yourself. 
 
 547. — Never aim at display in driving, it will always tell 
 against you. Try no close shaving. Give especially plenty of 
 room to lady drivers, to old men, or to young timid horses. 
 Stop rather than drive any one into a mess. Get out of the way 
 of pedestrians, if you can, rather than drive them into the dirt. 
 Leave the most level part of the road to high, top-heavy loads, 
 whether they are entitled to it or not. Do as you would be done 
 by, with everybody and everything, and don't foolishly get out of 
 temper because other persons may not treat you the same, or do 
 
PACE. 231 
 
 not even kowu their business. You may gain much by sucli 
 conduct, and will never gain anything by the reverse. 
 
 If anyone wants to overtake you, liold back ratlier 
 than push on, and don't challenge them to a race. Few things 
 are more nudignfied than that. Choose your own pace, and let 
 no one else choose it for you, and let it be a pace that your horse 
 can do without distress. No one will think the better of you for 
 over-driving an animal. We were once on a four horse coach, 
 in Somersetshire, when a celebrated Chartist orator drove past 
 us with a fine trotting pony. He evidently thought that he or 
 his pony would make a favourable impression on the passengers. 
 The coachman gave him plenty of room and did not hurry his 
 team in the least to avoid being overtaken, but when he was 
 past, quietly said " That's just how he would drive us all if he 
 had the chance." 
 
 548. — As to the pace at which you should drive, everything 
 depends upon circumstances. If you are driving an engine to a 
 fire, or a surgeon to a patient, where human life is at stake, 
 drive twenty miles an hour, or as fast as your horse can hold out to 
 complete his task. If your time is of great value and your 
 horses are in first-rate working condition, and not wanted to do 
 more than ten miles a day, on a good road with a light load, 
 you may drive ten or twelve miles an hour. If the same horses 
 have to do over a hundred miles a week, they should not be 
 driven more than seven miles an hour, unless their work comes 
 in vei'y short stages. IT you have a good, quiet, safe, family 
 horse, that you want to take care of, let him go six miles an 
 hour. He will always do far more on an emergency ; but when 
 you have got a good trusty horse don't stiffen and destroy him 
 in a year or two by always hurrying him. But don't overload 
 him with fat. Let him work modei-ately every day, and not be 
 overdone with corn. If you drive a grass fed horse, or one that 
 gets no shelter at night, or a brood mare, you may drive six 
 miles an hour in summer, but you must be very moderate indeed 
 in } our demands on them in the winter. Any horse in any cold 
 or temperate climate is capable of far more speed and endurance 
 in summer than in winter. A well-bred small horse may be driven 
 
232 
 
 ATTENTION. 
 
 faster and farther than a large lieavy one. A very fat horse 
 is never fit to go fast. 
 
 549.— Always keep the wheels of any carriage you drive 
 on the broadest and smoothest part of the road. The immense 
 difference that this makes to the draft will only be realised 
 by those who have tried it on any vehicle, propelled by their 
 own muscles, whether it be a perambulator, a bicycle, or a wheel- 
 barrow. 
 
 550.— You may either teach your horse to depend entirely 
 on your guidance, and jjiek every inch of the road for him, or 
 you may encourage him to pick the best road for himself, and to 
 pass vehicles on the correct side, without much interference from 
 you, leaving his mouth alone as much as possible. The former, 
 when well done, is the best driving, and with some inferior 
 horses, is the only good driving, but it demands uninterrupted 
 attention to your horse, and spoils him for driving in the dark, 
 when he alone is qualified to pick the road. 
 
 651.— A stumbling, sluggish horse, must not be left long to 
 his own devices. It does no good to stiffly rein him up, nor to 
 practice him over turnip fields, nor to hold his head staring up 
 to the sky, nor to punish him every time he stumbles, but it 
 does a lot of good to keep such a horse thoroughly awake, to give 
 him a wholesome fear of your whip, and to insist upon a lively 
 step with eyes on his work, his ears listening to your voice, his 
 head a little back, and his mouth paying attention to every move 
 of your rein. Such a horse is in fact more fit for the manners 
 and customs of a butcher's boy than for those of a gentleman, far 
 less of a lady. 
 
 552. — Absent-minded, careless, inattentive drivers, often get 
 their horses into bad habits that are very difficult to ei-adicate. 
 One of the most common is a habit of boring to one side of the 
 road, and hanging perpetually on one rein. When such a habit 
 has been formed, it will take a lot of time and patience to cure 
 it. The first step must be to change the bit, which the horse 
 has learned to pay no attention to, and use something that will 
 introduce a totally different sensation to his mouth. Avoid curb 
 bits in this ca.?e, as with them a side pull is so much like a back 
 
A WEEK OF PATIENCE. 2Sii 
 
 pull, that any horse may be excused for mistaking the one for 
 the other. 
 
 553. — With the changed bit yoii must let the horse under- 
 stand that there is a change of discipline. You must allow no 
 inattention to the rein, but let a tap of the whip immediately 
 follow any neglected signal. You must on no account keep the 
 horse in his place by a steady pull on one rein, but if he gets to 
 one side, fetch him back to the right place quickly, with whatever 
 rein force may be necessary, tapping his shoulders with the 
 whip, and scolding him at the same time, but slacken the rein 
 directly you have brought him far enough. You may have to 
 repeat this a hundred Jor a thousand times, and may make up 
 your mind for a great exercise of patier.ce. Of course you could 
 not do this in the streets of a city, but the habit could not be 
 formed there, as in a town, a horse must be kept obedient to his 
 signals. 
 
 554. — There is a quicker way of getting over the difficulty, 
 but it is better avoided if possible, as it is apt to still leave the 
 horse with a one-sided mouth. You may wind a strip of flannel 
 thickly round that side of the bit to which the horse is 
 inattentive. If that fails you may get a snaffle bit, cut at the 
 joint, and substitute a short bit of small chain for one side of 
 the bit. 
 
 555. — Driving two w^ell matched horses abreast is not more 
 difficult than driving one, and it is far more pleasant and safe. 
 It will require a little more arm power, and some attention to the 
 correct acljustment of the forked reins, but two horses go far 
 more cheerfully than one. They naturally choose a space wide 
 enough for the carriage to follow ; they usually counteract each 
 other in any wayward movements, and so long as one horse 
 will not run away the other cannot. The case is not much 
 ■altered where three horses are driven abreast. It is perhaps the 
 most easy of any team to drive in a city, as wherever there is 
 room for the seen horses, the driver need not concern himself 
 about his unseen wheels. 
 
 55(;, — Driving two or three horses one before the other is a 
 far more difficult task. It is seldom done for anything but 
 
234 TOUGH WORK. 
 
 display, and even in that respect is generally delusive, as no man 
 will be very successftil at it unless he has a leader that can be 
 trusted to give him very little trouble — a free, bold, docile 
 animal that~will keep well otit of the way, that knows his work, 
 and that will turn round at notliing. It is true that such a horse 
 would not be kept good long, unless driven with some judgment, 
 but the best of tandem drivers would cut a poor figure with a 
 leader that turned round to look at him. 
 
 557. — With four horses, two abreast, one leader counteracts 
 the other, so that neither of them could turn short round so 
 suddenly as a tandem leader may do. Still the off-side leader 
 should be, and generally is, a bold animal, well inured to the 
 sights, sounds, and scenes he will have to pass. 
 
 558. — Driving a fast four-horse team safely and well is a 
 work of very considerable skill, and one that is not learned in a 
 day. It also demands at least a good average amount of weight 
 and strength. It is not merely that you have to deal with four 
 mouths instead of one or two. That would by no means 
 represent the difi^erence in the power required. Each mouth 
 will demand far more than a proportionate force upon it to enforce 
 obedience. Four horses excite each other very much at any fast 
 pace, and as no one horse can either guide or stop without his mates 
 it would be quite unsafe to teach them to stop suddenly to any 
 signal, even if you could do so. But each horse soon finds 
 out that he cannot stop suddenly without some unpleasant 
 consequence, and hence the long, strong pull that is wanted to 
 stop, or to restrain a four-horse team, and the severe bits that are 
 so generally used to do it. 
 
 559. — No man has any business to take four horses in hand 
 until he has well learned to drive one or two, and then he should 
 begin with an experienced driver at his side, who can relieve his 
 arms occasionally, and take the reins down hill, round turnings, 
 or through cities. At our j)loughing matches we generally find 
 that the youngest boys have the oldest horses. So it should be 
 with a coachman. If he has his business to learn, he must take 
 care to begin with horses that have well learned their work. No 
 unpractised hand can be either strong or skilful enough to drive 
 
HOLDING REINS. 235- 
 
 four horses that have their work to learn, and need a <^ood deal 
 of steering and restraining. With a four-horse team it is easy 
 and safe to put in one horse at a time that is new to the work, 
 bat a collection of four lively horses, unused to the excitement of 
 galloping together, must be a dangerous team in any hands, and 
 one which there can rarely be any necessity to undertake. 
 
 560. — In driving four horses the leaders' reins may be taken 
 with all the lingers of the left hand between them, just as directed 
 for the reins of a single horse (530). Those of the wheelers, or 
 hind horses, must be held in the same hand, but with only two 
 fingers between them instead of four. The fore finger will thus 
 separate the two right hand reins, and the little finger 
 the two left hand reins, whilst the two middle fingers of 
 the left hand form a wide and distinct separation between the 
 right and left hand reins of both leaders and wheelers. By this 
 arrangement a twist of the left hand will turn all the four horses 
 to either side, affecting the leaders first and most as it should do. 
 The regular order and complete separation of all the reins will 
 enable the right hand to soon learn without a moment's thought 
 to seize either rein, or either pair of reins that may be required,, 
 for a turn or any other manipulation, and to drop them again 
 without disturbing their hold, length, or position in the left hand. 
 The right or whip hand can also easily be placed at any time over 
 the left hand, to assist at a pull, or to rest the muscles of the 
 left arm. In fact with hard pulling horses this will be its general 
 position except when required to use the whip. 
 
 561. — Many more complicated methods of holding the reins 
 have been described and recommended, but this simple winding 
 of the leaders' reins round all the fingers of the left hand, and of 
 the wheelers reins round the two middle fingers only, is at once 
 the simplest, strongest, and best, and is adopted by mountain 
 drivers, and by men of the most severe practical experience in 
 various parts of the world. With four horses the hands may be 
 held a little further forward than with two, as it gives more play 
 and strength for a pull, but the body must be kept upright, and 
 the elbows near the hips. 
 
 562. — At straightforward running you will want to interfere 
 
236 PRECAUTIONS. 
 
 very little with the reins of the wheelers, as they can hardly 
 
 help following the leaders, but when it is necessary to stop, the 
 
 wheelers' reins must be tightened first. The leaders must be 
 
 stopped slowly, and allowed to keep well away from their swingle 
 
 trees. With a good break, which you should always have, your 
 
 leaders may keep well out to their collars, even when stopping or 
 
 going down hill, but down steep hills yo ur wheelers should be 
 
 held back in case of any accident to break. You need not be 
 
 afraid to use the break sufficiently, going down hill, as it is rather 
 
 a relief to a horse's legs to be allowed to pull a little down a steep 
 
 hill, and it makes everything safer to keep the break well on. 
 
 ijio slowly down the first part of a hill, and gently up the last 
 
 part. 
 
 " Gently u]d. and steady down, 
 Push away on level ground." 
 
 5G3. — In turniog round corners your leaders must go far 
 enough round, but should not pull at all, unless you are going 
 slowly up a steep hill. Their traces should be slackened, and the 
 coach turned with the wheelers. The pole is strong for a straight 
 pull, but is weak for a side pull, and it is in every way unsafe 
 €ver to let your leaders pull across the pole. 
 
 564. — Reserve your leaders as much as you can, as it is quite 
 essential that they should be fresh and free to the end of the 
 stage. Almost any horse that can go, and will not fall down, 
 may be used as a wheeler in a four horse team. He cannot run 
 away, he cannot shy far, and you can reach him easily either 
 with whip or reins. It is not so with a leader. He must be a 
 horse that can be trusted. He must be free enough to 
 require little or no whip, bold enough to pass any object 
 he meets, yet have eyes to see and avoid any real danger. 
 Quiet enough to let anything touch him without kicking, sensible 
 enough to pick his own way, or to keep any way that may be 
 Bhown him. His action should be showy, and must be safe, as he 
 cannot fall without bringing himself and the whole team to 
 grief. 
 
 565. — When six horses are regularly required they are best 
 ■driven three abreast, in which case the driving will not differ 
 
LONCI TEAMS. 237 
 
 much from that of a four horse team. 13 ut ib frequently happen* 
 that six horses are only wanted for a part of the journey, or under 
 some exceptional circumstances, so that they must be driven two 
 abreast, with a single pole and other four horse appliances. Tn 
 every country where more than four ordinary horses are driven 
 two abreast, on ordinary roads, the leaders are taken in hand by 
 a postillion, which leaves the coachman no difficult task to follow 
 with the rest of the horses. Very long teams of plough horses 
 used occasionally to be seen getting her Majesty's mails through 
 the snow in this way. In England, France, North America, and 
 many other countries, circus teams of any length may occasionally 
 be seen nominally driven from the box, but really taught to go 
 with little or no driving at all. In some parts of South America, 
 Australia, and JSTew Zealand, six horses, two abreast, may be seen 
 driven by one man, through long straight, sandy tracks, where 
 there is, in fact, nothing to do but to hound the poor weary 
 animals along. 
 
 566. — Even the practised, daring, skilful drivers, who drive 
 a leather spring coach across the middle island of New Zealand^ 
 though obliged to use six horses through the sands, never attempt 
 to handle more than four horses up and down the mountain 
 zig-zags, where both hind wheels are often kept from turnings 
 round at all by their powerful breaks, and great steadiness and 
 sagacity is demanded from the leaders. 
 
 567. — In South America, mules are more used amongst the 
 mountains, a habit probably introduced from Spain. They are 
 perhaps better with the average driver, although they never 
 inake the pace that good horses will do. They are not so 
 excitable ; they are more easily made reliable at a pull ; they are 
 far more certain to take care of themselves ; they are even more 
 clever in ascending and descending excessively steep places than 
 either the horse, the ox, or the zebra ; but in running down 
 ordinary hills they are far more liable to stumble, or fall on their 
 knees than an ordinary horse. 
 
 Of course restive, jibbing, badly broken horses are utterly 
 unfit for mountain work, but well broken, well driven, and 
 regularly worked horses, that are not in excessively high condition 
 
238 WHIP. 
 
 •are decidedly safer than mules where pace is required down steep 
 hills. 
 
 568. — The whip for a moderately free horse, or pair of 
 horses, should be light and long, and be used with caution and 
 judgment. Great mischief is ofcen done by touching a horse 
 with the whip as the first notice that you want him to go on. 
 The result being that the horse is afraid to stand still a moment 
 after he is fastened to a carriage, and will often go backwards if 
 he cannot go forwards. One foolish cut from a whip will often 
 spoil such a horse for the rest of his life. Unless you want to 
 spoil a horse for standing or starting, use some well understood 
 word for starting, and let the whip alone at first. 
 
 5Gi). — TVitli a very free horse, it is desirable to cautiously 
 accustom him to the sound and feel of the whip lightly drawn 
 accross him so as not to hurt him at all. This will prevent him 
 from rushing whenever you take the whip in hand, and make 
 it possible to touch up a sing by his side. A slow, easy going 
 horse on the other hand should never feel the whip upon him 
 ■except to hurt him. Ladies, and tender hearted drivers, often 
 do great mischief to such horses by constantly flicking at them 
 until the horse cares no more for the whip than he does for his 
 •own tail. 
 
 With such horses a pretty heavy whip should be used, and used 
 not often, but so that they will feel it and know what it means. 
 A horse that will not move, and move quickly to the whip, is 
 •neither pleasant nor safe. 
 
 570. — Unless a horse is known to be very quiet and unexcit- 
 ■able, he shoidd iiever be whipped on the hind quarters, as it often 
 tempts a horse to kick. Strike him on the shoulder or fore leg, 
 and if he does not answer to it immediately strike him harder. 
 It will not hurt him so much as jerking his mouth with the 
 reins, and you had better do it yourself than be obliged to sell 
 him to some one that will drive him, and whip him without 
 ■measure or mercy. There is as little real kindness in spoiling a 
 horse as there is in spoiling a child. 
 
 571. — A lady's horse shoiild not require much whip, as a 
 flogging lady is not a pleasant sight, but as a matter of fact, the 
 
LADIKS. 'J-iO 
 
 easy tempered horse that requires a real touch ol" the whip, is a far 
 less suffering animal, and is far more safe for a timid driver, than 
 the nervous animal that is always anxious to go from a sense of 
 fear. No well fed, well bred, and moderately worked horse, will 
 be likely to want much whip, but the most mild and trustworthy 
 animals, such as a lady can securely drive, arc almost always the 
 better for knowing that there is a whip about, and a hand that 
 can use it. We have known some ladies Avho, after a serious accident 
 with over-lively horses, have come to the conclusion that no 
 horse is safe that will go without a whip. The young lady who 
 has learned to ride does well not to tolerate a horse that requires 
 the whip, but the matron that wants to go safely about with her 
 loved ones, will feel all the more secure with a harness horse that 
 is always willing to take things easy. 
 
 572. — AVe once saw a magnificent carriage with a pair of fine 
 dark bays come out of a stable yard at Bath and drive under 
 one of the large arches that support Bridge Street, to a quiet 
 lane, where the driver gave one of his horses four or five severe 
 cuts with a light whip, at the same time holding both horses back 
 until they appeared ready to fly through the harness. He then 
 drove to Pulteney Street and took a lady into the carriage. On 
 his return to the yard, we followed him in and spoke to him about 
 the whipping. We found him obsequiously civil, and evidently 
 alarmed. He said that his near-side horse was a free, hot 
 tempered creature, that he could hardly hold back, and that the 
 oflF-side horse was a quiet tempered, easy going animal, that 
 wanted an occasional touch of the whip, but when his lady was in 
 the carriage she would not allow him to be touched, so that he 
 had to take him somewhere and give him as much whip, before 
 the lady got in, as would keep him up with the other horse until 
 she got out again. 
 
 57;}. — After due , consideration we thought it as well to go no 
 farther with our interference, but to leave the good tempered, 
 well fed, happy looking horse to the enjoyment of his present 
 luxurious life, with the slight drawback of five cuts a day, rather 
 than do anything that might hasten his transfer to the weary toil 
 and the heavy whip thong of a Hansom cab. 
 
 bli. — Most boys learn to use the whip with moderate skill but 
 
^40 SKINS. 
 
 girls do not, so that ladies are often laughably helpless with a whip, 
 and perhaps pride thineselves on being so, but a lady intending 
 to drive should practice using the whip on some inanimate object, 
 so far as to be able to rely on applying it on the right place, and 
 with the right degree of force. In judging of the degree of 
 severity with which the whip should be used, it is necessary to 
 consider, not only the temperament of the horse, but also the 
 state of his coat. A coarse skinned, low bred horse, ill fed and 
 little sheltered with his thick winter coat on could hardly be made 
 to feel a light gig whip, whilst a fine skinned thoroughbred, with 
 its short summer coat, would wheal almost as easily as a child's 
 naked skin. No lady's horse should require as much whip as to 
 make it necessary that she should keep the whip in hand, as she 
 will not pride herself on the attitudes of her whip, but will prefer 
 leaving it in the socket as much as possible, with both hands free 
 for the reins when necessary. 
 
 ,575. — In any long team where distant leaders have to be 
 reached with a whip, a considerable amount of real skill is 
 demanded, which should be acquired before attempting to drive, as 
 it is really dangerous to sit within reach of a long thonged whip 
 in the hands of a bungler, and the wheelers' heads are also in 
 jeopardy. The box of the coach, when no horses are in it, will 
 be the best place to practice this, as you must learn to reach 
 your leaders without endangering your passengers, and to touch 
 free animals up without cutting them up. There is considerable 
 difficulty in using any long thonged whip without striking too 
 severely with it. It is also necessary to learn to carry the whip 
 gracefully, without thinking about it, with the end of the thong 
 wound round the handle, so that the doubled thong can be used 
 on the wheelers, or the whole length of the whip set free with 
 one haiTbd, to reach the leaders. It will too be found to require no 
 small care and skill to prevent getting such a whip hitched in 
 some part of the harness. This is, however, a part of a driver's 
 education that is not often neglected, as boys are often too fond 
 of a whip, and drivers are far too prone to display their skill with 
 it, at the expense of horses that require no such exhibition. 
 
 For driving slow heavy horses see breaking to slow draft 
 (404). 
 
COMMON NAMES FOR VARIOUS PARTS OF THE HORSE. 
 
 1 Hoof 
 
 2 Pastern 
 
 3 Fetlock Joint 
 
 4 Shank 
 
 5 Knee 
 C Arm 
 
 7 Breast 
 
 8 Point of Shoulder 
 
 9 Lower Jaw 
 
 10 Muzzle 
 
 11 Face 
 
 12 Forehead 
 
 13 Poll 
 
 14 Crest 
 
 15 Withers 
 
 IG Back 
 
 17 Loins 
 
 18 Hip 
 
 19 Croup 
 
 20 Quarter 
 
 21 Thigh or Gaskin 
 
 22 Hamstrings 
 
 23 Hock 
 
 24 Back Sinews 
 
 25 Sheath 
 2G Flank 
 
 27 (lirth 
 
 28 Elbow 
 
 Q 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SELECTING A HORSE. 
 
 57G. — There is such a vast difference in horses, both 
 constitutionally, and educationally, that a proper selection is an 
 important and often a very difficult business. 
 
 SIZE. 
 
 577. — AVhere weight has to be moved the horse should be 
 large and heavy in proportion to it. Height does not give power 
 but weight does, and a horse cannot move great weights without 
 it. The little pair of horses we so often see at plough, must 
 necessitate either shallow ploughing or Hght land, and we have 
 far more faith in the crop of wheat or beans to follow, where we 
 see a pair of heavy Shire horses putting out all their strength, 
 on a single farrow, or four of them on a double furrow. The 
 light horses will travel over the soft ground at harrow better 
 than the heavy ones, but where a deep furrow of tenacious clay has 
 to be turned over we must have the weight to do it. 
 
 578. — In horses, as in most other things, the utmost quality 
 never goes with the utmost size ; seventeen hands can seldom 
 gallop away from fifteen, and it is almost always a mistake to 
 select a large horse for fast work. Five feet two inches high, 
 and a thousand pounds weight, is the size beyond which you 
 need never go where speed is a principal object. When the 
 journeys are long, and the load light, a still smaller horse will be 
 better. Fashion and appearances may demand height or size, 
 but five feet high is all you want for daily hard work. 
 
 COLOUR 
 
 579.— Is more a matter of taste than anything else. There 
 
COLOUR. 243 
 
 is very little in all the overdrawn theories that have been worked 
 up, and all the violent assertions that have been made as to the 
 connection between colour, temper, and usefulness. The English, 
 French, and American theories contradict each other, and 
 wherever two theories on this subject have agreed they are 
 evidently copies. You can find either irritable or soft horses of 
 any colour. Chestnuts are often hot tempered ; greys are often 
 very docile. There are more greys amongst the illused horses in 
 Paris than amongst the better used horses in London, and they 
 are getting more numerous in America. They are banished from 
 the East Indian artillery. They have not been successful on the 
 racecourse, and are little favoured there, but this is easily 
 accounted for. No horse has been very successful on the race- 
 course for many years past that does not carry down more or less 
 of the blood of the once despised Godolphin Arabian, and as he 
 was a dark bay, they were not likely to carry his blood under a 
 grey skiu. So that we need not wonder that more than half the 
 ■winners of the Derby and St. Leger have carried the same colour 
 as the ancestor to which they owe their speed. As those favourite 
 sires, Childers and Eclipse, were chestnuts, it is natural that that 
 colour should stand next to the bay in the number of winners 
 that have carried it, as well as the white nose and pasterns of the 
 Newmarket flyer. Greys are troublesome to keep clean, and as 
 they change their shade of colour twice a year, and get lighter 
 in an uncertain degree as they get older, it is impossible to keep 
 them matched. Browns, dark bays, and dark chestnuts, with 
 little or no white about then;i, are on tlie whole the best colours. 
 There is little or nothing in the old theory that the white leg 
 was always the weak leg, but it is the leg that will always want 
 most cleaning, and then will not look so well as a black leg. 
 White faces belong to many of our very best horses, but they 
 would look much better without them, and where such undoubted 
 quality can be got without theui, it is a pity that tht-y are not 
 bred out. 
 
 teiiperAmkni. 
 580. - In any animal wanted for work temperament is a 
 
244 TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 very important consideration. Phrenologists, physiognomists, and 
 physiologists, usually speak of four temperaments : the nervous, 
 fibrous, sanguine, and lymphatic. But the way that these terms 
 have been generally used has tended rather to confuse than to 
 simplify the ideas of most persons on the subject of temperaments, 
 as they are too often referred to, and understood, as if each 
 temperament was something distinct in itself, and not merely a 
 name given to each individual's estimate of the diflFerent propor- 
 tions in the combination of the same elements. To speak of 
 pure temperaments, or even of good and bad temperaments, is 
 misleading. All that can be meant by such terms is a desirable 
 or undesirable combination or preponderance of nerves, or blood 
 vessels, in the structure of the animal tissues. 
 
 581. — What we call lean meat, is a collection of blood 
 vessels, fibres, and nerves, and the temperament of an animal 
 depends upon the proportion of each distributed through his 
 muscles, and upon the strength of the controlling or supplying 
 power with which they are connected. Thus, if there is a more 
 than usually large proportion of nerves, and they are connected 
 with an active brain, we have the restless, excitable, nervous 
 temperament. If, on the contrary, the blood vessels, or feeding 
 tubes predominate, and they are connected with very capacious 
 digestive organs, we have the fattening, sleeping, easy-going, 
 lymphatic temperament. If the nerves and blood vessels are 
 each in moderate proportion, and the fibres are large, coarse, hard 
 and strong, with the nerves of motion more potent than the 
 nerves of sensation, we have the useful, active, enduring, fibrous 
 temperament. The term sanguine temperament is applied to any 
 due combination of nerves, blood vessels, and fibres, connected 
 with heart and lungs, large and good enough to highly purify a 
 large quantity of blood. 
 
 582. — Thus we see that no horse's temperament can be too 
 sanguine or too fibrous, but itmay be too nervous or too lymphatic. 
 In other words you want, in every horse, large and good heart 
 and lungs, and well developed, strong, enduring muscles ; but 
 you want a totally difterent degree of nervousness in the race 
 horse to what you could tolerate in the dray horse. In the one 
 
ALL GOOD IN TIIEIB. TURN. 245 
 
 you want a horse that will nearly kill himself in two minutes, 
 rather than be overtaken ; in the other you want a horse to 
 contentedly strut about the streets of a city, with a glossy coat, 
 a great load of beef, and allowing nothing to move him from the 
 even tenor of his way. You cannot speak even of either of these 
 extremes as good or bad. Both are good in their place. 
 
 583. — The large heart and lungs of the sanguine tempera- 
 ment must be present in every successful racer, but every race 
 horse must also be highly nervous and highly fibrous. The 
 different proportions of these two temperaments, in different race 
 horses, often quite imperceptible to the eye, is what principally 
 decides the distance at which they are best. If only duly nervous 
 the horse will be a long stayer, if excessively nervous he will 
 exhaust his best powers in the first half mile. 
 
 584. — The highly nervous horse can never be mistaken. 
 Every portion of the body, and every motion will give some 
 indication of that temperament. The skin will be thin and 
 sensitive, the bones small, the pulse quick, and easily affected by 
 any thing done to, or near the horse. The thin lips will 
 be highly compressed, the prominent eye will catch everything 
 that moves, either far or near, and the small, thin, trans- 
 parent ear will be in frequent quick motion. The walk 
 will incline to a dance, and the gallop to a rapid succession of 
 springs. 
 
 585. — The fibrous temperament will be distinguished by a 
 calmer activity, by a fuller development of well packed and well 
 defined muscles, by somewhat larger bones and sinews, but still 
 hard, clean, and wiry. The lips will be equally compressed, the 
 eye more calm, the ear almost equally quick in its movements, 
 but kept longer in one direction. The skin rather thin but not 
 so sensitive ; the movements rapid, free, fearless, and prodigal of 
 force ; the walk more progressive and less dancing, and the 
 gallop a long, fearless, forcible stride. 
 
 586. — The lips will give the first indication of a very 
 lymphatic temperament. They will hang loose, be soft and 
 flabby, and not closely compressed, the lower lip often hanging 
 below the upper one. The ears will be large and thick, and slow 
 
246 THE HEAET AND LUNGS. 
 
 in their movements, and often held long witliout motion. The 
 mnscles soft and flat, not standing out in defined rolls as in the 
 fibrous temperament. The sinews less wiry. The head dropped 
 low, the jaws large, the forehead narrow, the eyes not prominent 
 but mild, the temper easy. The old fashioned gummy legs, 
 narrow and shallow chest, and deep belly is now rarely seen. 
 
 587. — The very nervous temperament is fast and showy, fit 
 for short excited exertion, careful management, and gentle usage, 
 but no nervous man or woman should venture on a very nervous 
 horse. Such horses get sobered down with age, hard work, and 
 bulky food, and in good hands, often make very useful old horses. 
 In bad hands they suffer intensely, and sometimes suffer long, 
 but often wear out early, or break down with some desperate 
 effort. 
 
 588. — The fibrous, temperament is free, strong, and enduring, 
 working with ease and pleasure, requires no excessive care, and is 
 little prone to disable itself with fat. It is emphatically the 
 useful temperament in a horse, and should be selected by all who 
 want a horse for useful steady work, day after day. 
 
 589. — The lymphatic is the easy going temperament. In 
 great excess it is soft and incapable, but in moderation it is the 
 temperament to endure excessively indulgent, excessively exciting, 
 or excessively cruel treatment. Such a horse will give satisfaction 
 to an indulgent owner, who wants him to display a glossy coat, 
 and to behave quietly without any exhausting work. He can be 
 trusted to move railway waggons amongst passing trains. He 
 takes the cruel curb chain, the torturing bearing rein, the rough 
 voice, the wanton blow, or the brutal kick, without affecting his 
 appetite or his spirits. 
 
 HEART AND LUNGS. 
 
 590.— For the sanguine temperament wanted in every horse, 
 the heart and lungs must be large and good. Of these we can 
 judge something by the frame that contains them. If the chest 
 is small and circular there will not be room for enough heart and 
 lung power. If it is large and circular there will be room for 
 large heart and lungs, but still the lungs will only be able to work 
 
THK HEAD, 247 
 
 by pressing on the other vital organs, as a circular chest will resist 
 all efforts to expand it. If the chest is deep and capacious it can 
 expand and contract with every breath, and can thus meet any 
 extraordinary demands made upon it, provided the lungs are 
 healthy and good and the heart, air passages, and supplying pipe, 
 are all duly proportioned to them. But all these ifs and buts can 
 only be securely decided by a trial of the horse's wind power, 
 under severe exertion. We cannot look inside, and if fifty things 
 are right and one wrong, that one will put its limit on the horse's 
 breathing power, and consequently on his capacity for exertion. 
 
 THK HEAD 
 
 591.- — Has very much to do with the beauty of the horse, 
 and correctly read, it no doubt indicates his disposition, but as we 
 cannot see the quality, or convolutions, or proportions of the 
 brain, \^e are quite as often deceived as with the human head. We 
 have seen too that good or bad education has even more to do 
 with fixing the disposition and usefulness of a horse than it has 
 with that of a man. In the cart horse, we like rather a narrow 
 forehead, a large jaw, and we don't object to the right sort of 
 Roman nose. Every one who has seen much of cart horses, must 
 have noticed how very often the ugliest head in the stable has 
 belonged to the very best horse. In the horse for fast work, 
 although there must be large elastic nostrils, we like a rather 
 small muzzle, with the head expanding to a wide forehead between 
 the eyes, narrowing in again as it approaches the ears. But in 
 every description of horse we like the brain case — that is the 
 space between the eyes and ears — to be decidedly rounding and 
 not flat. This indicates a more docile and teachable disposition. 
 
 592. — The upper part of the jaw bones should be deep, with 
 a wide space between them. The eye rather prominent, without 
 displaying much white, and decidedly mild. The ears should be 
 stout at the base and rather small at the points. Lively, yet 
 patiently listening, with an inquiring appearance. We like to see 
 one ear only turned to catch a sound from behind, as it indicates 
 attention without suspicion, activity without alarm. 
 
 593. — The way the head sets on the neck is of much import- 
 
248 THE NECK, SrRIXGS, AND LEVEES. 
 
 auce, as a point of beauty and utility. The front face should not 
 bend down quite enough to be square with the top of the neck, 
 but always quite enough to ensure that the reins will draw the 
 bit on to the horse's lower jaw, and not merely draw his 
 lips U}) to his grinders. Too sudden a bend is not desirable, and 
 too much bend of any kind is supposed to interfere with the 
 utmost breathing power in the racer. Too little bend spoils the 
 mouth, and is most unsightly. For general purposes we would 
 rather have two much than too little. 
 
 THE NECK 
 
 59-i. — Should be small where it joins the head, and more 
 muscular near the shoulder ; should be much more muscular in 
 the draft, than in the saddle horse. As in most other animals 
 too thin a neck indicates want of constitution, but in a saddle 
 horse it is a bad place to carry unnecessary weight. Take care 
 that the wind pipe is large enough. A graceful curve of the neck 
 adds much to the beauty of any horse. 
 
 THE SPRINGS. 
 
 595. — The horse's body is placed on his legs by a system of 
 well arranged springs. Connected with each leg there are six 
 main joints between the back and the hoof, all of which, except 
 the knees, are more or less sloping or angular, so as to form most 
 eflFectual springs, breaking the jar with which his rapid motions 
 would otherwise bring his great weight to the ground. All these 
 joints move in a straight line from fore to aft, so that all the 
 sustaining ligaments require to be strong, and widely placed in 
 that direction. For this reason a strong capable leg is one that 
 is deep from front to back, and the size and quality of the 
 sustaining muscles and sinews, is of far more consequence in 
 estimating, even his standing or merely supporting strength, 
 than the size of his well protected bones. 
 
 THE LEVERS. 
 
 596. — Where weight, material, or lifting power has to be 
 economized, a mechanic will always make his levers light at their 
 
THE SHOULDER. 249 
 
 fast moving end, and strong at tlieir slow or powerful end. Each 
 of the four supports of the horse's body is a lever, so arranged 
 as to give speed to his feet at the expense of power, so that in 
 judging of the horse's power or speed, we must estimate it, not 
 by the small end of the lever at the shanks, but by the quantity 
 and quality of the muscles, arranged on the loins, the haunches 
 and the shoulders. The direction of each bone in these complicated 
 supports, and the angle at which they lie to each other, is a 
 matter of much consequence in estimating the capabilities and 
 pleasantness of the horse, but to go fully into this subject would 
 require a very long chapter on anatomy, which we wish to avoid, 
 as we know that such chapters are not often read. 
 
 THE SirOULDER. 
 
 597. — The top bone in the structure of the front supports of 
 the horse is the scapula, blade bone, shoulder blade, or upper 
 shoulder bone. Unlike the topmost bones in the hinder supports, 
 it does not touch the spine, though it reaches above the spinal 
 column, and is not attached to it, except by the muscles that are 
 attached to both. It is strongly embedded in large muscles, and 
 reaches from the point of the shoulder to nearly the top of the 
 wither. Its height, its length, and above all the angle at which it 
 slopes back as it rises, are very important features in considering 
 the value of a horse. The more it slopes back the more advan- 
 tageously it will be connected, both with the assisting muscles 
 of the back and loins, and with the resisting weight that it has 
 to sustain and move through the lower shoulder bone, so that with 
 sufficient slope, the fore legs will be lifted farther and more 
 easily, the saddle will be carried farther back, and the fore legs 
 will be set on further forward. Its back slope thus contributes 
 in several different ways to the ease and safety of the rider, 
 and to the moving power and endurance of the horse. 
 
 5'J8. — For the mere plough horse, or for any horse for slow 
 draft, where fast, graceful, and safe action is not demanded, an 
 upright shoulder does very well, perha[)S better than any other, 
 as a horse so formed|must have heavy shoulder muscles to com- 
 pensate for the disadvantage at which he uses them. Such heavy 
 
250 THE AEM. 
 
 muscular shoulders are well suited to the collar. A horse so 
 formed, naturally leans forward, and his legs being far under his 
 body and sloping back are in the right position for a long, 
 leaning pull. As a matter of fact we find that horses so formed 
 do stand constant, heavy, slow pulling remarkably well. But 
 even in the dray horse, where much depends upon safe action, 
 the shoulder must not be too upright. The leaning, clumsy, 
 tumble down horse, however good a slave he may be for certain 
 purposes, is never a horse to coir.mand a high price. 
 
 509. — This thin, flat, long blade bone, covered with powerful 
 muscles, becomes suddenly round and thick at its base, where it 
 is connected at a considerable angle with ihe round, short, strong, 
 lower shoulder bone. This bone slopes down and baok to the top 
 of the arm, and to the end of the elbow. 
 
 600. — The elbow is a projection forward at the top of the 
 fore leg, by a small bone, obliquely attached to the back of the 
 bone of the arm. In the young horse, this small bone is joined 
 on to the arm by grissle, but in the old horse the junction is 
 hardened to bone. It is easy to understand that the more this 
 small, oblique bone projects, forming a deep elbow, the more 
 advantageously the large muscles attached to the shoulder bones 
 will be able to act on the fore leg, and the more securely and 
 effectually the leg can be thrown forward and recovered again. 
 It will be evident too that the perfectly straight direction of the 
 elbow, from front to back, is a point of great importance, as any 
 deviation from the straight line of action there must greatly 
 lessen the effective power, and twist the leg in its movements, 
 causing the action to be unsightly and unsafe. 
 
 THE ARM. 
 
 601. — The lower shoulder bone is socketed into the long 
 upright bone between the shoulder and the knee, which we call 
 the arm. Where great speed is requii-ed, this arm bone should 
 be long in proportion to the shank bone below it. No horse 
 can be safe, strong, and enduring, unless the upper portion of 
 this bone exhibits a full supply of well developed muscles. 
 Whether you want power, speed, safety, or endurance, you cannot 
 
THE KNEE. 251 
 
 have it without large, well placed muscles where the fore leg 
 joins the shoulder. The fore leg for speed can hardly be too 
 light at the bottom, but it is never too heavy at the top. There 
 are no muscles below the knee. Not an ounce of superfluous 
 weight is permitted where it would have to be lifted at such a 
 great mechanical disadvantage, so that the muscles on the arm 
 have not only to lift and carry the leg on, but to work every 
 joint below the knee by a beautiful system of polished, well 
 oiled pullies, and smooth strong cords. No strength elsewhere 
 can compensate for weakness in the muscles of the arm. 
 
 THE KNEE 
 
 602. — Of the horse is no common joint. It is, in fact, not 
 one joint but three. As it is the only joint in the body in which 
 one bone receives the weight of the body from another bone, in a 
 perpendicular direction, it is furnished with the most extra- 
 ordinary precautions, to prevent any injurious concussion. 
 Between the lower end of the arm bone, and the upper ends of 
 the shank bone, and its two small bony attachments, six small 
 fiat bones are interposed in two layers, each bone being deeply 
 covered with elastic cartilage. These are connected together by 
 very strong ligaments, so contrived as to hold between each layer 
 of polished elastic cartilage a supply of oil, sufficient not only 
 to lubricate, but also to soften in the most effectual manner, any 
 otherwise injurious concussion. 
 
 603. — The knee should be somewhat large compared with 
 the bones above and below it. A broad knee spreads the con- 
 cussion over a large surface, offers a more secure attachment for 
 muscles above, and more advantageously directs the sinews 
 below it. When at rest the knee should retain its straight line, 
 without a bend in any direction. Bending or knuckling forward 
 is often the result of excessively fast work. It somewhat lessens 
 the safety of the horse, and may be expected to grow worse with 
 continued work. It is often seen in exceedingly good horses, 
 and where the arm muscles are very strong, and the action good, 
 it may be long before it produces any bad repults. The least 
 bend in the opposite direction will quite disqualify the horse for 
 
252 THE SHANK AND PASTERN. 
 
 very fast work, as it puts an injurious strain and friction on the 
 back sinews. No trainer would attempt to train a horse with 
 such a defect. 
 
 THE SHANK. 
 
 604. — Below the knee, we have the parts of the horse's 
 structure most liable to injury from fast work. We have seen 
 that for mechanical reasons, nature could not be prodigal with 
 material here, whilst the accumulated speed increases the danger, 
 both from strain and concussion. No matter what you hear to 
 the contrary, you may take it for granted that under all 
 ordinary conditions, when your horse is lame, he is lame from 
 some defect below the knee. He will not go lame because his 
 bones are too small, but he may go lame because his back sinews 
 are either too small, or not of sufficiently good quality, or are too 
 closely tied in to the bone, so as to work at a disadvantage and with 
 too much friction. You should therefore seek large sinews, 
 standing well back from the bone, and feel that they are perfectly 
 smooth and hard, with no gummy or soft deposit about them. 
 Have nothing to do with them if they have been fired or blistered- 
 They may be none the worse, and will certainly be none the better 
 for the operation, but it will prove to you that they have failed, 
 and will therefore probably fail again. 
 
 PASTERN. 
 
 G05. — In the short space below the shank bone, and above" 
 the hoof, there are no less* than three joints, all more or less out 
 of the perpendicular, and consequently throwing more or less of 
 the weight of the horse on to the strong, though small ligaments 
 that surround them. If the short bones between these joints 
 are too short, or too upright, the horse will stand slow, heavy 
 work well, but will be rough, and may break down at fast work 
 from too much concussion. If they are very oblique, and the 
 bones long, the action will be springy and pleasant, but great strain 
 will come on the ligaments that sustain the weight in that direc- 
 tion, and unless very good they will fail. It is obvious that a 
 medium length and slope is best here, and that the shorter the 
 
THE FOOT. 253 
 
 bones, and the stronger the ligaments, the more they may slope, 
 and the more they will require to slope, to avoid extreme 
 concussion. 
 
 FOOT. 
 
 606. — Below all these springs nature has yet provided 
 another important buffer, in the elastic frog and foot, which 
 rarely fail to preserve all the rest, when not destroyed by bad 
 shoeing. Of these we have treated fully in the Chapter on 
 Shoeing. 
 
 607. — The direction in which the foot meets the ground, 
 is a matter of great importance in the selection of a horse. If 
 the foot is thrown well forward, and the heel comes first to the 
 ground, he will not be likely to stumble or fall. If the toe comes 
 first he must stumble, and is never safe. The sloping shoulder 
 and the muscular arm will tell you what the horse will probal)ly 
 do in the way of safe action, but the forward, well placed foot 
 tells you what he actually does do, and gives you an unanswerable 
 proof that the muscles above cannot be far wrong. 
 
 608. — Cutting, brushing, or striking one leg with the foot 
 of the other is a consequence of some defective 'formation. It is 
 a troublesome and unsightly defect in a horse, more often seen, 
 and more tolerated in the hind than in the fore legs. It can 
 often be prevented by shoeing with tips only, but in a few cases 
 it is necessary to protect with leather in some shape. In avoiding 
 this defect, don't choose a horse that goes to the other extreme. 
 Cutting horses are often very pleasant, straight goers, much 
 more so than horses whose legs are set too wide apart. As they 
 do not change the centre of gravity with every step, they are not 
 obliged to roll from side to side to preserve their balance as a 
 wide stepping man or horse must always do. 
 
 The straddling gait of the American trotters, to enable the 
 hind legs to pass the fore ones, may be necessary for a racing 
 trot, but is not necessary for any useful pace, and is a weakness 
 and deformity. 
 
 HIND LEGS. 
 
 609. — Nearly all that wo have said about the fore leg applies 
 
254 HIND QUARTERS. 
 
 to the more powerful hind leg. In these the six joints are all 
 springs, as the hind shank receives the weight from the thigh 
 bone a good deal out of the perpendicular. The hock joint is 
 quite as important as the knee, is even more complicated in its 
 structure, and far more liable to be strained. It is therefore very 
 important that the hock should be deep and projecting, and 
 perfectly straight in the line of action, as this gives an important 
 mechanical advantage, and keeps the tendons free of friction on 
 the bones. Although the hind legs do not support so much weight as 
 the fore ones, and any defect in them is not so dangerous to the 
 rider, they are the propellers that send the whole body along, 
 and in a horse for heavy draft, or racing of any kind, they are 
 even more important than the sustaining fore legs. 
 
 HIND QUARTERS. 
 
 GIO. — In judging of the power of the hind quarters look for 
 enormous strength at the top. Begin at the loins and let every- 
 thing gradually taper to lightness at the other end of the lever. 
 Look for consistency in this descent. The weakest link of a 
 chain is the measure of its strength. The weight of a hundred 
 strong links will only help to break it, if they are connected by 
 one weak one. Thei-e is no use in a horse being weighted with 
 powerful muscles in twenty places, if there is some weak point 
 that will give way when the strong muscles are put in force. 
 Never forget which end of the lever it is that vou want stronsr 
 and which you want light. Never expect a horse to be either fast 
 or strong if his loins are weak, nor expect him to be weak 
 because his shank bones are light. 
 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 INDICATIONS OF AGE. 
 
 611. — The age of a horse can be estimated with much 
 accuracy from the appearance of his teeth. From two months to 
 thirty years old the teeth undergo gradual changes that enable 
 us to judge of his age. Few persons are willing to give as much 
 accurate attention to this subject, as would be required to read the 
 age of a horse through a range of 30 years. AVe will therefore 
 only explain a few of the most obvious and important changes 
 that enable us to judge of his age daring the most valuable and 
 important period of his life. 
 
 G12. — The mature horse has three kinds of teeth. Twelve 
 front teeth called nippers, adapted to cut his grass. Four canine 
 teeth, called tusks, and twenty-four large, strong teeth, called 
 grinders. AYe shall not farther refer to the grinders as they are 
 not sufficiently visible to be convenient for our present object. 
 To prevent confusion we will take only the most easily observed, or 
 lower jaw, for our guide during the first seven years. 
 
 G13. — At about a week old two sharp, cutting nippers appear 
 in the centre of the front of that jaw. At about six weeks old 
 there are four, and at about eight mouths old there are six. When 
 these teeth first appear they have sharp, raised front edges, with 
 quite a hole in the centre. These edges soon wear off leaving 
 the top of the tooth smooth and level. 
 
 G14. — At about two and a half years old, the two centre 
 nippers loose their hold of the jaw, shrink, and are forced out by 
 two new teeth, larger, more fluted, and not so white as the colt's 
 first teeth. At about three and a half years old there will be four 
 of these yellow, fluted, strong teeth, and at four and a half 
 there will be six. 
 
256 TEKTH. 
 
 615, — Soon after four years old a tusk, or round pointed 
 tooth, will be coming through the gums, at some distinct 
 distance behind the nippers. These do not often appear in the 
 mare, 
 
 616. — At five years old the six nippers will be complete, and 
 nearly level. The centre ones nearly smooth on the top, but 
 the outside ones with depressed, dark centres, and high, sharp, 
 outside edges. 
 
 617. — These sharp edges on the outside, with holes in the 
 centre of the teeth, will wear out fast, so that at six years old 
 they will be gone from the two centre nippers, and nearly gone 
 from the next pair. 
 
 618. — At seven years old all the nippers in the lower jaw 
 will be smooth and level on the top, or perhaps a slight depression 
 in the outside pair only. 
 
 619. — We will now leave the lower jaw, and consult the top 
 one, because here the teeth do not wear so fast as in the moving- 
 lower jaw, so that at seven years old there are often marks and 
 depressions left in four of the upper nippers ; and at eight years 
 old the two outside ones may still l)e expected to carry a small 
 hole and distinct mark. 
 
 620. — After this we must be guided by a slower and less 
 definite change, that is always goiug on with the horse's teeth. 
 "When the nippers first appear they are wide across the mouth, 
 and narrow from back to front. Bat they continually increase in 
 thickness in the latter direction, so as to entirely alter their shape, 
 and eventually to reverse the position of the long and short 
 sides. 
 
 At about fourteen years old they will be as thick in one 
 direction as in the other, and at twice that age they will be 
 nearly double the length, from front to back that they are across 
 the mouth. 
 
 (521. — There is a constant alteration going on with the 
 tusks, although it is not so regular and definite as the early 
 changes in the nippers. 
 
 When the horse is five years old, the tusk is sharp at the 
 point, round on the outside, and quite concave on the inside, 
 
8 YEARS OLD. 
 
 5 VEARQ OLD. 
 
6 YEARS OLD. 
 
 ? YEARS OLD. 
 
8 YEARS OLD. 
 
 10 YEARS OLD. 
 
15 VEAR8 OLD. 
 
 i«Pi%:^ 
 
 at YEARS OLD. 
 
 89 YEARS OLD. 
 
UNCERTAINTIES. 257 
 
 with distinct edges that may be felt with the finger on the inside. 
 This gradually grows flat, and then rounding, so that at ten 
 years old the inside is nearly as rounding as the outside. Tlie 
 point too is always growing less sharp, so that at ten years it is 
 blunt, at fifteen years it is quite rounded off, and at twenty it is 
 flat on the top. 
 
 622. — In some horses the age between twelve and twenty can 
 be judged with much accuracy, by a line or very narrow mark or 
 groove that makes its appearance on the centre of the corner 
 top nippers, at about eleven years of age. By looking closely at 
 the front of the teeth you will see a straight narrow line growing 
 down from the gums. This will grow a little longer every year, 
 until at about twenty years of age, it will be all the way down 
 the tooth. When half way down you would therefore reckon 
 the horse to be fifteen or sixteen years old, and so on, as the line 
 creeps down from top to bottom. 
 
 This line is not found in all horses and is not a very reliable 
 criterion though often useful. Indeed, each of the indications 
 of age is liable to fail in exceptional cases, and hence the necessity 
 of knowing and observing more than one, and correcting them 
 bv each other. 
 
 G23. — There are some kinds of horses in which the bones 
 and teeth are harder than in others, and the marks do not wear 
 out so fast, but the greatest deviation in wearing is caused 
 by the peculiar position or direction that the teeth sometimes 
 take. In some horses the nippers project so much, that they do 
 not wear down in the usual form. In such cases the marks will 
 not wear out for several years later than they should do, but the 
 teeth will be unnaturally long, and such long projecting teeth 
 never belong to a young horse. The age of such horses may be 
 very roughly estimated by the length of the teeth. At five years 
 old a natural nipper will stand about three quarters of an inch 
 above the gums, and as it grows about a twelfth of an inch every 
 year, if it does not wear down, such a horse at seventeen years old 
 would have projecting teeth an inch and three quarters above 
 the gums. 
 
 R 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PUECHASIXG A KORSE. 
 
 ()24. — Franklin has told us that "pride costs us more than 
 hunger, thirst, and cold ;" and pride in horse lore, though a very 
 common is a very expensive article. There are many young men 
 who think that they can go into a horse fair and cope with 
 all the tricksters and sharpers whose special business it is to take 
 advantage of such foolish conceit, and to make a horse appear 
 exactly what he is not. Such greenhorns not only lose their own 
 money but they foster cruel men and cruel practices, which 
 would be less common if less successful. jMen whose special 
 business it is to cope with the lowest horse dealers, who know all 
 their tricks, both ancient and modern, and whose eyes are alive 
 to every defect that the horse is subject to, are liable to be taken 
 in, and calculate on a certain per centage for that contingency, 
 but the inexperienced man has no chance whatever of escaping 
 deception, and only shows his want of judgment in exj)ecting to 
 do so. 
 
 625. — There are several reasonable ways of going to work to 
 get a horse. Perhaps the most' simple and convenient way 
 generally is to go to a dealer, of character and responsibility, and 
 tell him exactly what you want. Don't ask him for a perfect 
 horse. You won't get that. Tell him exactly what virtues you 
 must have, and what defects you can put up with, and the lower 
 the price you expect to give, the more defects you must be pre- 
 pared for. You perhaps want a horse at a low price that will be 
 sound, useful, safe, and quiet, and can be left standing alone. 
 Then you must lie prepared to dispense with good looks, great 
 speed, and showy action, and most likely, with that freeness that 
 would require no whip, as these are expensive things, and 
 
A month's trial. 259 
 
 are not often combined with the quahtiesyou must have. If on 
 the other hand you want a cheap, free, fast horse, for regular 
 hard work in good hands, and one that will not fall down, you can 
 get that, but then you must not expect, in the same animal, a 
 horse that will stand like a post as long as you like after a week's 
 rest, that a child may drive alone, and that will ])car putting in 
 with half the harness hitched or with the l)linkers tumbling oft' 
 occasionally. 
 
 Half the disappointments in life result from expecting too 
 much, from seeking incompatible combinations, and from not 
 clearly understanding that defects, either bearable or unbearable, 
 will be found in everv animal. 
 
 C}2C). — Agree with your dealer for a week's trial, and before 
 you finally decide to keep a horse that appears to suit you take 
 liim to a skilful veterinary surgeon, and ascertain if he thinks him 
 sound. 
 
 G27. — AVe have known gentlemen who always purchased 
 their horses from the same dealer, on a month's trial, with the 
 most satisfactory results. Under such an arrangement no dealer 
 would be likely to trouble them with horses that he suspected 
 would not suit them. But on the other hand, a cautious dealer 
 would not trust his horses, for a month, except in hands that he 
 knew would keep and use them sensibly, and would not return 
 them on any frivolous pretence. A person who has not 
 established such a reputation with a dealer, would be better to 
 propose to hire a horse for a month, and to keep him at the end 
 of that period if liked ; but even then he would hardly be trusted 
 with anything but a well worn animal. The dealer should 
 always be readily met with any reasonable precautions he may 
 desire to secure the good treatment of his horse whilst in your 
 hands. 
 
 028. — "Where practicable it is wise to go not to a man who 
 deals only, but to a man who breaks, and still better who breeds 
 the horses he sells. But this would generally imply getting a 
 •very young horse, and there are very many purposes for which a 
 very young inexperienced horse is not desirable. Preference 
 should be given to a horse that is being sold for the first time. 
 
260 DANGERS. 
 
 A really good horse, like a really good servant, seldom passes 
 through many hands. Employers who are fortunate enough to 
 get them, keep them if they can. Horses with some latent 
 defect, vice, or weakness, are frequently in the market, and it is 
 wise to avoid horses that have passed through many hands. Such 
 horses are often sold for defects that yon may not discover in a 
 week, or even a month's trial. For instance some horses do well 
 in the summer and not in the winter. Some have weak digestive 
 organs, that leave them liable to dangerous fits of colic ■ or 
 inflammation. A horse that is all right in low condition 
 with regular hard work, often develops some serious vice after 
 rest and indulgence. On the other hand he may stand light 
 work very well, and break down with hard work. He may be 
 sold because he is known to have come in contact with a 
 glandered horse, or to inherit bUndness, ringbone, or other 
 disease, not suspected from his outward appearance. Or he may 
 have recovered from some disease of the brain to which he will 
 again be liable. 
 
 G29. — Another way to obtain a horse is to buy one that you 
 have had opportunities to know all about, and that you know to 
 be sold for some reasons not connected with unsoundness or vice. 
 Beware of touters here, and do not be influenced by conversations 
 you overhear at an auction, or by the zealous eulogies of recently 
 introduced friends. 
 
 630. — A man who is himself a good horseman, and has 
 regular work that can be done by .a young horse, may buy or get 
 a dealer to buy for him, an unbroken colt, of the stamp he wants, 
 and place it in the hands of a skilful good tempered horse 
 breaker, who should be required to keep it until thoroughly 
 qualified for whatever it has to do. 
 
 In this way a really good, unworn, and unspoiled horse^ 
 with all his work in him, is often got more cheaply than in any 
 other way, but it must always be remembered that a newly 
 broken horse will require to be handled sensibly for at least the 
 first year. 
 
 TRYING. 
 
 631. — When you get a horse in your own hands for trial 
 
WHIPPED BEFOREHAND. 261 
 
 give him if time allows a night's rest, and let him start with his 
 trial fresh and with cold shoulders. Drive him about first with 
 long reins, that will keejD you at sufficient distance from his 
 heels, before you hitch him to any vehicle. Get a rein under 
 his tail and draw on it. Get some one to put a smooth pole 
 between his legs and to rest it gently against his hocks and thighs. 
 This will soon prove what you have to expect from his heels, 
 "without any risk to yourself or the horse. Take him close to a 
 railway train, or any other frightful object you want him to pass. 
 Beat a drum, or fire a gun behind him, and see how far his 
 education in such directions has been carried. 
 
 G32. — Put liim m a vehicle and let on© or both wheels be 
 held before you ask him to start, and notice if he puts his 
 head up or down to do so. Use no whip for awhile, he will then 
 soon show you if he is naturally lazy, and has only been kept 
 going by a dread of severe applications of the whip, chain, or 
 some other torture, as is often the case when you get a lazy 
 horse from a dealer. Like the lady's coachman in Bath they 
 whip them before hand, but often in a far more cruel manner. 
 Jog him about slowly, as that is the pace at which he is most 
 likely to stumble if there is any defect in his action. Drive him 
 towards his own home, if he has one near, and you know it, as 
 you will then see if he has any self-will in turning away from it. 
 
 633. — If you find the disposition will do, you must next try 
 the powers. Get to ascertain the capacity of the lungs. Unless 
 these are sound and capacious the best legs will not long carry 
 him fast. On a good level road, or on an uphill slope, and 
 without much load, either on him, or behind him, get him to 
 trot a mile in five minutes. Then get down and watch his 
 breathing. See if the nostrils easily open quite wide enough for 
 their w^ork. Listen at the windpipe and take care that there is 
 no sign of wheezhig there. Look at the flanks, and see if they 
 are working hard, or if they quiet down as they should do, 
 directly after the horse stops. Especially notice if their working 
 is regular, and with no double spasmodic effort to expel the wind. 
 Any sign of such uncomfortable action should be a fatal objection 
 to any horse, and your trial need proceed no farther. 
 
262 TRYING THE WIND. 
 
 G34, — If all has gone well so far, you should now put his 
 Avind power to a severe test, if he is in good hard working condition, 
 so as to bear it without injury. Trot him two more miles, and 
 finish with a smart gallop up hill. Then get down and watch as 
 before, and you will estimate the wind power of the horse by the 
 quietness of his flanks. A fat, soft fed horse, will not bear so 
 much driving, however sound he may be, and must not be 
 expected to breathe as quietly after exertion as a horse in working 
 condition, but his breathing must be regular. 
 
 635. — If you have taken soft road to try his wind on, take 
 him next to the liardest road that yon can find, and trot him at a 
 steady pace, watching his head to see if he drops it the least bit 
 lower for one leg than the other. If he does there is some- 
 thing wrong. Notice all his actions carefnlly when quiet and 
 quite unexcited in the stable. If he frequently keeps the same 
 fore leg more forward than the other, you may look on that leg 
 with suspicion, as it is often an indication of something coming 
 wrong not yet shown in action. 
 
 036. — Verbal warranties or promises to warrant are utterly 
 worthless, and the most legally worded written warranties, even 
 from the most respectable men, are best avoided. The inter- 
 pretation that may be put on them in a court of law is very 
 uncertain and the amount of evidence that may be brought 
 against you still more so. The amount of successful swearing 
 that some witnesses can accomplish in such cases is truly astonish- 
 ing. No sensible man with his eyes open will go into any 
 transaction that may take him into a court of law, especially in 
 a horse case. 
 
 
CHAPTER XXTII. 
 
 BREEDING. 
 
 G37. — Breeding horses is a very interesting but not often a 
 very profitable occupation. Britons are fond of it, and will 
 practise it whether it pays or not. In the cities of Australia, 
 thousands of well bred light horses have been sold for less than 
 it cost to drive them there, because neither their owners nor 
 their owner's servants, liked to kill them for their hides and 
 tallow, although it would have been far more merciful to have 
 done so. 
 
 The production of such a fine specimen of animal power, 
 usefulness, and beauty, has a fascination about it that influences 
 a great variety of characters. The patriot sees in it a way to 
 benefit his country ; the lover of rural life to multiply and 
 perpetuate his charming pets ; the ambitious to acquire, fame ; 
 the physiologist to establish his theories ; the acquisitive to secure 
 great prices ; the gambler to produce a Flying Childers, an 
 Eclipse, or a Blair Athol. There is an unspeakable charm in 
 breeding and educating your own horse — the horse that under- 
 stands every move of your hand and eye — that never served any 
 one else — in which you never suspect any latent vice or weakness 
 — that is the son of the old mare that served yon so long and so 
 well, or perhaps saved your life by her extraordinary endurance, 
 speed, or sagacity. Who could be so mercenary as. to even ask if 
 such a liorse has cost more than he would fetch at Tattersall's ? 
 
 038. — Breeding such an animal is a subject that has attracted 
 much thought, so that a great deal has been written, and well 
 written about it. We shall not go at much length into it, a? in 
 England it is a business very much confined to a few persons, 
 
2G4: CROSS BREDS. 
 
 and a few localities, and the small number of undoubted rules 
 that are really known on the subject need not take long to 
 explain. 
 
 PURE BLOOD. 
 
 G39. — In breeding any valuable and costly animal the first 
 thing to bear in mind is that no animal transmits its own qualities 
 with anything like certainty to its offspring unless it has 
 inherited those qualities from both parents, and both of these 
 parents have also inherited them through many generations, 
 without the intervention of any ancestor of a very different type. 
 The first cross between two pure bred animals of a different 
 type, can generally be depended on to produce an animal of a 
 certain form and character, sharing the qualities of both parents ; 
 but such cross bred animals have no power to transmit their 
 mixed qualiiies with any certainty to their progeny, or to carry 
 on any characteristics they may themselves possess. Even when 
 crossed again with one of the pure bred animals from which it 
 has derived its existence, it may or may not produce something 
 more consistently like that parent. Even when this has been 
 repeated frequently enough to leave by calculation a very small 
 fraction of one of the original crosses in the blood that small 
 portion often exerts an inflnenne upon some far jemoved 
 descendants out of all proportion to anything that could be 
 expected from, let us say, a thirty-second, or sixty-fourth part of 
 that blood. 
 
 640. — Thus we cannot sit down and calculate by any rule of 
 arithmetic, how little impure blood either parent may possess. All 
 that we certainly know is, that if any recent impure blood is 
 there, it may come out in any descendant, and be exhibited to an 
 extent altogether beyond any such calculations. Nor will the 
 slightly cross bred parent have the desired power to transmit with 
 overpowering force his own qualities to his offspring as an 
 animal long bred from one pure race will often do. Thus to 
 breed any pure race with certainty, you must have good pure 
 bred parents on both sides, and to breed even a cross l)red 
 animal with any probability of success one parent must be known 
 
BREEDING BACK. 2G5 
 
 to possess pure predominating blood, that is sure to assert itself 
 in the progeny. 
 
 REVERSION. 
 
 Oil. — Even with those animals that have for some centuries 
 been bred without crossing, there will be some tendency to reversion, 
 so that none of them will produca fac similes of themselves with 
 the same certainty as the mouse or the lion, or any animal whose 
 original characteristics have not been altered by selection in 
 breeding. 
 
 G42. — By long-continued, careful selection, and artificial 
 feeding and care, the cart horse has been produced as large as 
 possible, and the race horse as fleet as possible, and in both we 
 have selected the temper we preferred, and the form we considered 
 most useful and handsome. The natural consequence is that we 
 must carefully continue to breed from animals selected with the 
 same object, or the cart horse will degenerate in size and form, 
 and the racer in fleetness. Both would gradually return to what 
 the original stock was, from which they have been elevated by 
 selection. 
 
 TRANSMISSION. 
 
 Giij. — Animals that are supposed to have been equally well 
 bred differ extremely in the power of impressing their own 
 likeness on their offspring, so that some horses, and some mares, 
 will breed colts exactly like themselves, and others seem incapable 
 of transmitting any of their own qualities. This can only be 
 proved by results, and the real value of any animal as a parent 
 can only be certainly ascertained by the character of the progeny 
 actually produced. 
 
 Gi4. — Xo animal should be bred from that does not possess 
 the form, size, and qualities you want in the offspring. Xo 
 pedigree, real or fictitious, can compensate for inferiority in the 
 animal itself, but even when you have selected the most perfect 
 animal, and the most satisfactory pedigree, it may after all prove 
 to have little power to transmit its own qualities to its progeny. 
 Some few mares are valued' as brood mares, because they always 
 
2C6 CLOSE RELATIONS. 
 
 breed foals that are the exact image of the father, and do not 
 seem to influence them at all themselves, but a horse that 
 conveys none of its own qualities to his offspring can never be a 
 very satisfactory parent. 
 
 G45. — There are some few horses that transmit their good 
 qualities with great certainty to their offspring, and also confer 
 on many of their decendants, the same overwhelming power of 
 transmission. It is easy to understand that such a power is 
 more likely to be possessed Ijy a horse that has descended, for 
 many generations, through ancestors of exactly the same character 
 as himself, but it is also found to be most potent in animals that 
 have been long bred through exactly the same strain of blood. But 
 with every advantage of breeding some horses do not possess 
 this power, and you can only be sure that they do, by actually 
 seeing it in their progeny. 
 
 G46. — Thus we see that there can be nothing certain about 
 the production of a first-class animal unless we know that both 
 parents are good, their ancestors good, and their reared 
 progeny good. When we know all this there will not be much 
 risk about it. 
 
 647. — Breeding in and in, or from animals closelv related to 
 
 CD ' %, 
 
 each other, is full of danger, and is bad as a rule. It has a 
 tendency to lessen size, hardiness and vigour, and to fix and 
 exaggerate defects and diseases. In the cart horse, where you 
 must have size, hardiness, and a thrifty constitution, and only 
 require a moderate degree of fibrous and nervous capacity, it 
 need never be adopted, as all you want can be better secured 
 without it. It should be avoided for common purposes and by 
 common breeders, but in skilful hands, who know all its dangers 
 and how to avoid them, it answers a purpose, iu breeding 
 pedigree animals, and endowing them with a power of trans- 
 mission that can be achieved ia no other Avay. It is the only 
 way to hand down the undiluted influence of some extraordinary 
 animal, to perpetuate and give a fixed character to rare and 
 desirable peculiarities and qualities, to produce au animal that 
 will not be half one thing and half another, as most animals are, 
 but will be all one thing, all one blood, one strain : one strong 
 predominating tendency of form, quality, or character. 
 
HANDING DOWN. 267 
 
 G48. — It is evident that in the ordinary course of breeding 
 the character of any extraordinary progenitor must soon be lost. 
 His son is only half his blood, and if the other half is entirely 
 foreign, he has probably lost all power of transmission already. 
 His grandson has only a quarter, his great grandson only one 
 eighth, the next remove one sixteenth, the next one thirty second, 
 and so on. The extraordinary blood is lost, and may never be 
 picked np again. 
 
 649. — On the other hand, by breeding in and in we can 
 preserve the rare blood, and the rare qualiMes, and hand them 
 down, little impaired, to millions of descendants. Thus the 
 carefully inbred pedigree shorthorns, have stocked England and 
 her Colonies, with the descendants of that bull that would get 
 fat, though owned by a poor man, and tethered in a public lane, 
 as well as with the result of that one cross with the short legged 
 Scotch cow, which a skilful breeder brought to a fixed type, by 
 judicious in breeding. 
 
 The blood of Eclipse, himself closely inbred from Hautboy, 
 comes down to us through 120 years, almost as pure as it ran in 
 his own veins. 
 
 Messenger's descendants, througli his own daughters, are 
 still the trotting horses of the world, and Justin Morgan's 
 descendant's, through the closest relations, are the strain that 
 have made that wonderful and ill-used piece of horseflesh so long- 
 useful to the Western Continent. 
 
 650. — To get very fixed character, with undoubted power 
 to transmit its qualities, you must often keep working on the 
 same strain of blood, but under general circumstances you need 
 not keep to what are called very close relations. The more 
 closely you keep to one blood, the more vigilant you must be to 
 avoid the defects to which that strain has the strongest tendency, 
 and to shun the slightest symptom of disease. 
 
 651. — The English Thoroughbred is a good specimen of the 
 best kind of inbreeding. Close relations are generally avoided, 
 but the breeder never ooes outside of the blood that has Ions- 
 proved the best, or beyond the few families that have bred 
 together for nearly two centuries. The race being constantly 
 
268 THE STUD BOOK. 
 
 weeded Ijy dropping those that fail in actual performance, and 
 both dams and sires, chosen from those that best endure the test 
 of the severest strain on their health, vigour, and physical 
 power. 
 
 PEDIGEEES. 
 
 652. — There is no more common fraud than the manufacture 
 of fictitious pedigrees. Those in the English stud book have 
 many safeguards, and are, no doubt, generally correct, but not 
 necessarily so. It may suit a dishonest owner to take a good deal 
 of trouble to exchange a foal so as to have the good pedigree 
 attached to an inferior animal that he can sell, and to have the 
 high qualities of a probable winner unsuspected. It is even 
 possible for an owner himself to be mistaken, as will be seen from 
 the following fact. 
 
 653. — One morning we found that two of our mares had 
 foaled in the night in a large paddock. One- of them was a heavy 
 cart mare, and the other a light pony. On going up to them we 
 found the cart mare suckling the pony's foal, and the pony 
 standing guard over an enormous cart foal. We tried to put 
 matters right, but our interference was indignantly resented. 
 Both mares insisted upon the accuracy of their own selection, 
 and that so tenaciously, that when we shut them up separately 
 with their own foals, the pony would never take to hers, and it 
 had to be brought up by hand. Now, if these two mares had 
 been more alike, the mistake would never have been discovered 
 and we should have been as positive as any one else as to the 
 accuracy of our pedigrees. 
 
 COUNTERACTIONS. 
 
 654. — Any defect in one parent should be counteracted by 
 great perfection in the other. If both parents have the same 
 defect it is not only certain to appear in their oifspring, but will, 
 most likely, be much exaggerated. In nine cases out of ten it 
 Avould be better not to breed at all than to accept any serious 
 defect in either parent. Absolutely, perfect form cannot of 
 course be got, but get as near to it as possible, and at any rate 
 
SHUN INFIRMITY MORE THAN AGE. 2G9 
 
 don't tolerate the same defect in both parents, especially if they 
 are related. Perfect health and perfect temper shonld be 
 insisted on. 
 
 655. — For the more complete nourishment of the foal, we 
 should prefer the mare a little more lymphatic, and the horse a 
 little more nervous than we wished the foal to be, but we would 
 never venture on any great extremes either Avay. The more the 
 parents are alike the less risk you will run as to what the foal 
 will be. This similarity in the parents is especially important in 
 breeding pure bred stock where the foal will be used for breeding 
 purposes. 
 
 AGE. 
 
 G56. — So long as robust health and vigour are secured, age 
 is not a matter of much consequence. AVe should prefer the 
 prime of life, between four and sixteen, and if one parent Avas 
 getting rather old we would take care that the other was quite 
 young enough. Bat there is no denying the great fact that 
 some of the best horses in the world have come from two-year- 
 old sires, and others from sires over twenty-five. We would 
 discard no thrifty, healthy animals from breeding, that had 
 proved capable of producing good stock, and should prefer 
 such proved parents to any unproved ones. We should value 
 a horse or mare all the more, for breeding, that retained their 
 own health and vigour to an unusual age, but we should not 
 expect good results from a parent that was infirm from any 
 cause. 
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 G57. — Too much allowance is usually made for the temper 
 of an entire horse. In good hands he should be as gentle and 
 tractable as a gelding, and if he is not he is not fit to breed 
 from. In breeding gambling machines for the turf, temper is 
 unfortunately regarded as a thing of very secondary consequence, 
 but for ordinary purposes it is one of the very first requisites. 
 The English Thoroughbred is naturally deficient in a quality that 
 has not been sought for by liis breeders, just as he would bo 
 
270 INSIST UPON OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUES. 
 
 deficient in safe action, if it were not for the influence brouglit 
 to bear on that qualification by the hunting field. It therefore 
 requires that the breeder who uses the Throughbred horse to 
 produce first-class serviceable animals, should be especially 
 ^r'lacting on these two neglected points, which make such an 
 enormous diiference to the pleasantness and value of any horse 
 but a racer. 
 
 G58. — The Thoroughbred trotting horses of America are 
 better tempers, or they could not be kept so easily at a trot, 
 especially as they are not broken in so young as the English 
 racer, but even with them, low, ugly, unsafe action is preferred, 
 if it helps a horse to do a mile in a second less time than he would 
 do it with good safe action. 
 
 Fortunately in neither case can the desired speed be got without 
 a well directed shoulder blade, so that the mischief is not carried 
 so far as it would otherwise be, and horses with very good, safe 
 action can be selected either from English or American racers — 
 from the '' runners" or the trotters. 
 
 059. — The breeder for general purposes should always be on 
 the look out to correct the defects that are not corrected in 
 racing stock, and should especially remember that a sweet temper 
 is one of the greatest charms that a horse can possess, whatever 
 the present American fashions may say to the contrary it is of 
 infinitely more importance than whether ahorse will require two 
 and a half or three and a half minutes to trot a mile. 
 
 FEEDING. 
 
 GGO. — Xeither the horse nor the mare, kept for breeding 
 purposes, must be unnaturally fed. An undue development of 
 nervous irritability, by highly condensed food, will be fatal to 
 all good results : fatal not only for the time being, but extending 
 indefinitely into the future, as all racing records prove. The 
 powerful nerves must not be kept in a state of excitement, but 
 soothed by cooling, succulent, natural food. If grass fails, give 
 turnips, and use no more corn than will meet the demands of 
 whatever work may be done. You had better underfeed than 
 overfeed the mare, though either would be bad. A horse fattened 
 
MIDWIFERY. 271 
 
 like a pig to liiJe all his defects is fit for nothing. He should get 
 natural food and plenty of exercise. 
 
 GESTATION. 
 
 GGl. — The period of gestation is said to vary from forty to 
 fiftv-two weeks, but we have never known such extreme variations. 
 The usual period is about forty -seven -weeks, Kace horses, for 
 well known reasons, should be foaled in -January, other horses 
 about April. 
 
 GG2. — The brood mare should not Ijc fat, nor unnaturally 
 fed in any wav. She is much better to work in careful hands 
 up to the day of foaling. The work may even be hard, provided 
 that it is regular, and not fitful or violent. The usual recom- 
 mendation, that she should be shut up to rest for the last six 
 weeks is both dangerous and mischievous. 
 
 A mare that is in good health and heart, but with no fat 
 about her, and that has worked up to the hour of foaling, will 
 foal easily, and will suckle her foal far better than a mare that 
 has been left idle and fat. 
 
 PARTURITION. 
 
 CG3. — More than ninety-nine mares out of a liundred get 
 through this trial without any help or any mishap. Fat is a 
 great cause of suffering and danger to any female at this time, 
 but the mare is far less liable to anything wrong than either the 
 cow or the e^\e, but in the few cases in which irregularities do 
 occur, she is more difficult to assist, and suffers more, as her labour 
 throes are so violent. 
 
 G(;4. — Like other domestic animals the foal should come 
 head first, with the fore legs close under it. Never interfere 
 unless long delay, or an evident mis-presentation renders it 
 necessary. If the head is bent round, or if either of the forelegs 
 is out of place, push the fetus back when the labour pains are not 
 on, and quietly introduce the oiled hand to search for it, and put 
 it right. Bring them to their right position, but leave the mare 
 to expel the foal herself if possible. If any assistance is found 
 
272 EAELY LESSOIsS. 
 
 necessary to extract the foal after it has been put in position, it 
 must be given whilst the labour pains are on, and at no other 
 time. 
 
 TREATMENT OF FOAL. 
 
 6G5. — Handle the foal a good deal during the first day, 
 whilst it is not likely to run avray from you, and get both it and 
 its mother to understand that you cau do so without hurting it. 
 If frequently handled during the first few days it will lose all 
 fear of man. It will also save future trouble if at a week old 
 you put a small, soft, leather halter on it, and gently show it that 
 yon can hold it in spite of all its efforts. If this is well done, it 
 will always give you credit for the same relative strength, and 
 believe that you can hold it when you have no power to do so. 
 It will also save all farther trouble about tying up. An hour or 
 two spent in this way will save a great deal of time afterwards, 
 and produce a more gentle reliable animal than any after work 
 will do. 
 
 G6G. — The mare will generally receive the horse some time 
 between the seventh and twelfth day after foaling, and it is 
 important to attend to that, as she does not remain in season 
 long when suckling, and is more safe to conceive at that 
 period than at any other time. 
 
 GG7. — Whilst suckling the mare should do no hard work 
 and if she is taken off her pasture at all, she should be well fed 
 at very short intervals, and the f6al fed with her, and allowed to 
 suck very often. The mare has no large retentive udder like the 
 cow, no capacious stomach to hold a day's supply of food, no power 
 at any time to go long without food safely, so that when she has to 
 eat and digest for two, al) her wants should be very liberally and 
 very frequently supplied. It is in every way better to leave her 
 for the first few months in a good pasture to attend to her own 
 requirements. The foal can be weaned at four months old, but 
 it will tell against its growth and size, so that unless it is a pony 
 that you want to keep small, it is better not weaned until six 
 mouths old. 
 
WEANIXG, 27;> 
 
 0G8. — Before the foal is vreaiied it should be brou<;ht in 
 with the mare occasional]}' and fed. It will soon learn to cat 
 carrots, or a little oats and bran mixed with cliaflF, Get some 
 sliced or pulped Swede turnips mixed with what he will eat, until 
 he has learned to eat them well in any shape. Give it a full feed 
 of turnips and chaff, once or twice a day, during the winter, 
 or until the grass is good, and if you want to u-row a big horse, 
 give it little or no corn until it is three years old. ^Ve know 
 that we have all the great authorities against us here too, Imt we 
 oidy say try it. 
 
 Feed one colt on turnips and another on corn, and see which 
 grows the biggest. Like many other persons we have made many 
 a horse small by feeding him on corn that we could have made 
 big by feeding him on turnips and grass, but we know better 
 now. 
 
 G69. — Of course we are not now speaking in this matter of 
 the colt that must be prepared to race at two years old. Turnips 
 would not do for that, nor could we hope to give any information 
 to the skilled men engaged in that work. ^Ye have had no 
 personal experience in actual racing, and can speak with no 
 authority about it, but wa do know that even the Thoroughbred 
 horse grows finer at four years old when he gets turnips. AVe 
 can quite understand that the foal that is to race at two years 
 old must have his digestive organs contracted in infancy, but we 
 have found that contracted digestive organs, and a contracted 
 frame, have a strong tendency to go together, so that we would 
 not give very concentrated food to a celt that we wanted to grow 
 large. In growing large prize cart horses, we have been very 
 successful, and we owe our success, not to corn, but to turnips 
 and good grass. 
 
 G70. — Young horses should have some shelter, and they are 
 much better to have it without tying up. A shed in their 
 l)addock, entirely open to the South, with a deep manger all 
 along its Xorth side, in which they can get their hay, straw, 
 or roots, makes the best provision for them. A large straw or 
 hay stack will keep a good deal of driving rain off them, or even 
 a high fence, round their paddock, is a great deal better than 
 S 
 
274 
 
 SHELTER. 
 
 nothin.t;-. In tliis matter everything will depend upon the 
 severity of the climate, and Thoroughbreds will want more care 
 than cart colts, but liberty and fresh air, and even some poor 
 winter grass, mixed with their dry food, is of far more consequence 
 ithan most persons suppose. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 DISEASES. 
 
 G71. — The horse is a hardy animal. In a state of nature he is 
 little subject to disease, and even bears unnatural food, unnatural 
 confinement, cruel overdriving, poisonous air, and poisonous drugs^ 
 to an extent that no other equally sensitive animal would do. The 
 patient ox would bear more inaction and confinement, and the om- 
 niverous pig would bear more extremes in liis food, Init no other 
 animal in the world would bear the same amount of overdriving 
 that is so commonly and so cruelly inflicted upon the horse. Each 
 of the many abuses to which he is subjected in domestication, has 
 produced some corresponding disorder, until the catalogue of his 
 diseases is almost as long and painful as that of the human 
 family, and the average life of the domesticated horse is less than 
 one half of that of the wild one. 
 
 G72. — If half the attention devoted to remedies were 
 directed to easy and certain prevention it would be an inestimable 
 boon to the equine race. 
 
 Veterinary students have been even slower than our own 
 qualified medical practitioners in giving up Brown's brandy, 
 bleeding, blisters, and balls. Still they have made some progress, 
 so that whilst Youatt told us that the cruelly exhausted horse in the 
 hunting field might be saved if the rider had skill enough to 
 bleed him on the spot, a great orthodox modern authority tells 
 us that " to bleed him is to kill him." 
 
 Mr. George H. Dadd, M.D., and V.S., and the author of by 
 far the best veterinary works we have seen, says, " The more a 
 man knows of physiology the less faith he has in medicine," and 
 " during nine years practice, in the city of Boston, we have never 
 in a single case of this, or any other form of disease, had recourse 
 
276 HUMILITY OF REAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 to the practice of blood-letting." Another American author, 
 :\Ir. Ptussell Manning, M.I)., V.S., tells us, in 1881, " The day is 
 past for bleeding and purging for every ill that even horseflesh is 
 heir to." 
 
 Dr. Dixon says, " Xature is ever busy by the silent operation 
 of her forces in curing disease. Her medicines are air, warmth, 
 food, water, and sleep. Their use is directed by instinct, and 
 that man is most worthy the name of physician who most reveres 
 her unerring laws." 
 
 673. — Until the martyred Servetus commenced and the 
 honoured Harvey completed the discovery of the circulation 
 of the blood, nothing was really known about the wonderful 
 animal machine, and no one could have been in a position to 
 usefully aid it. Since then, the greatest minds have profoundly 
 searched into the secrets of the noblest work of God, and have 
 learned a very little about how to assist some of the opi'i ations of 
 nature. In so doing they have come to humbly sit at the feet of 
 the Creator of such a marvellous structure^ to put no limit on his 
 power, and to touch his work reverently where they touch it 
 at all. 
 
 We know how deficient a horse book Avill appear to many 
 readers that does not present a long catalogue of those " certain 
 cures " which form such a conspicuous and attractive part of 
 most books on the horse. But we cannot lend ourselves to the 
 perpetuation of error that we long to see corrected both for man 
 and horse, and which we believe to be so mischievous, so costly, 
 and so cruel. 
 
 674. — Xatural and frequent feeding and watering, liberty to 
 move a frame so evidently destined for almost constant action, 
 moderation in exacting demands that are made on his great physical 
 powers, some slight attention to his bodily comfort, and to the skin 
 we can always see and get at, with unlimited access to that rightly 
 mixed air which the Creator has so freely supplied to all his 
 creatures, are the best agents that have yet been discovered either 
 for tlie preservation or the restoration of health. 
 
 G75. — Heat and moisture are the great agents by which 
 nature works in building up or pulling down the animal frame. 
 
WORKING IN THE LIGHT. 277 
 
 Their rapid, equal, and sufficient difFusion carries health and life ; 
 any deficiency, excess, or stagnation, is disease or deatli. The 
 machine for their constant and equal distribution, although so 
 perfect, is so complicated and extremely delicate that no human 
 hand may rashly touch it. So long as all goes well we may 
 cautiously supply food or fuel for it to work on, reverently and 
 intelligently inquiring what materials the machine was made to 
 deal with. 
 
 When disease shows us that we have committed some fault, 
 or that the delicate circulation has been in any degree impaired, 
 the only thing we can do with any hope of success, is to attempt to 
 augment or withdraw, either heat or moisture, and to supply 
 anything likely to facilitate their equal distribution. We may 
 hope to do much good by offering life-giving heat or moisture to 
 the accessible, visible, and manageable skin, which nature has 
 constituted one of the most copious and powerful, as well as the 
 most accessible and accommodating safety-valves in the structure 
 of her most important animal machines. 
 
 676. — Disease is sometimes the result of defective or improper 
 supply. It is more frequently the consequence of defective depor- 
 tation, or carrying away. If the waste of the body is going on 
 all right, the building up will seldom go wrong. Well drained 
 land will bear either a deficiencv or an excess of surface water, 
 better than undrained land will do, and the far more minute, 
 and more delicate drains of the animal structure, are more 
 easily obstructed, and are far more indispensable to animal 
 welfare. The bodily system is often starved, not because no 
 nourishment is supplied, but because the tubes cannot pass it on 
 for want of a clear outlet for the waste products of animal 
 combustion. 
 
 677. — No horse can be healthy or well nourished unless the 
 lungs, the bowels, the kidneys, and the skin are all freely carrying 
 out of the system, by the aid of the great common carrier, water. 
 Each of these four great drains should take something peculiar 
 to itself, but also a great deal common to all ; so that each of 
 them can be made to take more or less than its share, and thus 
 to relieve or to overtax the rest of the drains in the system. 
 
278 NATURAL FOOD. 
 
 Thus if you drink a pint of cold water auH sit still afterwards in 
 a low temperature, you will find that most of it f^oes off by the 
 kidneys ; if you go into the high temperature of a Turkish bath, 
 it will go off by the skin ; if you take active exercise imme- 
 diately after drinking, the other two drains will take their 
 full share, so that even the bowels may be sensibly affected 
 by it. 
 
 DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 
 
 678. — The bowels necessarily carry off the innutritions 
 woody fibre, and any other materials that are not extracted from 
 the prepared food by the lacteals, and taken into the blood. They 
 should also carry out the bile, and some of the coarser excretions 
 from the blood, from which they also receive some degree of 
 lubrication and healthy, natural excitement. The human bowels 
 will not work pleasantly, and the horse's bowels will not work at 
 all unless they have a large proportion of W'Oody fibre, or coarse, 
 bulky, inadhesive material to pass on and work upon. The 
 horse is quickly and most painfully killed by unmixed wheat, 
 and if he could or would eat it, would be more certainly killed by 
 fine flour, although many men, and many books recommend it, even 
 for locked jaw and inflamed bowels. ^The bowels of both horses 
 and men are most frequently and most severely taxed by being 
 called on to pass densely nutritious food, without a sufficient 
 proportion of the rough, bulky, light, woody fibre, found in all 
 the natnral food of the horse. 
 
 670. — The bowels of the horse, can always be kept working 
 pleasantly and healthfully, by supplying them with suitable 
 material to work on, and avoiding those sudden and extreme 
 chansfes which give the delicate and sensitive tubes no time to 
 adapt themselves to their altered work. More or less nutritious 
 corn, more or less hay, straw, or other woody fibre, more or less 
 wet bran, more or less soft pulp, more or less green food, are the 
 simple agents by which the bowels of any horse can be kept in 
 healthy, Avorking order, without attacking them with any of the 
 destructive poisons we have learned to call medicines. 
 
 680. — Yery cold or hard well water is liable to disagree with 
 
DANGERS. 27 i) 
 
 any horse, but the great danger from watQv of any kind will 
 arise from keeping the horse long without it, and then allowing 
 him to drink too much at a time. If at any time the horse has 
 fasted long, give him water in very small quantities, and food 
 containing a large proportion of light woody fibre. 
 
 G81. — All the diseases of the stomach, the bowels, or the 
 brain, may be prevented by attention to these building materials. 
 Stomach staggers, sleepy staggers, inflammation of the brain, 
 apoplexy, vertigo, or lethrage, as well as colic, inflammation of the 
 stomach, bowels, or peritoneum, are produced by faults of feeding 
 or watering, and very often by long fasting an animal that nature 
 never intended to fast long. Diseases of this class can be kept 
 away, and often cured, by a correct supply of the horse's common 
 daily wants, and strictly avoiding extreme and sadden changes of 
 diet. 
 
 It may be quite right to feed your horse on turnips and 
 straw, it may be right to feed him entirely on grass, it may be 
 necessary to feed him principally on corn, but it is never right to 
 feed him on grass alone one day, and principally on corn the next 
 day, or vice versa. No horse's bowels can comfortably pass 
 unmixed corn of any kind, or at any time, and it should never be 
 given to him ; but the bowels are specially unfit to deal with pure 
 corn when they have adapted themselves to comfortably pass 
 on green bulky grass. Such extreme changes must be gradually 
 effected. 
 
 The most common disease that is inflicted upon the horse 
 by bad feeding or watering, or by sudden changes, is 
 
 COLIC. 
 
 G82. — In this disease the pain is great but not constant. 
 The horse lifts his hind leg towards his body, paws, lies suddenly 
 down and roils more or less violently, then gets up quickly 
 without any indication of external tenderness or loss of power. 
 It may be flatulent or spasmodic colic, but as we do not attempt 
 to directly attack and overcome any particular disease, but only 
 to help nature to throw it off, to invigorate the circulation and 
 equalize the distribution of the vital fluids, no harm will happen 
 
280 SAFE PRACTICE. 
 
 if we make a mistake in such disfciiictions, or cannot even name 
 the disease at all. For this, and for nearly all the diseases of the 
 internal organs, the best thing to do is to draw the blood to the 
 surface of the bjdy, to get tlie skin at full work, to soothe the 
 irritated nerves, and co draw off any offending secretions l)y a 
 comfortable warm pack, or large body bandage. 
 
 683. — Hydropathy is not so easily practised on the horse as 
 on the human subject. His form is not a convenient one to 
 envelope in a roll, but ihe greatest difSculty is presented by the 
 immovable coat of hair on the skin, which will always call for the 
 exercise of more contrivance than need be exhibited by those who 
 practise on a skin, the covering of which can be instantaneously 
 removed or changed. The uncertain quantity of that covering 
 in different animals, and in the same animal at different seasons 
 of the year, or in different climates, makes it impossib'e to 
 prescribe for unseen patients. 
 
 It may be laid down as a universal rule that you are never 
 far wrong if you have made your patient comfortable, and that 
 any lengthened departure from physical comfort, caused by your 
 treatment is a proof that you have not taken the right course. 
 
 684. — When Friesnitz first discovered the wonderful puvrcr 
 of water, as a curative agent, ho unfortunately concluded that 
 cold was a great factor in the business, and his usefulness, though 
 great, was very much curtailed by that error. It was left to 
 those good philanthropists, Mr. and Mrs. Sraedley, to demonstrate 
 on more than twenty-five thousand .pati&nts that warmth is in iiiiie 
 cases out of ten, far more usefully associated with water. The 
 popular and jjrofessional idea that warm baths, or warm packs, 
 are weakening, is utterly at variance with the truth. They soothe 
 by removing irritation, and superficial observers have mistaken 
 that for weakening. 
 
 G85. — Of course a horse with colic must not be tied up, or 
 kept in a narrow stall. He should be placed in a warm, roomy, 
 loose box or shed, and well littered with straw up to liis knees. 
 In all cases of internal inflammation, or pain, your fii.st care 
 should be to get the legs and surface of the body waim, ;<lways 
 remembering that they cannot be warmed with bad air, or with 
 air deficient of oxygen (09 to ll-f.). 
 
THE WIOT PACK. 281 
 
 (180. — To pack a liorse well yon must pack liim quickly, so 
 that yon will be the better to have two or three reliable assistants, 
 and every article you will want should be at hand before you 
 begin. You will want five large blankets, or large woollen horse 
 cloths ; oue jnece of woollen or cotton cloth 10 feet long by 2^ 
 feet wide ; four small packing needles, and a good supply of sail 
 twine, in long lengths for the needles ; a small tub of scalding 
 water, and a small towel. 
 
 687. — One of the blankets should be six inches shorter and 
 narrower than the other four. Take this smallest blanket and 
 put it soaking in the tub of hot water, which should be about IGO*^. 
 Whilst your assistants see that every part of the blanket is equally 
 wetted, and the four needles threaded with long soft twine, you 
 should take the towel dipped in the hot water, and cooling it just 
 enough to prevent scalding the horse, rub it along each side of the 
 spine from mane to tail, well wetting the hair for about two feet 
 on each side of the backbone, but without using water enough for 
 any to run down his sides. Whilst you are doing this quickly, 
 so as to give no time for cooling, two of your assistants should 
 take the blanket out of the hot water and slightly ring it, and, 
 v/hilst just as hot as the hand will bear it, let a man at each 
 corner bring it over the horse's back, and clap it on him, with 
 the longest Avay across him. See that the blanket reaches equally 
 low on each side, and from the root of the tail to as far as it will 
 go on the neck. 
 
 G88, — The horse must be kept from lying down until the 
 packing is comi^leted. This may be done by tying his head high 
 up, or if jou can spare a hand to hold him, and to prevent his 
 lying down by obstructing his nostrils with the wetted towel if 
 he threatens to do so. 
 
 689. — Quickly cover up the wet blanket with the four larger dry 
 ones. I f the dry blankets are not lai-ger than the outside edges of the 
 wet one, they must beputalittle out of the centre, so that two of them 
 will overlap the wet blanket all round, as it is necessary that the 
 dry blankets should come at least three inches beyond the wet 
 one at every point. Now throw the 10 by 2^ woollen 
 or cotton cloth across the back, over all the blankets, and draw it 
 
-^'^ CHANGING PACK. 
 
 tightly round the body, sewing securely where it overlaps. Take 
 care that the sheath is not covered up or obstructed by it. 
 With the needles and twine let all hands draw first the wet and 
 then the dry blankets tightly round the neck, behind the thighs, 
 and fasten to the legs. Then liberate the horse and let him roll 
 if he likes. 
 
 690. — Inject two or three quarts of warm water into the 
 bowels, and pour about a pint of peppermint tea down the throat. 
 This may be repeated every hour, until the horse is free from 
 pain, or inflammation of the bowels has set in. Small quantities of 
 ginger, grains of paradise, anise, or carraway seeds, may he given 
 with advantage. They should be finely powdered and given iu 
 warm water. 
 
 691. — The pack may be kept on without change for three 
 or four hours. If at the end of that time the horse is still in 
 pain, the under blanket must be again dipped in hot water. To 
 do this get all the stitches cut or unfastened, so that everything 
 can be taken quickly off the horse. Have by you the tub of 
 water 160*^. Take oflF the ten feet binder and all the blankets. 
 Dip the under blanket in watei' and wring it out. Repeat the 
 dipping and wringing once or twice, then clap the blanket hot on 
 the horse's back as at first, and cover up quickly as before. The 
 hair will require no wetting, unless the pack has been unchanged 
 too long. The blanket that went next to the wet one would be 
 better put out to dry, if you can get another dry one to put on 
 the outside at the top. This may be repeated every three or four 
 hours for days together, if the state of the patient should demand 
 it so long. 
 
 692. — When the pack is to be discontinued, take off all the 
 wet or damp blankets, and put on one or two dry ones. Change 
 them frequently until the hair is quite dry. If the horse has 
 recovered from the attack of colic he will probably be well enough 
 to walk or gently trot about, either with or without cloths until 
 quite dry. 
 
 G93. — With reference to physic in this disease Dr. Dadd, of 
 Bostou, says, "Men have strangely erred in recommending 
 medicine — castor oil, salts, aloes, opium, turpentine, &c. — for the 
 
VETElilXARY TESTIMONY. 28 ;> 
 
 cure of colic, and, perhaps, we ourselves are not free from blame 
 in this matter. Experience, and nothing else, has changed our 
 views, and we give them for the benefit of man and horse. 
 Experience is the only true guide." * " * "We have 
 frequently cured alarming cases with a little peppermint tea alone, 
 whereas had the subject been treated after the fashion of some, 
 the malady might, as it often does, have run on to a t\ital issue. 
 * * * Inflammation of the bowels is very apt to set in during 
 au attack of colic, from the use of spirits or oil of turpentine, and 
 other popular nostrums, and it is much to be deplored that so 
 noble an animal as the horse should be made to undergo such 
 torture as he is known to do from the administration of 
 turpentine." Dr. Dadd also quotes from another veterinary 
 'snrgeon, who, writing in the " Yeterinarium," vol. 25, page 
 432, says, that he was called to attend a horse with apparently 
 colicy pains : — "■ The village smith was summoned, who pre- 
 scribed a large dose of oil of turpentine, which was repeated, 
 but the symptoms increasing rather than abating, 1 was 
 sent for. But alas ! ere my arris'al the medicine had done its 
 w^ork, death having relieved the animal from farther maltreat- 
 ment. 
 
 CALCULI, INTERSUSCEPTION, AND ENTANGLEMENT OF THE 
 
 BOWELS. 
 
 G94. — An attack of the colic, pure and simple, will most 
 hkely disappear with the treatment we have advised in from one 
 to three hours. If it does not something more serious may be 
 strongly suspected. There are several disorders of the bowels 
 in the horse, which exhibit all the symptoms of cohc, which are 
 quite incurable. A hard, polished, oval stone sometimes forms 
 in the intestines, and continues to increase in size, until it forms 
 a complete obstruction, and the horse dies in great pain. These 
 stones are sometimes so near the anus, that they can be reached 
 by the hand. "We have seen a veterinary surgeon break one of 
 these stones to pieces in the horse's rectum, with a hammer and 
 a long steel set. As might have been expected it proved only a 
 very cruel way of killing the horse. The intestines will some- 
 
284 PLENTY OF WATER. 
 
 times overlap or enfold each other, and at others will get twisted 
 into nooses or knots, as firm as if purposely tied, forming a 
 comjjlete and immovable obstruction, 
 
 INFLAMMATION OP THE BOWELS. 
 
 695. — When the colic pains, at first intermittant, become 
 longer in duration or constant, when the horse grows weaker and 
 flinches from external pressure of the body, and the feet and ears 
 grow cold, inflammation of the bowels has commenced, and you 
 have a long, dangerous and very painful case before you. Pay 
 great attention to the pack, as your sheet anchor of hope here. 
 Increase the injections and remove any hard accumulations 
 within reach, with a well oiled hand and arm. Get the les's well 
 rubbed by hand, and loosely bandaged with flannel. Life or 
 death here is just a question of whether you can or cannot keep 
 enough blood at the surface and extremities. After the accumu- 
 lations have been removed, and the rectum washed out with 
 abundance of warm water, or soap and water, inject a quart of warm 
 thin gruel, made either from oatmeal or from coarse sharps, and 
 repeat the injection every hour. 
 
 GdG. — Get the horse to drink as much water as possible, in 
 any shape that he can be got to take most of it. Very thin 
 gruel would be best for him, but if he will not drink that, give 
 him slightly warmed water, if he will not drink that, give 
 him cold water, in small quantities at a time, but as often as he 
 can be got to take it. If he will not- drink pretty freely and 
 often in any shape, pour very thin gruel down his throat, as water 
 he must have, and without it he cannot recover. 
 
 G97. — Food at this stage is of very little consequence. The 
 horse must not have much, and had l>etter have none than take 
 anything unsuitable. The best food will be a very little withered 
 grass, free from buttercups or other injurious weeds. If this 
 cannot be got, carrots, swedes, and a very little sweet hay may 
 be given. Yery coarse clean bran may be given, wetted with 
 warm water, and mixed with a little chaff. Xot a grain of any 
 kind of corn must be given, nor must the horse be drenched with 
 starch and fine flour so commonly recommended, and so fatally 
 administered. 
 
yOUATT ON PHYSIC. 285 
 
 698. — No medicine of any kind is admissible here. The 
 most rash drn^ dealers would hardly venture to pour their 
 medicines down the throat of an animal in this state. Even 
 Youatt breaks loose from the drug school here, and ventures to 
 follow the severe lessons of his own experience. He says ; 
 " The liuman practitioner gives, under this disease, and with 
 advantaije (?) very powerful doses of purgative medicine, and he 
 mav be disposed to demur to tlie cautious mode of proceeding- we 
 recommend with regard to the horse. Although we may not be 
 able to give him a satisfactory theoretical reason, in defence of 
 our treatment, we can appeal to the experience of every veterinary 
 surgeon, that a strong dose of physic given in inflammation of 
 the bowels, would be certain poison." Dr. Dadd says : " Super 
 purgation, induced by active cathartics, would be equivalent to a 
 sentence of death." 
 
 DISEASES OF THE BRAIN, 
 
 699. — Such as are enumerated in paragraph 681, are all 
 traceable to the digestive organs. They are the effect of long' 
 fasts and dry, concentrated, stimulating food. The horse affected 
 with either of them should be warmly packed over the body, 
 especially tlie spine (686 to 692), and have cold wet cloths over 
 the head. He must be carefully kept from corn and have but 
 little hay. Get the bowels open, with green food, wet bran, or 
 carrots. 
 
 When recovered he should noc again be put to long fasts, 
 or to high, dry feeding, and irregular work. He can only safely 
 be put where he can live chiefly on green food, with moderate, 
 regular work, and no very long fasts. 
 
 DISEASES OF THE EESPIRATORY ORGANS, 
 
 700. — Though often brought on by severe exposure, by 
 sudden changes of temperature, by cruel over exertion, especially 
 after enforced inaction, and still more frequently by bad air, are 
 all greatly aggravated by very high and very dry dusty feeding. 
 High inflammatory diet, or rich concentrated food, is always 
 dangerous to the bronchial tubes of either man or horse. Simply 
 
286 BRONCHITIS. 
 
 leaving off meat would do more to cure bronchitis in man, than 
 
 all the medicines in the world, and giving our stabled horses 
 
 more turnips and less hay, would tend in the same direction. 
 
 Dry clover hay is especially dangerous to the wind, and all fusty 
 
 hay. The dust from fusty hay is probably drawn into the 
 
 lung cells, and does direct mischief in that way. But eating a 
 
 large quantity of bulky, innutritious material necessarily expands 
 
 the bowels and other organs of nutrition, so that the lungs are 
 
 fixed into too small a space, and are sure to suffer from the 
 
 pressure. No gross feeding horse should have as much of any 
 
 kind of hay as he will eat. The old fashioned, lymphatic, gummy 
 
 legged horses were great sinners in this respect. Their owners 
 
 were too often ignorant of turnips as horse feed, stingy with corn, 
 
 and prodigal with hay, and as a consequence their horses were 
 
 very often what they called " touched in the wind." This is 
 
 in Britain broken wind, in America heaves. The latter term 
 
 expresses the heaving, uneasy motion of the flank which 
 
 characterises the disease. 
 
 701. — One of the most beautiful sights ever seen under the 
 
 microscope is the lungs of the beautiful toad. The lungs of the 
 
 horse can only be understood at all by seeing a portion of them 
 
 under a microscoiie, and even so it is impossible to comprehend 
 
 their extremely delicate texture, or how so many millions of 
 
 invisible tubes can be formed and sustained in such a small 
 
 compass. liVery particle of blood in the horse's body comes 
 
 several hundred times a day into these' invisible tubes to meet 
 
 the air that is breathed into adjoining invisible tubes. The blood 
 
 a,ud air do not mingle together, and yet the invisible membrane 
 
 that separates them is so inconceivably slender that the oxygen 
 
 of the air can pass through it to the blood, and the carbonic 
 
 acid gas of the blood can pass through it to the air. Dr. "Watts 
 
 <3id not know all this when he wrote — 
 
 '• strange that a harji of thousand strings, 
 Should keep in tune so long." 
 
 Here is a harp not with a " thousand strings," but with millions 
 ■of invisible yet perfect tubes, each one actually carrying its 
 modicum of blood, or air, and exchanging a part of both, 
 
THE -n'ONDEllFUL. 287 
 
 without confusion or any fatal mixture. It is impossible to 
 understand how anything so perfect, and yet so minute can be 
 constructed at all, far less how it can be kept freely and rapidly 
 working, with such a material as blood passing through such 
 invisibly small tubes. No one knows how it is kept going ; man 
 has only lately discovered thut all this is actually accomplished ; 
 only lately discovered something of the deep meaning of the words 
 of David, " I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 
 
 702. — "When we thus get a little idea of what the machine is, 
 we can at least easily understand what a little thing can obstruct 
 it, and how helpless we are to set it going again. The muscles 
 may rest, the nerves may rest, the brain may rest, the stomach 
 may rest, but the lungs can never rest. We can live some time 
 without food, and even without a new supply of water, but we 
 cannot live at all without a constant supply of air. And just as 
 we can in a thousand ways, spoil the natural air, but can never 
 improve it, so we can spoil the lungs, but can never improve 
 them by anything we can send into them. 
 
 703. — There is only one way in which we can help the 
 lungs, and that is by calling on tiie skin to do some of their work 
 or more frequently by taking care that the skin does not leave 
 its own work for the lungs to do. The skin and the lungs should 
 both be at work purifying the same blood, and, roughly speaking, 
 each usually takes about the same quantity of waste material 
 out of the blood. Each breath that carries in oxygen carries out 
 its load of carbonic acid gas, water, and waste material, whilst 
 the skin is silently carrying off almost the same, so that any 
 failure on the part of the one puts more work on the other. 
 When the lung cells are closing, and consequently dying, as in 
 consumption, the skin tries to do double duty, as in the niiiht 
 sweats that mark that disease. When some of the pores of the 
 skin have been closed, as they are in what we call a common 
 •cold, each breath from the lungs is overloaded with the moisture 
 that the skin should have taken off. 
 
 704. — Now it is dangerous to let the lungs do the work of 
 the skin, as well as their own, for a single hour. It is dangerous, 
 iind always permanently injurious, to call on the bowels, or the 
 
288 OBSTRUCTIOX IS DESTRUCTION. 
 
 kidneys, to carry off anything but their o'-vn proper excretions. 
 The skin, on the contrary, can be assisted to do double duty for 
 weeks or months together, not only without injury, bat with 
 great advantage to itself, as well as to all the rest of the body. 
 "We can get at the pores of the skin ; we can take away every 
 particle of dust ov adhesive matter that obstructs them ; we can 
 even soften the recently closed pores, as with a poultice ; we can 
 warm and steam them, and liberate the chilled perspiration that 
 had obstructed them, so that the blood will not have to jjuU 
 them down and btiild new ones, as it must otherwise have done. 
 In so doing we not only relieve the lungs but we get a better 
 skin, more able and more willing to do its work in future, and 
 less liable to become obstructed or diseased. 
 
 705. — If a large portion of the pores of the skin are 
 obstructed and are allowed to remain so, the kings cannot long 
 continue their necessary work. Only healthy, well warmed, and 
 purified blood can pass through such delicate, small tubes, and 
 obstruction is destruction or death to them, so that if the skin 
 long and seriously fails to do its share in refining the blood, 
 the lungs will not only soon fail to do double work, but will soon 
 be unable to do any work at all. Each obstructed tube, either 
 in skin or lungs, soon becomes a piece of dead, decaying animal 
 matter, that instead of purifying soon begins to poison the 
 
 blood. 
 
 Hence the fact that when an eighth part of tlie skin has been 
 seriously burned, even in the most healthy person, recovery is 
 regarded as hopeless, because so much dead, putrid, and therefore 
 deadly poisonous matter has to be taken up 1)y the blood, with a 
 diminished purifying surface to get rid of it. The blisters, the 
 Spanish flies, or ammonia, so commonly prescribed for disease of 
 the lungs, perform the same work on the skin as a fire would do ; 
 that is, they destroy a portion of the purifying surface of the 
 skin, and substitute for it dead, putrifying matter, that must be 
 taken up by, and poison the already diseased blood. In other 
 words they give the blood a certain amount of poison to carry 
 into the lungs, where there is already such a load of poison 
 of the same character wanting to be carried out. 
 
INFL.iMMATION OF THE LUNGS. 289 
 
 706. — The only rational treatment in any disease of the 
 respiratory organs is to get the skia to work as actively and 
 eflBciently as possible (G86), and to put the lungs in free commu- 
 nication with the purest possible air. As Miss Nightingale found 
 that her patients recovered under the hedges at Sebastopol, whilst 
 they died in the foul air of the "comfortable" hospitals, so your 
 horse is more likely to recover turned out in a snow storm — bad 
 as that would be for him — than in a " comfortable" stable full 
 of foul air. Clothe him warmly, especially his legs, but let him 
 breathe fresh, pure, air, wherever he may have to go for it. 
 
 SYMPTOMS. 
 
 707. — In all diseases of the respiratory organs the horse 
 refuses to lie down. This will always distinguish them from 
 diseases of the digestive organs. In inflammation of the lungs 
 the horse stands with his fore legs stiffly fixed and sloping 
 outwards like the legs of a rough stool. He is unwilling to 
 move, and though evidently weak, determined not to be down. 
 He stretches out his neck and head so as to keep the windpipe 
 as straight as possible, and lets the head drop low enough to put 
 the weight on the strong ligament or cord, called the pack wax, 
 and relieve the muscles from any exertion in supporting the 
 head. His nostrils open wide, and their lining is a livid 
 red, turning purple as the disease progresses. The breathing is 
 quick, but not deep. As the blood cannot get through the 
 gorged lungs the circulation is impeded, the heart is struggling 
 on arteries that have no outlet, so that the pulse is felt, if felt at 
 all, as a mere feeble fruitless vibration. The ears and legs are 
 very cold. 
 
 708. — Long before the disease has reached this stage, the 
 pack (686) should have been applied, keeping the blood at work 
 on the surface. The legs should also have been packed in the 
 same way, with wet and dry bandages, but more frequently 
 changed, with water as hot as possible. If you have thus relieved 
 the first symptoms of distressed breathing, by treatment that 
 would be right and beneficial in any case, and could never do 
 any harm, you have saved your horse. But if the lungs are once 
 
 T 
 
290 MERCIFUL DESTRUCTION, 
 
 congested, or hopelessly obstructed by blood that is fast becoming 
 an immovable, and therefore putrifyino; mass, the only humane, 
 and the only wise thing to do is to put a charge of shot through 
 the horse's brain, or consign him to some equally painless death. 
 He must suffer intensely ; he will require a great deal of careful 
 nursing day and night ; he will most likely not recover at all ; 
 he will be some months before he can be fit for anything, and 
 then he will never be a sound horse : never one that a humane 
 man would like to work himself or to- sell to a brute that would 
 work him. 
 
 701). — We have known a man who could well afford to shoot 
 s, poor animal that had served him well for some years, pay eight 
 pounds to a veterinary surgeon, four pounds for day and night 
 nursing, and certainly not less than ten pounds for four months 
 keep, and then sell the poor free animal for four pounds, to see 
 him come panting and roaring by his house every day in a baker's 
 cart. 
 
 710. — S. Sidney, in his sensible and beautifully illustrated 
 ■" Book of the Horse," says, speaking of this disease — " In the 
 ■case of a low priced horse, with an acute attack we are convinced 
 that the cheapest plan is to have him killed at once. He 
 will be three months on the sick list ; the surgeon's bill, night 
 work included, will be ten or twelve pounds ; and if he comes 
 ■out a roarer, as he probably will, he will not be worth that sum, 
 unless he is big enough and strong enough for a plough or 
 harrow horse." We fail to see why this should be limited to a 
 low priced horse, as that would not affect his value as a 
 wreck. 
 
 711. — Youatt puts the hopelessness of complete recovery- 
 very clearly when he says in reference to this disease, — "A 
 surgeon who practises on the human body will obtain the 
 gratitude of his patient, if he so far removes a severe affection as 
 to enable him to live on with a certain degree of comfort, 
 although his activity and his power of exertion may be consider- 
 ably impaired ; but the veterinary surgeon is thought to have 
 •done nothing unless he renders the animal perfectly sound — 
 unless, in fact, he does that which is absolutely impossible to 
 accomplish." 
 
IN PLEUmSY. 291 
 
 712. — The inflammation is confined to the membrane that 
 covers the lungs. The attitude and determined standing are the 
 same as in inflammation of the lungs, but here the blood is still 
 passing freely through the lungs, so that the pulse is hard, 
 distinct, and full. There is the same unwillingness to move, or to 
 draw a full breath, as every expansion of the lungs presses on 
 the inflamed and sensitive membrane. 
 
 The horse will grunt with pain when tapped on the outside 
 of the lungs, and flinch from pressure on the side. He is less 
 stupified, and more sensitive, than when the badly oxyginated 
 blood of pneumonia is passing through the brain. The internal 
 covering of the nostrils is not red or purple in pleurisy. This 
 disease is more curable than pneumonia, and the horse may be 
 perfectly restored by packs and bandages, applied early, as in 
 inflammation of the lungs. 
 
 713. — With bleeding and blistering it frequently terminates 
 in dropsy of the chest. This is easily let out with the common 
 trocar, used for dropsy in the human subject, but even Youatt 
 admits that it has " very seldom saved, or much prolonged the 
 life of the animal." The trocar is entered between the eighth and 
 ninth ribs, and close to the cartilages. 
 
 BRONCHITIS. 
 
 714. — What we have said under the general remarks on the 
 bronchial tubes, is really all that we can say about bronchitis, or 
 any of the minor diseases of the respiratory organs. We may 
 support this opinion by quoting the exact words of Dr. Dadd, 
 when writing of this disease : " The bowels are to be kept loose, 
 not by purgatives, for their action on the digestive surfaces is 
 sure to make matters worse, the patient must be kept on a sloppy 
 kind of diet, well seasoned with common salt. Fine feed, bran 
 scalded, and placed before the animal while warm, answers two 
 purposes, viz., that of relaxing the engorged surfaces of the nose 
 and throat from inhaling the wai'ui vapour, and also has a 
 relaxing etfect on the bowels, which are apt to become torpid 
 sometimes from no other cause than want of exercise. Jf the 
 patient be carried through the various stages of bnjiichial 
 
292 STEAMING AIE PASSAGES. 
 
 difficulty, with an eye single to his comfort and convenience, 
 and proper attention is paid to the wants of nature, the skin kept 
 moist, the bowels loose, the patient having the advantages of a 
 pure atmosphere, then the case, if it is a curable one, is sure to 
 terminate favourably." 
 
 715. — To this we must say from experience that the salt 
 should be very small in quantity, as it has a particularly drying 
 effect on the bronchial tubes, and that grass, swedes, turnips, or 
 carrots, will be found better than too much sloppy food. The 
 horse should have out door exercise, althongh it must be of the 
 most gentle character. If he cannot walk two miles an hour let 
 him walk one, and increase the pace as his tubes improve, but 
 never distress him. 
 
 716. — When a horse is recovering from any of these 
 bronchial diseases, he must get plenty of judicious exercise 
 before he gets any work ; plenty of slow work before he gets 
 any fast work. He can never get fib for fast work by standing 
 in a loose box. The breathing powers require to be gradually 
 strengthened by exercise, even more than the muscles and 
 sinews. 
 
 CATAERH, OB COMMON COLD. 
 
 717. — Attention to the skin, and general comfort of the 
 horse, with wet bran and roots, little hay or corn, and no hard 
 work, is the best thing to be done in this case. 
 
 718. — The nostrils may be cleared out, and the horse made 
 more comfortable by putting a four bushel corn sack on his 
 muzzle, like a very long nose bag. Turn the top of the sack 
 down so that it will not be more than three feet long. Put in 
 the bottom about six quarts of fine saw dust, mixed with two 
 table spoonsful of turpentine. Hang it on the horse's head, so 
 that the muzzle will be about two feet from the saw dust. Then 
 cut a slit in the sack, just above the saw dust, and pour "on the 
 saw dust about two quarts of boiling water, adding more boiling 
 water as it cools. The sack may remain on an hour or more, 
 and may be repeated often. A wet pack will be very beneficial. 
 
STRANGLES 293 
 
 719. — Is a disease to which the horse is most subject 
 between two and five years old, and to which he is Hable 
 only once in his life. Many horses do not take it at all. It 
 is a gathering at the throat, between the jaws, and interferes 
 much with eating and drinking. Hot bran poultices, containing 
 a little turpentine, are the best application, but require some 
 little contrivance to keep them in the right place. When the 
 swelling softens or points, the matter is better let out with a deep 
 straight cut, and a linseed poultice, without turpentine, applied. 
 There is a cough which comes on in fits, especially when the 
 horse tries to drink. After the gathering has opened, either 
 naturally or artificially, the cough will disappear. 
 
 GLANDERS AND FARCY. 
 
 720. — Glanders is an infectious, incurable disease, which the 
 horse may even communicate to man and other animals. In 
 England, it is less common than it once was, probably owing to 
 the better application of the laws that forbid the sale of a 
 glandered horse, and make his owner liable for damages 
 caused by his existance. In America no law seems to be tolerated 
 in this direction. There the individual liberty of the subject is 
 said to be so sacred, that every man must be allowed to harbour a 
 glandered horse and an Irish dynamiter. On the same principle 
 he should be allowed the privilege of keeping a mad dog, and 
 setting fire to his own city house. No honest man should own a 
 glandered horse knowingly for a single hour, and no laws should 
 allow him to do so. The disease might no doubt be stamped out 
 by legislation. 
 
 721. -We know that all the " authorities" are against us on 
 this subject. Professor Coleman is said to have asserted that 
 " not one horse in a thousand receives the disease from contagion.'* 
 Dr. J . Eussell Manning, of America, says the disease " is 
 doubtless due far more frequently to predisposing cause than to 
 contagion." In this they are supported by such undoubted 
 authorities as Percival and Youatt, but in all such matters we 
 have learned to pay more respect to undoubted facts, than to 
 great names. "We remember how positively the same statement 
 
294 PEOFESSIONAL LOGIC. 
 
 was made by equally high authorities, about the scab in sheep, 
 but where severe restrictive legislation has been tried it has soon 
 proved that there was really nothing but contagion to fear. 
 
 722. — "We are the less inclined to bow down to their view of 
 the case when we see that all three of them take the same case 
 for what they call a " demonstration" of their view of this matter, 
 and that case a very feeble one. Mr. Youatt tells us, that Mr. 
 Percival quotes Mr. Coleman's statement that " In the expedition 
 to Qniberon, the horses had not been long on board the transports 
 before it became necessary to shut down the hatchways (we 
 believe for a few hours only), the consequence of this was that 
 some of them were suffocated, and that all the rest were 
 disembarked either glandered or farcied." 
 
 723. — It must strike any earful reader how very possible and 
 probable it is, that in horses shipped from an infected country, 
 a recently infected horse may have been taken on board, and that 
 being all watered from the same buckets, the disease would be 
 communicated to all. Against this one very poor case in favour 
 of their supposition, we have the undoubted fact that tens of 
 thousands of horses have been shipped, between Australia and 
 New Zealand, and although thousands of them have been killed 
 by bad air, no case of glanders has ever been developed. Nor do 
 the lowest and most filthy stables produce the disease in those 
 countries where it has never been introduced. Of course, in this, 
 as in any other disease, a vigorous, well treated horse, living in 
 good air, may ward off a degree of infection that would be fatal to 
 a weak horse, or one less favourably situated. 
 
 724. — The first indication of this disease is generally a slight 
 regular discharge from the left nostril, of a clear, but very gluey, 
 sticky fluid, without any of the usual indications of a common 
 cold. As soon as any suspicion is aroused, on this life or death 
 question, refer the matter at once to the most competent authority 
 at your command, and act promptly on the information so 
 obtained. 
 
 725. — The same may be said of farcy, which appears to be 
 the same disease under a totally different manifestation. The 
 most able and experienced men are sometimes so unable to decide 
 
ADDING FUEL TO FIRE. 295 
 
 upon the early indications of this disease, that they are obliged 
 to settle the point by trying some of the discharge on the nose of 
 a worthless donkey or horse. It would therefore be impossible to 
 give sufficiently reliable directions in a book. 
 
 DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS. 
 
 726. — The horse that has as much corn as he can eat, with 
 no roots or green food, generally voids thick, ropy urine, passing 
 it in small quantities, with more or less straining, and evident 
 pain. This state of discomfort is often made much worse by the 
 administration of drugs and poisons, called diuretic medicines. 
 In many stables we find nitre, rosin, or turpentine always at hand, 
 and given to a horse as carelessly as if they were a bunch of 
 carrots. Even Youatt says, "When the groom finds this 
 difficulty, or suppression of staling, he immediately has recourse 
 to a diurectic ball to force on the urine, and by thus farther 
 irritating a part already too much excited, he adds fuel to fire, 
 and frequently destroys the horse." Their destructive effect is 
 greatly aggravated by the common, cruel practice of keeping the 
 horse short of water, so that whilst injuriously stimulating the 
 kidneys, to make them do more work, the only medium by which 
 they can do their work at all, is withheld. Mow-burned hay,, 
 and either musty, or kiln-dried oats, act injuriously on the 
 kidneys, and a strain of the loins will some times communicate 
 inflammation to them ; though much more frequently inflammation 
 of the kidneys is mistaken for a strain. 
 
 INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS 
 
 727.— May be very severe, and destroy the horse in a few 
 days, or it may hang about him for months, and even years, with 
 little notice taken of it. It is indicated by a straddling, stiff 
 gait of the hind legs, a difficulty in turning round, and a crouching 
 with pain when the loins are pressed on. A continual desire to 
 void urine, which comes in small quantities, and is often, but 
 not always, high coloured— sometimes bloody. 
 
 728. — The corn should be withheld, the hay very limited, 
 and very good. Roots and wet bran may be freely given, so as 
 
296 MARSH MALLOWS, 
 
 to keep the bowels actively at work. You may make the skin 
 work for itself and the kidneys, with the warm pack, and take 
 care that the lungs get good, dry, pure air to carry off their 
 share. 
 
 729. — Get one pound of marsh-mallow roots, dry or fresh. 
 Bruise and boil one hour in six quarts of water. Give the horse 
 a pint of this decoction every six hours. If marsh-mallow roots 
 cannot be got, asparagus roots, sprouts, stems, or foliage, 
 may be substituted. A large poultice of marsh-mallow leaves 
 may be placed hot on the loins. 
 
 IN INFLAMJiIATION OF THE BLADDER 
 
 730. — No better treatment can be adopted than that we 
 advise for the kidneys, and it is by no means easy to say which the 
 horse is suffering from. When it is inflammation of the neck of 
 the bladder, the bladder is likely to be full, and may be felt under 
 the rectum, by carefully introducing the oiled hand. If it is 
 inflammation of the neck of the bladder, or obstruction in any 
 part of the passage, asparagus roots will be better than marsh- 
 mallow roots, as they have a more relaxing effect upon the 
 muscles. 
 
 731. — It is often by no means easy to decide what portion 
 of the urinary organs is involved, and hence one of the great 
 advantages of hydropathic treatment, as in any case we must do 
 good if we can put upon the healthy skin, the work which the 
 urinary organs, from any cause, are unable to accomplish . 
 
 THE LIVEE. 
 
 732. —The horse has seldom anything wrong with the liver. 
 He eats no meat, takes no grog, and is never long idle if he can 
 help it. He has no gall bladder, and consequently no liability 
 to form gall stones. As he was never made to go long without 
 food, and has no food cupboard like the ox, the gall flows into the 
 bowels, as it is extracted from the blood, without any reservoir in 
 which to accumulate. 
 
 JAUNDICE. 
 
 7S3. — Or a yellowness resembling it, about the eyes, Sec, is 
 
THE GEEAT SAFETY VALVE. 297 
 
 not unknown, but disappears easily with lower fare, and bowels 
 relaxed with succulent food. 
 
 DISEASES OF THE SKIN. 
 
 734. — The skin of the horse, like our own skin, is a wonder- 
 fully fine sieve, through which water is constantly passinj? and 
 taking away worn out materials, injurious acids or gases, and 
 even mineral or vegetable poisons, that have been poured into the 
 stomach. It is the great safety valve of the system, more 
 constantly essential to life than any other, except the lungs. 
 An animal with completely obstructed skin, dies far more 
 quickly than with obstructed bowels or kidneys. The great 
 capacity of the skiu to regulate the temperature of the body is 
 altogether beyond human comprehension. It is, too, the only 
 one of the depurgatory surfaces that we can really get at, and 
 that submits kindly to our interferences. The internal skin is a 
 continuation of the mucous membrane, or of the skin that covers 
 all the internal cavities. In the nose the two skins are less alike 
 either in appearance or function, than in the human body, but 
 there is the same constant sympathy between the inside and 
 outside membrane, so that it is impossible to benefit or injure 
 the one without the eflFect being felt on the other. This is a 
 fact known to all physiologists and recognized by medical 
 practioners of every school. 
 
 735. — Until within the last fifty years the skin of the horse 
 was much better understood and much better treated than our 
 own. The great assistance it could be made to give, both to the 
 digestive organs and to the lungs, was early discovered by trainers 
 for tlie racecourse or the hunting field, and horses in such hands 
 are not only found with skins invariably healthy, but almost 
 always kept in a very high state of efficiency by the frequent and 
 vigorous use of the brush. In fact it is not common to find any 
 disease of the skin in any well managed stable. 
 
 SURFEIT. 
 
 73G. — Is a name used to describe any disease of the skin for 
 which no other name can be found. It may be the result of 
 
298 GENERAL REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
 
 irregular unwholesome feeding, of a sudden check to perspiration 
 from cold, or from an accumulation of filth which the horse has 
 not been able to remove for himself by rolling in earth, and 
 which a negligent attendant has not removed for him. Or it may 
 be the result of starvation which has deprived the skin of 
 its natural lubricating oil. Always remember that a horse may 
 be starved by indigestible food as completely as by too little 
 food. Beans, or any excessively forcing, dry and astringent 
 food, given to a horse that has been let to get down in low 
 condition, will sometimes produce a very troublesome irritation 
 of the skin, which is not easy to remove. Some of these 
 affections defy every effort to cure them, and we have seen them 
 continue through life, though the horse was a constant patient 
 in the hands of a veterinary surgeon. Do what you will you 
 can never make a skin that has had much wrong with it, 
 look all right, until the time comes for it to get a new covering 
 in spring or autumn. 
 
 737. — Medicine of various kinds is largely given for these 
 disorders, and the horse is not unfrequently salivated, in Avhich 
 case the medicine is more harmful than the disease. Cleanliness 
 and comfort, regular and moderately succulent food, that will 
 keep the bowels working freely, will generally effect a cure more 
 quickly than any medicine, and will certainly restore the horse 
 and his skin to much better condition. But in old standing 
 obstinate cases, especially where a lot of medicine has been given, 
 it cannot be done quickly with any treatment. Wetting the 
 affected parts with strong vinegar will sometimes relieve itchiness, 
 if it does not, the horse may be washed all over in hot water, 
 mixed with Little's Chemical Flnid ; one part of fluid to twenty 
 of water. 
 
 WORMS. 
 
 738.— When a horse takes every opportunity of rubbing 
 the hair off his tail, and is after all not relieved by the operation ; 
 or when outward applications have no effect upon it, the irritation 
 probably proceeds from small worms in the rectum. Occasional 
 applications of salt, or salt and quassia, will keep these parasites 
 down. 
 
CONTAGION. 299 
 
 739. — Boil two ounces of quassia chips, in two quarts of 
 water, for half an hour. Strain off the chips and put half an ounce 
 of salt in the liquid. When blood warm gently inject into the 
 rectum. If retained half an hour or more it will give great 
 relief, but if expelled immediately try again next day. 
 
 740. — This simple remedy may be repeated whenever the 
 worms are seen to be troublesome, and will never do any harm. 
 But don't pour in the salt without weighing or measuring it. 
 Physic will injure the horse without injuring the worms. 
 
 MANGE. 
 
 741. — If the short hairs at the root of the mane come out 
 easily, and the horse stretches out his neck, tosses his head, and 
 exhibits a desire to increase the friction of your fingers when you 
 touch his mane, it will be a case of mange. In that case you 
 have not an obstinate, but a very contagious disease to deal with, 
 and one that will have been communicated to every horse that 
 the diseased horse has touched, that has rubbed against the same 
 stalls or posts, used the same clothes or harness, or been cleaned 
 with the same combs or brushes. 
 
 742. — It is not difficult to cure ; you have simply to destroy 
 an insect that is burrowing and breeding iu the horse's skin. 
 The insect is called the acarus, and buries itself in the horse's 
 skin just as a smaller insect will do in the neglected skin of man, 
 producing the itch ; or in the skin of the sheep, producing the 
 scab. 
 
 743. — The skin may be washed all over with sulphur, 
 dissolved in boiling lime water, and used warm. The sulphur 
 will not dissolve in water without lime. Little's Chemical Fluid,' 
 or any of the good sheep dips, or preparations of carbolic acid, 
 or glycerine may be used in the same way, and where they can be 
 got, are more pleasant in their action on the skin. As the insects 
 or their eggs are completely protected under the skin at certain 
 stages of their development, no one washing will destroy them all. 
 To ensure a cure it will be necesary to repeat the application 
 every third day for a fortnight. At the same time every thing 
 that the horse could have touched whilst the insects were alive 
 
300 BE THOROUGH. 
 
 must be destroyed, or purified, with a strong solution of 
 chloride of line, or of carbolic acid. Say one pint of either 
 to twenty-five pints of water. 
 
 744. — Mange can thus be cured with certainty, but its 
 extremely contagious character must never be lost sight of, nor 
 the possibility of the insects living a long time in the harness, 
 cloths, brushes, combs, or anything that the horse has touched. 
 The same insect will not live in the human skin, so that there is 
 no danger to man, though there will be- to cattle, and perhaps to 
 dogs. With any disease of this kind no half and half measures 
 should be tolerated. Let the treatment be vigorous and sufficient 
 with no fine drawn calculations about how little will do. We 
 once knew two farmers who bought a flock of scabby sheep 
 between them, and divided them equally. The one farmer dipped 
 his sheep four times during the first two months, and never saw 
 anything of the scab again. The other dipped his twice during 
 the same time, and kept the scab for seven years ; dipping his 
 flock two or three times a year, and losing half his wool and half 
 his lambs, with the disease all the time. 
 
 GREASE OR SCRATCHES. 
 
 745. — Swelled legs, with the hair standing out horizontally 
 and a cracked, itching skin about the heels, discharging offensive 
 matter, are called by diff'erent names in different parts of the 
 world, but everywhere indicate a bad circulation, and a badly 
 lubricated skin. It does not come to the horse at liberty, nor to 
 the regularly exercised and thoroughly shampooed racer or 
 hunter, but to the half tender, tied up, over fed, and over worked 
 post or cart horse. It is generally caused by excessively 
 exhausting work, alternated with enforced inaction, and from 
 dry stimulating food, containing little of the variety to meet every 
 want that the horse would find for himself in a state of nature. 
 No variety of action, no variety of rest, no variety of 
 food, and too much pollution in the air, are the general 
 causes of all such diseases. More natural and varied food, 
 more natural rest, and more pure air are the only real remedies. 
 It is greatly aggravated by the diuretic drugs so often given to 
 
DESTROYING THE FOOT. 301 
 
 cure or prevent it. A regular allowance of roots and succulent 
 food that would keep the bowels acting pleasantly, and a constant 
 supply of water to carry ofiF all humours, would be far better 
 than all the medicine yet discovered. Stalls raised in front, and 
 low behind, with holes to let in the horses hind feet, help on the 
 mischief. 
 
 746. — The horse should be put in a loose box, or some place 
 where he can at least turn round and lie down in peace and 
 comfort. Keep his skin at work with plenty of friction, and 
 great cleanliness. The cracked heels should be washed morning 
 and night, with warm water, and then painted over with finely 
 powdered charcoal, and flour of sulphur, in equal parts, mixed 
 with linseed oil to the consistence of thin paint. 
 
 THRUSH 
 
 747. — Is a diseased state of the frog caused by depriving 
 it of its natural work, cutting away its natural covering, and 
 bringing it in. contact with wet fetid matter, such as cow dung, 
 used for stopping, or horse dung and urine, allowed to accumulate 
 inside of a projecting shoe. With such treatment the frog often 
 becomes soft and tender, discharging a fluid with a strong 
 oflFensive smell. In this state no use can be made of it, and it 
 will take a long course of sensible treatment to restore it to 
 usefulness. The horse must go as best he can without a frog, 
 as most horses do, but if it is left uncut, kept clean, and the 
 tender, offensive cracks dusted with a little powdered blue stone, 
 a useful frog may eventually be grown, and may be kept useful 
 by treating it as recommended in the chapter on shoeing. 
 
 SAND CRACKS. 
 
 748. — Some breeds of horses have very brittle hoofs. These 
 sometimes crack open in the direction of the grain of the hoof 
 from top to bottom, so as to expose the extremely sensitive quick, 
 and cause lameness. They are most liable to do this in warm, 
 dry countries, but the disposition is decidedly hereditary. The 
 mischief is greatly aggravated by the common practice of putting 
 all the horse's weight on the unyielding outside crust of the 
 
302 ROUGH HYDROPATHY. 
 
 hoof, instead of allowing the elastic frog and quarters to take the 
 large share of it which nature intended them to receive. Where 
 the natural cushions have not been destroyed, lameness may at 
 once be removed by shortening the crust of the hoof, and letting 
 more weight come on the frog and middle of the foot. 
 
 STRAINS 
 
 749. — Of the sinews, muscles, or joints, from whatever 
 cause, are best treated by abundant and active applications of hot 
 water. Where possible let the injured part be soaked for hours 
 together in water, as hot as can be comfortably borne. Where 
 this is not possible, let the part be kept wet with hot cloths, 
 covered with flannel. Nothing should be tight round the limb, 
 nor anything be allowed to impede the circulation. 
 
 750. — liCt no firing iron, blister, charges, or plasters, come 
 near your horse, as besides their barbarity they can do nothing 
 but mischief They only destroy the skin that should help us 
 to cure. 
 
 Dr. Dadd says " It was customary but a few years ago, to 
 apply charges, and plasters to the back, for the cure of strain and 
 lameness. But the day of plasters, in human as well as veterinary 
 practice, has gone by ; they are now only used by those who 
 have never taken the trouble to understand the exhalatory 
 function of the skin, which salutary function plasters obstruct ; 
 the wet sheet next the skin, and a blanket over it, will be more 
 likely to do good than a plaster." 
 
 751. — In the warm climate of Australia, a lame horse is 
 often tied for hours together in a water hole, two or three feet 
 deep with evident advantage, but this cannot he done with 
 comfort and safety in really cold water. Even such clumsy 
 resorts to nature's great " remover," are more safe and more 
 effectual than the most learned and artistic application of those 
 destructive and painful agents with which the horse has been so 
 long treated. 
 
 CURLES 
 
 752. — Are caused by a malformation of the bones of the 
 hind leg, below the hock. When these present a projecting, 
 
SURGERY. 303 
 
 ronncung, or convex surface, they cause great friction to the 
 tendons that pass over them, and no horse so formed will ever 
 stand fast work young. The firing and blistering, resorted to 
 here, do nothing but mischief, though they often get the credit 
 of eflPecting a cure which is really nature's work. This formation 
 generally improves ai'ter three years old, and the surface of the 
 tendon grooves probably becomes more polished, whilst of course 
 the sinews harden, so that if such horses can be kept to slow, 
 moderate work, like ploughing and harrowing, until four or 
 five years old, they often stand hard fast work very well after 
 that age. 
 
 WOUNDS. 
 
 758,_Xn a state of nature with succulent food, complete 
 liberty, and unpolluted air, the horse will recover rapidly from very 
 serious wounds. 
 
 754.— When an important artery has been severed, and the 
 horse is likely to bleed to death, before any one can be 
 obtained with sufficient skill and the proper appliances to tie it 
 up, the bleeding may be arrested by putting a soft, strong loop of 
 canvas, cloth, or linen very loosely round the limb, on the heart 
 side of the wound, and drawing tight by twisting it Avith a short 
 stick. 
 
 755. — Wounds made with a sharp clean instrument, and 
 attended to before they have been much exposed to air, or any foreign 
 substance, may be sewn together with horse hair, waxed twine, 
 or silver wire, putting no more stitches than are necessary, and 
 tying each stitch separately. This must not be done unless the 
 wound can first be made perfectly clean. The growing together 
 of smooth, clean surfaces in this way, is not so often successful 
 with the horse as with the human subject. The horse will gnaw 
 the stitches if he can get at them. He has the power to move 
 and shake his skin, in a way that we cannot move ours, which 
 severely tries the stitches. Any confined matter in anything like 
 aggravated wounds of the horse, has a strong tendency to corrode, 
 and produce great mischief if it is not let freely off. It is always 
 most dangerous to ckse an outer surface if there is any mischiei' 
 left under it. 
 
304 A STITCH IN TIME. 
 
 756. — lu rough jagged wounds, wasb very clean with warm 
 water. It will generally be better to cut away the loose injured 
 parts than to try to restore them, especially if they have been 
 long exposed. 
 
 757. — In deep punctured wounds, all foreign matter must 
 be removed at any cost, however deep you have to cut for it. 
 When the hoof has been pierced to the quick, it must be cut 
 away, and a free opening made for all matter to get away. If 
 this is not effectually done matter will form behind the hoof, and 
 often cause death by mortification or lock jaw. The hoof must 
 be kept soft and wet by poultices, or applications of water. 
 
 GALLS 
 
 758. — Can with care be prevented, but there is no cure for 
 them so long as the cause is continued. The skin of the horse, 
 like our own skin, though naturally thin and sensitive, will 
 thicken and harden so as to meet any reasonable amount of 
 friction that may be required of it. But it must have time to do 
 this, and will do it, most quickly and effectually, when regularly 
 stimulated by friction applied so gradually as not to interfere with 
 the integrity of its structure. In this way all the blood vessels are 
 left in full force, to quickly supply all that is needed to build up 
 the additional covering required to meet the demand of any 
 special friction it may be necessary to provide for. So long as the 
 skin is thus left whole and uninjured, whilst moderate friction is 
 daily applied to it, it can quickly adapt itself to anything that 
 will be required of it, but if su(.'h an amount of friction be 
 suddenly applied as to break up the connection of the blood 
 vesssls, and to destroy the healthy condition of the existing skin, 
 a longr time must be lost in first restoring a new skin before 
 anything can be done towards providing a specially thick and 
 hard one. 
 
 759.— If the iiajiry has been carried so far as to make the 
 destruction extensive and deep, the probabihties are that after 
 losing a great deal of time in trying to repair the injury with 
 damaged tools, the patch will not be a good one after all, and the 
 new skin, besides being a perpetual blemish and eye sore, will 
 
COLLARS AND SADDLES. 305 
 
 never be as capable of enduring friction, or be as useful for any 
 purpose as it would have been if hardened and thickened by 
 patient reasonable means. Thus we see that here hurry is a 
 great loss of time, and produces results as tedious as they are 
 ultimately unsatisfiictory. If you carelessly or stupidly allow a 
 horse's skin to be seriously damaged, you have certainly lost a lot 
 of time and have made it impossible to get his skin either so 
 quickly or thoroughly fit for work as with more care and 
 patience you might easily have done. 
 
 760. — See that saddles and collars fit, so that the pressure 
 and friction will be equally divided over a sufficient amount of 
 surface, and let the lining material be soft, free from lumps, 
 seams, or grit of any description. A collar must never be too 
 large, or the friction will be greatl)' increased. A saddle is best 
 quite large enough, and although it should be as light as possible, 
 the iron work in it must be strong enough to maintain its right 
 form. 
 
 761. — But whatever care you take no two saddles or collars 
 will press on exactly the same parts, so that the horse that has 
 been hardened to his own saddle or collar will often gall directly 
 when worked in a different one, even though it may fit him just as 
 well as his own. Never start on a long important journey with any 
 new gear that your horse's skin has not been slowly and carefully 
 hardened to. Just as no sensible man would start for a Ions: 
 walk in a new pair of boots, however well they might fit him. 
 
 762. — The great thing is to watch the first symptom of 
 tenderness, and never let it go on to soreness, far less to a broken 
 skin. For a saddle, packing of some kind can always be got 
 even on a journey, even though you take off your stockings and 
 fill them with soft grass to shift the weight from a suffering part. 
 A blanket or sheep skin can generally be obtained. With a 
 collar there are many ways of putting the pressure higher or 
 lower ; or if serious mischief has been done, a blanket or sheep 
 skin, a shirt, or even a sack can be made to do duty as a breast 
 strap. 
 
 763. — In those long journeys, where the horse starts full of 
 flesh and arrives at its close a bag of bones, neither saddles nor 
 u 
 
306 MERCIFUL EIDERS. 
 
 collars can continue to fifc, and the utmost daily care will be 
 necessary to avoid adding to the poor creature's suffering by 
 making it carry or draw you on a raw place. In such journeys 
 examine your horse's back very caret'ally, two or three times a 
 day, and take care that in saving one place you do not make a 
 worse. Slacken your girths when resting, but do not remove 
 the saddle until the horse's back is cool, and see that both his 
 back, and the saddle are very clean before you put the saddle on. 
 Washing with water or with brine does good, but do not rely 
 upon stimulating oils, or any messes of that sort, as they always 
 do harm. 
 
 764. — On such journeys keep your feet well home in the 
 stirrnp irons, so that you can bear most of your weight on them, 
 and none on your hips. Walk quarter of a mile every half hour 
 and down every steep hill. You will find all these precautions 
 and indulgences repaid before the end of a long journey, whilst 
 attempting to ride on the raw of a suffering creature's back is as 
 improvident and impolitic as it is inhuman. 
 
 POLL EVIL AND FISTULA OF THE WITHERS 
 
 765. —Are caused by bruises and by neglected aggravated 
 injuries to the poll or the withers. Poll evil is most commonly 
 produced by blows, or repeated bruises, on the top of the head, 
 just behind the ears. Fistula, is usually the outcome of long 
 deep-seated aggravated saddle galls, where the pressure has been 
 long continued regardless of all suffering. The disease is of the 
 same character in each case, only differing in the locality. It is a 
 most painful and intractable disease to deal with. The boil-like 
 tenderness is so great and evident, the treatment so painful, and 
 the recovery so slow and uncertain. The matter formed is of a 
 most corrosive and irritating character, and is so situated that it 
 cannot get away. Hence a constant tendency to eat its way 
 downwards, through muscular fibres, and even to corrode the 
 bones beneath. 
 
 766. — No treatment will be successful here thac does not 
 provide a free and sufficiently large opening to let off the 
 corroding matter from the lowest part of the wound, however 
 
DR. DADD. 307 
 
 deep and critically situated that may be. The wound may be 
 frequently and very thoroughly washed with warm water. 
 
 767. — In neglected cases of this kind we have had no 
 experience farther than witnessing the suffering of a few horses, 
 undergoing operations by veterinaries, where we had no control 
 or authority. In all such cases the torture has been of the most 
 undoubted character, and the resulting benefit altogether 
 invisible. 
 
 768. — Dr. Dadd says, " Cases, however, occur which set at 
 defiance all our skill. In such the ligamentary, tendinous, fleshy, 
 and bony structures are involved, perhaps accompanied with 
 fistulas, running in various directions, like so many pipes or 
 drains, and the difiiculty of closing the latter is, that they acquire 
 a mucous lining, and all mucous canals are very difficult to unite. 
 The only remedy in such ca^es is the knife : the part must be 
 laid open and all fistulous pipes dissected out. Should a portion 
 of the bone be diseased, that must also be removed. The chasm 
 is then to be cleansed with a solution of claloride of lime or 
 pyroligneous acid, its edges brought together by suture, leaving 
 an orifice at the lower part for the discharge of matter. Oar 
 object must still be to heal by adhesion, as already described. 
 Should we fail in this, and the part assume a morbid type, inject 
 and dress it with equal parts spirits of turpentine, pyroligneous 
 acid, and linseed oil. Fir balsam has also a very good eflTect on 
 indolent and morbid parts. So soon, however, as the parts show 
 a disposition to heal, dress with tincture of aloes and myrrh." 
 For such an operation the horse should undoubtedly be put under 
 chloroform (770.) 
 
 INJURIES TO THE EYE. 
 
 769. — The horse often loses the sight of an eye through the 
 lodgment of some foreign substance, such as chaflF, or grass seed, 
 or through bungling attempts to remove it. The best way is to 
 put the horse down (353), and try to remove the object by 
 syringing with tepid water. Should this not succeed try a soft 
 camel hair brush, dipped in gum water. Should that fail, put 
 the horse under chloroform, which is the only way to keep the 
 
308 MERCIFUL MEDICINE. 
 
 eye steady, and take it out with steel forceps. When a particle 
 of iron or steel is partially embedded in the eye, it may sometimes 
 though very rarely be removed by a magnet. When completely 
 embedded it is less painful, but it will then be necessary to 
 uncover it with a fine needle, so that it can be taken hold of by 
 the forceps. For this purpose the needle may be stuck back- 
 wards into the shaft of % feather, to within three quarters of an 
 inch of its point, which will give a secure hold on it. Such 
 operations require a steady hand and a very good eye. In many 
 cases the eye will require the assistance of a powerful glass, 
 though all such movements are better judged and executed without 
 a glass if the eye is good enough, or the object sufficiently large. 
 
 CHLOROFORM. 
 
 770. — There are many operations that can be better, as well 
 as much more humanely performed, under chloroform. After the 
 horse has been put down (353), a sponge moderately saturated 
 with chloroform should be held to his nostrils, but not so close as 
 to compel him to take all his air through it. Feel the pulse fre- 
 quently, and if that becomes irregular with now and then a 
 beat missing, take away the sponge and feel the pulse until it 
 beats without intermission, when you may try again more 
 cautiously, or with the sponge a little further away. It should 
 take about three or four minutes to make a horse insensible to 
 pain, but a novice should take care not to unduly hurry the 
 business. You want to paralyze the nerves of sensatiou, but you 
 must not paralyze the nerves that preside over the action of the 
 heart or lungs. Watcli the pulse carefully, and withdraw the 
 sponge as soon as you see the horse is growing insensible to pain. 
 Don't give a breath more than is necessary. 
 
 THE PULSE. 
 
 771. — Each motion of the heart vibrates through all the 
 main tubes or arteries along which the blood is pumped on its 
 way from the heart, so that each stroke of the heart can be 
 counted, and the strength of its action judged, by putting a finger 
 on an artery at any point where it approaches the skin. In man 
 
COERECT CONCLUSIONS. 309 
 
 this is most conveniently done at tlie wrist ; in the horse, inside 
 the jaw bone, not far from its angle. 
 
 772. — The number of beats per minute in a healthy horse, 
 in a state of quiet confidence, varies from 42 in the nervous 
 thoroughbred, to 36 in the slow cart horse. Fifcy indicates 
 fever, seventy-five something dangerous, and one hundred some- 
 thing that the horse cannot stand long. Exertion, fear, or 
 excitement will set the pulse going, far beyond its natural speed. 
 The horse must be approached slowly and soothingly, to get at 
 the truth, as a rough word or action will be apt to put ten beats 
 on to his pulse at once. 
 
 773. — There may be the slow, weak pulse of the feeble heart 
 or oppressed brain ; the strong full pulse of fever ; the quick, 
 jerking, small, irritated pulse of great pain, as in inflammation 
 of the bowels ; the full yet obstructed and weakly vibrated pulse 
 of the gorged blood vessels, as in inflammation of the lungs ; or 
 there may be the intermittant pulse, with its sudden stops, as 
 from the too hasty administration of chloroform. 
 
 774. — Tt demands a fine sense of touch, a quiet soothing 
 manner, and some experience to read the pulse well ; and then 
 there must be power to understand the language of the expressive 
 nostril, the ear, the eye, the flank, and the foot. To decide 
 correctly all that is wrong with a patient is perhaps the greatest 
 art to be attained by any physician ; it is especially so where all 
 has to be learned without the aid of artificial language. 
 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 Aboriginal Home of Horse 2 
 
 Abraham had no Horses ... 2 
 
 Absurd Tales 279 
 
 Action ... 212 
 
 Age to Break In 218 
 
 ,, Indications of 611 to 623 
 
 ., for Breeding 6.56 
 
 Air 99 to 114 
 
 „ quantity consumed by Horse ... ... 113 
 
 Allowance of Food to Plough Horses 20 
 
 „ ,, to other Horses 70 to 85 
 
 America, North 32,5 to 335 
 
 „ South 277 to 291 
 
 American Carriages... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... 330 
 
 „ Trotters 6.58,6.59 
 
 ., Trotting Course 38 
 
 „ Trotting Matches 36 to 40 
 
 Arab Horsemanship 201 to 203 
 
 „ Horses 201 to 203 
 
 „ Pedigrees ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 
 
 Arm 601 
 
 Ashburton Huntsman on Hunting 229 to 238 
 
 Assistant with Horses ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 385 
 
 Atmospheric Constituents... ... ... ... ... ... ... Ill 
 
 Australia 292 to 300 
 
 Australian Horses ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 „ Riders ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 325 
 
 Backing (mounting) 193 to 197 
 
 ., (putting back) 442,4-13,470,473 
 
 BakewelFs Leicesters ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 Baulking Horses (see jibbing) ... ... ... ... ... ... 369 
 
 Barker, Lady, Boar Hunting ... ... ... ... ... ... 290 
 
 Barley 8r,, 87, 89 
 
 Barrett, on English Horse ... 30 
 
 Barry, Jumping ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 235 
 
 Beans 86,87 
 
 Bearing Reins ... 540,544 
 
 Beasts, Wild, feared by Horse 178 
 
 Beaumont, Dr. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 743 
 
 Bells in Harness ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 405 
 
 Berrenger, on English Horse ... ... ... ... ... ... 33 
 
 Bird-keepers... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 101 
 
 Bit, lar^'e, for Cleaning 59,498 
 
 Biting' 497,498 
 
 Bitting 185 
 
 Black Beauty 540 
 
 Blacksmith's Shop 146 
 
11. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Black Tartar Oats 
 
 Blinkers 
 
 Bleeding 
 
 To Stop 
 
 Blood Circulation ... 
 ,, Composition of 
 „ (Jorpuscles or Cells ... 
 
 „ Foreign 
 
 „ Loss of 
 
 Board for Ploughmen in New Zealand 
 
 Boiled Barley 
 
 Bolting 
 
 Bowels 
 
 ,, Entangled 
 
 „ Inflamed ... 
 
 Boxes, Loose 
 
 Brain, Diseases of ... 
 
 Bran 
 
 Break ... 
 
 Breaking In, Age for 
 ,, Bridles 
 
 „ Important ... 
 
 „ Slowly and Thoroughly . . . 
 
 „ to Harness, Theory of 
 
 ,, to Light Harness ... 
 
 „ to Slow Draft 
 
 Breast-plate Harness 
 
 Breeding 
 
 „ Affected by Concentrated Food 
 ,. In and In... 
 
 ,, with Certainty 
 
 Breeds, Old Lost 
 
 Brewers' Horses 
 
 Bridle Breaking 
 
 „ Flax 
 
 „ Gag 
 
 „ Loop 
 
 Bronchitis 
 
 Brown, Dr. John 
 Brushing Skin 
 Brushing or Catting 
 Brutal Coachmen ... 
 
 Buck Jamping 
 
 Bugbears 
 
 Burning Horses Gums 
 
 Buying a Horse 
 
 Cab Horse, Food for 
 
 Calculi 
 
 Calvin... 
 
 Canvas and Felt Covers 
 
 Cantering 
 
 Car'oonic Acid Gas ... 
 
 Cardinal Rule 
 
 Care of Shoulders ... 
 
 Carriage for Riding behind Plough 
 
 ,, Horse, Food for 
 
 „ Horse 
 
 Cart Horse 
 
 Carrots 
 
 102 to 110, 
 10"J. 
 109, 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 128 
 
 381, 390, 391, -tU, 415 
 f;72 
 
 7,54: 
 
 673 
 
 110 
 
 117 
 
 ... 048 
 
 98 
 
 21 
 
 89 
 
 492 to 494 
 
 (iS4 
 
 ... G94 
 
 695 to (;98 
 
 53 
 
 699 
 
 89 
 
 562 
 
 ... 218 
 
 495, 496 
 
 ... 391 
 
 183 to 272 
 
 368 to 378 
 
 879 to 403 
 
 404 to 443 
 
 215 
 
 (;;;7 to 669 
 
 70 
 
 617 to (>51 
 
 616 
 
 10 to 12 
 
 8 
 
 495, 496 
 
 ... 320 
 
 ... 357 
 
 H56 
 
 700, 714 
 
 ... 672 
 
 56 to 60 
 
 ... 608 
 
 393 
 
 ... 298 
 
 63 
 
 5 
 
 624 to 636 
 
 82 
 
 694 
 
 103 
 
 255 
 
 ... 257 
 
 ... 113 
 
 ... 375 
 
 379, 388 
 
 20 
 
 84 
 
 ... 84, 88 
 
 1 38. ()69 
 
 93 
 
 80, 83, ><(;. 13; 
 
INDKX. 111. 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 Carter _ :;^78 
 
 Casting do\vii Horse 3.")3, ijol 
 
 Catarrh 717,718 
 
 Catching in Field •KJ2 
 
 Catechism 519,520 
 
 Cavendish, on Horse 31 
 
 Cells, Blood 109,110 
 
 Chain Bit ■"'•^i 
 
 Charles II "52 
 
 Chartist Orator 547 
 
 Cheap Horses 297,637 
 
 Check Line for Kicking loS, 454: 
 
 Child Kiding 508 to 530 
 
 Children made Safe on Ponies 255 
 
 Children's Ponies 240 to 255, 511 
 
 Chloroform ^70 
 
 Choking Down 296 
 
 Circling 346 to 351, 4G9 to 472 
 
 Circulation of Blood ... 673, 102 to 110 
 
 Classification of Horses, Zoological 1 
 
 Clay for Stable Floors 52 
 
 Cleaning 56 to 60 
 
 Cleveland Bays 10 
 
 Clenching Shoe Nails 154,157 
 
 Cleverness in Hunters 227,238 
 
 Clipping 54 
 
 Clydesdale Horse 16 to 22 
 
 in New Zealand 20 to 22 
 
 Coach Horses in Australia 299 
 
 Coachmen, Brutal 393 
 
 Coach work ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Cobden 672 
 
 Cold 717,718 
 
 Coleman. Mr 721,722 
 
 Collar 375,379 
 
 Collar Proud 478,482 
 
 Colic 74, 94, 685 to 693 
 
 Collie Dogs 203 
 
 Colour 579 
 
 Colt, Wild, to Halter 337 to 345 
 
 Combustion ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... 107 
 
 Concentiated Food 69,70,73 
 
 Conception ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 666 
 
 Corpuscles in Blood 109,110 
 
 Contraction of Foot 144 
 
 Corn, Crushed 89 
 
 „ for Racehorse 128 
 
 Counteractions in Breeding ... ... ... ... ... 654, (i55 
 
 Courage 181 
 
 Covers for Plough Horses 20 
 
 Cow Hiding Calf ... ... ... ... ... ... 76 
 
 CribBiiing 499 
 
 Cromwell 32 
 
 Cross, Fii St, with Eastern Blood 30 
 
 Crossing Rivers ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 560 to 2()5 
 
 Cruel Tying Together 416 to 419 
 
 Cruelty 222,223 
 
 Cruor 109 
 
 Crush Pen 340 
 
 Crupper .. 190 
 
IV. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Crushed Corn 
 Curies 
 
 Cutting, 
 
 Brushing', or Striking 
 
 Dadd, Dr 
 
 Daily Work ... 
 Danger to Horse 
 Danger, To Prevent 
 Dangerous Shying ... 
 Defence of Horse, Natural 
 Degeneration 
 
 Delicate Feeders 
 
 Digestive Organs, Disease of 
 Directing by Voice ... 
 Diseases 
 
 „ of Brain ... 
 
 „ of Digestive Organs 
 
 ,. of Respiratory Organs . 
 
 ,, of Skin 
 
 „ of Urinary Organs 
 Dixon, Dr. ... 
 
 Doctors' Advice 
 
 Dog Fed on Sugar ... 
 Draft Horse, How Improved 
 
 „ Natural Docility of 
 
 „ How Ruined 
 
 Draft, Slow ... 
 
 Drink 
 
 Drive, The First 
 
 Driver, Good 
 
 ,, Bad ... 
 Driving 
 
 ,, by Ladies 
 
 ,, Tandem 
 
 Drug Doctors 
 
 Drugs... 
 Dusting 
 Dwyer's Martingale 
 
 Ear 
 
 Early Training 
 
 Eastern Blood, Effect of 
 
 Eastern Horses 
 
 Eclipse 
 
 Education 
 
 „ Expeditious 
 
 ,, High 
 
 „ Theory of... 
 
 ,, Pull, Theory of ... 
 Elastic Materials for Shoeing 
 
 Elbow 
 
 Elman's Southdowns 
 
 Emigration, Effect on Character.. 
 Enamel Destroyed ... 
 
 English Horse in 1617 
 
 Entangled Horse 
 
 Equestrians, Natural 
 
 Evolutions, Military 
 
 Eccentricities 
 
 Excitement Prevents Obedience .. 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 89 
 
 752 
 
 008 
 
 .672, 693. 698, 714, 750, 768 
 
 134. 135 
 
 395 
 
 383,539 
 
 539 
 
 168 
 
 642 
 
 75 
 
 671 to 684 
 
 419 to 443 
 
 671 to 774 
 
 699 
 
 678 to 698 
 
 700 to 718 
 
 734 to 744 
 
 726 to 731 
 
 672 
 
 72,94,672 
 
 72 
 
 406 
 
 407 
 
 409 
 
 401 to 413 
 
 94 to 98 
 
 387 
 
 422 
 
 423 
 
 192, 531 to 574 
 
 571 to 574 
 
 556 
 
 672,673 
 
 672. 573, 693. 698, 726 
 
 187, 195. 359 
 
 493 
 
 592 
 
 124 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 33,42,649 
 
 183 to 443 
 
 336 to 367 
 
 221 to 272 
 
 165 to 182 
 
 380 to 382 
 
 164 
 
 600 
 
 10 
 
 274 
 
 146 
 
 29 
 
 371 
 
 517,530 
 
 202 
 
 370 to 371 
 
 198 
 
INDEX. 
 
 V. 
 
 Horses 
 
 Excretions 
 Exercise 
 
 ,, Effect of want of 
 
 of Queen's Horse 
 Expeditious Education 
 Eye, Injuries to 
 
 Fair Xell 
 
 Falling from Horse 
 
 „ „ in Deep Water 
 
 False Horse (see Jibs) 
 Farcy 
 Farm Horse . . 
 
 ., Labourers 
 
 „ Servants in North America 
 Fanners' Sons and Daughters in North 
 Fasting 
 Fasting, Effects of Long 
 
 Fat 
 
 Fear, the Besetting Weakness of 
 
 „ Nervous 
 
 ,. to Overcome . . 
 Feeders, Delicate or Gross 
 Feeding Breeders . . 
 „ Frequent . . 
 „ Plough Horses in Field 
 Feet, Inflammation in 
 Fertile Age . . 
 Field Catching 
 Fighting with Horse 
 Finishing Strokes . . 
 
 „ Touches, in Riding 
 
 Fistula of Withers . . 
 Fire . . 
 
 Firing the Horse 
 Firmest Seated Riders 
 First Drive . . 
 
 .. Ride . . 
 Fitful Action 
 Flax Bridle . . 
 Flora Mclvor, produce of 
 Flower, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Flying Childers 
 Foal Handling 
 
 „ Sucking Often 
 
 „ Treatment of . . 
 
 „ Tying up 
 
 „ AVeaning 
 Foaling 
 Food 
 
 „ Daily Quantities 
 
 „ for Race Horse 
 ■ „ How to Adapt 
 
 „ Natural 
 
 On a Journey 
 
 „ Should be AVeighed or Measured 
 Foot 
 
 „ Prepared for Shoe 
 Forbes, Sir John 
 Fording Rivers 
 
 America 
 
 2il 
 
 11 
 
 HI 
 
 I'aiagraph, 
 
 676, 
 
 677 
 
 115 to 140, 
 
 389 
 
 131, 
 
 132 
 
 • • 
 
 73 
 
 .. 336 to 
 
 367 
 
 .. 
 
 769 
 
 3-1 to 36 
 
 to 219, .512, 
 
 523 
 
 ■ • 
 
 263 
 
 . . . • 
 
 369 
 
 720 to 
 
 725 
 
 . . 8, 83, 
 
 149 
 
 
 405 
 
 . . • • 
 
 327 
 
 > . • 
 
 327 
 
 . . > ■ 
 
 97 
 
 * • ■ > 
 
 680 
 
 5. 125, (560, 
 
 661 
 
 . . 177 to 
 
 lao 
 
 171), 
 
 217 
 
 
 214 
 
 
 75 
 
 • • • • 
 
 660 
 
 76 to 78 
 
 • • ■ • 
 
 77 
 
 • * • . 
 
 69 
 
 • • • . 
 
 8 
 
 • • • ■ 
 
 462 
 
 .. 170,342, 
 
 364 
 
 • • > • 
 
 402 
 
 • > 
 
 530 
 
 76.5 to 
 
 768 
 
 
 107 
 
 • • > > 
 
 752 
 
 • • • ■ 
 
 525 
 
 887, 
 
 510 
 
 • . . • 
 
 508 
 
 ■ ■ . . 
 
 208 
 
 • • • ■ 
 
 320 
 
 • ■ • • 
 
 7 
 
 • • ■ > 
 
 540 
 
 • > 
 
 33 
 
 183, 
 
 665 
 
 • • • > 
 
 76 
 
 665 to 
 
 670 
 
 184, 
 
 665 
 
 667'to 
 
 669 
 
 663, 
 
 664 
 
 65 to 92 
 
 79 to 85 
 
 > • • • 
 
 128 
 
 • . . 
 
 66 
 
 ■ > 
 
 65 
 
 • • • • 
 
 68 
 
 . . 
 
 75 
 
 to 1 64, 606 
 
 607 
 
 • • • ■ 
 
 151 
 
 • ■ • • 
 
 674 
 
 260 to 265 
 
VI. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Foreig-n Blood 
 
 Forest Reluctantly Entered 
 
 Frequent Feeding . . 
 
 „ Rest 
 Frog- Destroyed 
 Frost, Roughing for 
 
 Gag Bridle . . 
 
 Galileo 
 
 Galling 
 
 Galls . . 
 
 Gambling 
 
 Garotting 
 
 Gate Opening 
 
 Gauchos 
 
 Gentling Horse 
 
 Gestation 
 
 Glanders 
 
 Glasgow, Late Earl 
 
 Godolpliin, Arabian 
 
 Goose Stealer 
 
 Grace Darling 
 
 Grass Feeding 
 
 " Taking up from 
 
 Grease 
 
 Griffiths, Mr.. 
 
 Grooms 
 
 Gross Feeders 
 
 Guiding 
 
 „ by Voice . . 
 
 „ Words Badly Chosen 
 
 „ „ Duplicate.. 
 
 „ ,, Now Taught 
 
 „ ,, Midland Counties 
 
 ., ., Scotch 
 
 Habits, Bad and Vices 
 Hair on Legs 
 Haleem Pacha's Arabs 
 Half Broken Horses 
 Haltering a Colt . . 
 Harness 
 
 „ Light Breaking to 
 Harvey 
 
 Harvest in New Zealand 
 Harvesting . . 
 Hautboy 
 
 Hay 
 
 ,, for Race Horse. . 
 Head . . 
 
 ,, how Supported 
 
 ,, in Cart Horse 
 
 „ Roping 
 Heads, Good 
 Heart 
 
 Hemans, Mrs 
 High School Education 
 Hind Legs . . 
 Hind Quarters 
 Hippocrates . . 
 
 187, 
 
 357 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 ■ . 
 
 648 
 
 
 179 
 
 76 to 78 
 
 270, 
 
 271 
 
 • • • 
 
 146 
 
 . 
 
 163 
 
 
 357 
 
 • ■ • 
 
 103 
 
 379, 
 
 388 
 
 758 to 
 
 764 
 
 • • • 
 
 223 
 
 296, 
 
 339 
 
 • • ■ 
 
 258 
 
 ■ ■ • 
 
 291 
 
 to 363. 383, 
 
 447 
 
 661, 
 
 662 
 
 720 to 
 
 725 
 
 . 
 
 44 
 
 . 
 
 42 
 
 165 to 167 
 
 311 to 316, 
 
 336 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 219 
 
 71:5, 
 
 746 
 
 • • • 
 
 235 
 
 . 
 
 94 
 
 ■ • • 
 
 75 
 
 186, 
 
 198 
 
 419 to 443 
 
 424, 
 
 425 
 
 • • • 
 
 428 
 
 434 to 439 
 
 • -^ • 
 
 428 
 
 . . 
 
 428 
 
 444 to 
 
 502 
 
 . 
 
 13 
 
 • • ■ 
 
 34 
 
 299 to 301 
 
 337 to 345 
 
 • 
 
 380 
 
 379 to 403 
 
 104, 
 
 673 
 
 . . 
 
 22 
 
 . . 
 
 415 
 
 • 4 • • 
 
 649 
 
 .. 90 to 92, 96 
 
 • • 
 
 128 
 
 '. '. 591 
 
 592 
 
 542 to 
 
 544 
 
 
 13 
 
 296 
 
 339 
 
 . . 
 
 273 
 
 .. 105 
 
 106 
 
 . . 
 
 110 
 
 221, 
 
 272 
 
 609 
 
 610 
 
 . . 
 
 610 
 
 .. 
 
 677 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Vll. 
 
 Hock . . 
 
 Hoof 
 
 Hobbles 
 Horse Breeders 
 
 „ Cheap 
 
 „ Cloths 
 
 „ Courage 
 
 „ Not Used to Slow Draft until 
 
 „ Refractory . . 
 
 „ Tamers 
 
 „ Timid 
 
 ., To Select 
 
 „ To Purchase. . 
 
 „ Washing 
 
 „ When first Driven . . 
 
 „ When first Ridden . . 
 Hunt Josiah . . 
 Hunter, Clever 
 
 „ Cruelty to. . 
 „ Education of 
 „ Food for ... 
 „ Training . . 
 Hunting Field, Its Effect on Horse 
 
 „ „ Ladies in . . 
 
 Huntsman, Ashburton, on Hunting 
 Hydropathy . . 
 
 Ice, Roughing for . . . . 
 Iceland Ponies 
 Idle Horses . . 
 Imperfect Breaking 
 Inaction Injurious . . 
 Inattention . . 
 Indians Red . . 
 Indications of Age . . 
 Inflammation of Bladder . . 
 „ „ Bowels . . 
 
 1689 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 609 
 
 .. 141 to 164 
 267 to 269 
 
 44 
 
 297 
 
 . . 54. 55 
 
 4 
 
 28 
 
 . . 351, 364, 365 
 
 329 
 
 357 to 363, 366 
 
 .")7(; to (Uo 
 
 (i24 to 6.36 
 
 63 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 16.") to 1()7 
 
 238 
 
 226 
 
 226, 238 
 
 ..81. 129, 130 
 
 12'.l. 130 
 
 43. 45 
 
 526 to 529 
 229 to 238 
 675, 683 to 692, 703 to 706, 731. 734 
 
 163 
 
 7 
 
 73 
 
 391 
 
 116 
 
 211 
 
 Production 
 
 Kidneys . . 
 
 Lungs 
 
 Neck of Bladder 
 
 Plura 
 
 Injuries to Eye 
 
 Instincts Peculiar . . 
 
 Internal Fat . . . . . . l 
 
 Intersusception of Bowels. . 
 Inventors 
 
 Itching 
 
 Tail 
 
 James II. in France 
 
 Jaundice 
 
 Jibbing 
 
 Preventable, not Curable 
 ,, Theory of 
 Jibs, How to Feed . . 
 
 „ In South America and Australia 
 
 ,. Variety of 
 Johnston, Mr., Killed 
 Joseph gave Bread for Horses . . 
 Journeys, Cruel 
 
 331, 395 to 
 
 611 to 623 
 
 730 to 731 
 
 695 to 696 
 
 727 to 731 
 
 706 to 711 
 
 730, 731 
 
 712, 713 
 
 769 
 
 370 to 374 
 
 125 
 
 701 
 
 273, 274 
 
 736 to 744 
 
 738 
 
 399, 477 to 
 
 369. 
 
 369 to 
 
 31 
 740 
 491 
 477 
 378 
 408 
 393 
 478 
 301 
 2 
 135 
 
vm. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Journeys, Long 
 
 „ Sydney to Adelaide 
 Jumping 
 
 „ To Ride at 
 Jumps, High in Tips 
 Justin Morgan 
 
 Kicker, Treatment "of 
 Kicking 
 
 „ Horse, How to Approach 
 
 „ In Field . . 
 
 „ In Harness 
 
 ,, Strap 
 Kidneys, Inflammation of 
 Knee . . 
 Kohl Rabi 
 
 Labour Pains 
 Lady Drivers 
 
 ,, at a Hunt 
 
 „ Riders . . 
 Lady's Horse 
 Lameness 
 Laminoe 
 
 Language of Animals 
 Larks in New Zealand 
 Lasso . . . . . . . . • . 
 
 Leaders 
 Leading a Colt 
 Led Horses . . 
 Legs . . 
 Legs and Feet 
 
 „ Strapped up for Cleaning . . 
 Light Harness, Breaking to 
 Line to Prevent Kicking . . 
 Liver Disease 
 Local Systems 
 London Parks 
 ,, Streets 
 Long Races . . 
 Loop Bridle . . 
 Loose Boxes . . 
 Lounging 
 Luggers on Bit 
 Lungs 
 
 ,, Disease of . . 
 
 ,. Structure 
 Lying Down 
 
 Magendie's Experiments . . 
 Mahomet's Mares . . 
 
 „ Arabian's Pedigrees Traced to 
 
 Mange 
 
 Mangold Wurzel . . 
 Maori Woman Nursing Pig 
 Maories 
 
 Markham Jervase on English Horse 
 Blartyrdom. Proneness to . . 
 Massacre of Bartholomew 
 Medical Practitioners 
 
 Paragraph, 
 135 to 137 
 293 
 228 to 238 
 236 
 150 
 649 
 
 -156 
 
 862, 367, 381 to 383. 405 to 4G2 
 
 60, 186 
 
 461 
 
 446 to 456 
 
 394, 453, 454 
 
 727 to 731 
 
 602, 603 
 
 93 
 
 663, 664 
 
 571 to 574 
 
 526 to 527 
 
 526 to 529 
 
 528,571 to 574 
 
 69, 604 
 
 69 
 
 181 
 
 305 
 
 291 
 
 564 
 
 188 
 
 545 
 
 595 to 619 
 
 ., 13,43 
 
 59 
 
 379 to 403 
 
 453, 454 
 
 732 
 
 273 to 335 
 
 9 
 
 6, 9, 16, 23 
 
 .. 34, 35 
 
 356 
 
 53, 115 
 
 186 
 
 552 to 554 
 
 106 to 108 
 
 700 to 718 
 
 701 
 
 365, 476 
 
 3 
 3 
 
 741 to 744 
 
 93 
 
 203 
 
 307, 313, 324 
 
 29 
 
 20 
 
 71, 72, 94. 103, wfi 
 
INDEX. IX. 
 
 Paragrapli. 
 
 Medicine 672 to G74, 693, 698 
 
 „ Diuretic .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ... 726 
 
 Melbourne Derby and Cup Won by " Martini Henry" . . . . 7 
 
 " Mess ng-er," Sire of Trotters 36, 38, 649 
 
 Military Evolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 
 
 Morgan Justin . . . . - . . . . . . . . . . . 649 
 
 Mountain Driving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566, o67 
 
 „ Waterfalls 308 
 
 Mounting- 193 to 197, 351, 522 
 
 „ Block .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ., 195 
 
 Mouth Hard 333,33-1,378 
 
 ,, Light and Good 199,200,206 
 
 „ One-sided 389, 552 to 554 
 
 „ Punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . 453, 454, 
 
 „ Spoiled 416,419 
 
 Mules 331, 567 
 
 Nailing' on Shoe .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 153, 157 
 
 Nails too near Quick .. .. .. .. .. .. 154 to 156 
 
 „ for Roughing 1(53 
 
 „ for Shoeing 153 to 156. 163 
 
 Names should be Distinct . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 
 
 Natural Equestrians .. .. .. .. .. .. 517, 530 
 
 Nature, Reverence for .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 14^ 
 
 „ vcr.sux Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530 
 
 Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594 
 
 Needle Women .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. no 
 
 Nervous Fear .. ., .. .. .. .. .. 179^ 293 
 
 New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 to 324 
 
 „ „ Horses 7, 20 to 22 
 
 „ Ploughmen 21 
 
 Nightingale, Miss .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 713 
 
 Nitrogen HI 
 
 Norfolk Trotters .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. kj 
 
 Norman Horses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 
 
 Nurses better than Doctors .. .. .. .. .. .. ri72 
 
 Oaten Hay • • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 
 
 Oats for Plough Horses . . . . ... . . . . . . . . 20 
 
 „ ,, Race Horses .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 128 
 
 Obedience to secure 169, 232, 233, 254. 465 to 475 
 
 Objects of Fear .. .. .. .. .. .. .... 217 
 
 Obstinacy Apparent .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 177 
 
 Real 465 to 475 
 
 Omnibus Horses, Food for . . . . . . . . . . 8. 82 
 
 Overland Traveller .. .. ., .. .. .. 259 to 272 
 
 <^x 434^ 47;- 
 
 Oxygen 99 to 1 1 4 
 
 „ Quantity Consumed by Horse .. .. .. .. .. 113 
 
 Pace to Drive 
 
 Paces . . 
 
 Pack Wax . . 
 
 Pack Wet .. 
 
 Pain. Effect of 
 
 Paralysis Unaccountable . . 
 
 Paralized with Fear 
 
 Parsnips 
 
 Parsons, Athalstan . . 
 
 Parturition . . 
 
 .548 
 
 220 
 
 542, 543 
 
 686 to 61)2 
 
 372, 373 
 
 77 
 
 177, 180, 393 
 
 93 
 
 235 
 
 <i63. 664 
 
X. INDEX. 
 
 Paragraph. 
 Pastern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6U5 
 
 Patting- and Petting 245 
 
 Peculiar Eccentricities . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 to 37J: 
 
 Pedig-rees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 6.52, (j.53 
 
 Percheron Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 
 
 Percival, Mr. 720,721 
 
 Performances, Ancient Doubtful . . . . . . . . . . 33 
 
 Philanthropists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6S4 
 
 Physic 121 to 123, 128, 672, 693 
 
 Pickford and Co. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 19 
 
 Place's White Turk 32 
 
 Ploug-h as a Horse School. . .. .. .. .. .. 411,412 
 
 Plough Horses Fed in Field . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 
 
 „ „ in South New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . 20 
 
 Ploughman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 
 
 ., in New Zealand .. .. .. .. .. 21, 22 
 
 Pleurisy .. .. I 712,713 
 
 Poling 383,447 
 
 Poll Evil 765 to 768 
 
 Ponies 47. 48 
 
 Ponies, Education of for Children . . . . . . . . 240 to 255 
 
 ., Food for .. .. ... .. .. .. .. .. 85 
 
 „ Handled Early 218 
 
 „ in Shetland and Iceland. . .. .. •• .. .. 7 
 
 „ in Underground Tramways . . . . . . . . . . 48 
 
 „ "Wonderful Eyes and Lungs . . . . . . . . . . 48 
 
 Pores of Skin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 
 
 Potatoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 
 
 Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . 385, 403 
 
 Preventing Danger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 
 
 Prevention better than Cure . . . . . . . . . . 193, 672 
 
 Priesnitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684 
 
 Principle in Dealing with Horse . . . . . . . . 169, 375 
 
 Public Conveyances in Australia. . .. .. .. .. .. 299 
 
 Pulling Steadily, Key to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 
 
 „ To Teach 380, 382, 392 
 
 Pulse : 771 to 774 
 
 Punishment 234, 372. 453, 454 
 
 Purchasing Horse . . . . . . ■ • . - . . . . 624 to 636 
 
 Pure Blood 639, 640 
 
 Putting Horse Down . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . 353^ 
 
 Quaker Fighting . . . . ■ . . . • • • • • • • ■ 165 
 
 Quantity of Food Daily 79 to 85 
 
 Queen Victoria Riding . . . . . • • • . . • • • • 73 
 
 Quiberon Expedition . . . . • . • • . . • • ■ • 722 
 
 Race for 47 Miles 34 
 
 Course has Improved Horse . . . . . . . . • . 42 
 
 Horse Starting 2':4. 225 
 
 in Egypt for 8 Miles. . . . • • . . • • • • • • 34 
 
 not Cruel when really Fast . . . . . . • • 36 
 
 Racer, Treatment of 117 to 128, 222 to 225 
 
 „ Qualities Neglected in 42, 4.3. 
 
 Racing . . . . . . ■ ■ • • • • • • • • • • 222 
 
 ,. on Road . . . . • • • • • • • • • • ■ • 5"^( 
 
 Railway Trains .. .. •• •• •• •■ •• •• ^^'' 
 
 Rarey.. 1-^2, 342,352 
 
 Raw Hide 266, 267 
 
 Reapers and Binders 2(4 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XI. 
 
 TJeariug 
 
 Reclaimed Horses . . 
 Iteconciliug to Farm Implements 
 to Sight 
 „ to Touch 
 
 .. to Wheels 
 
 Refinements to be Avoided 
 Refractory Horse . . 
 Keining- up 
 Reins . . 
 Rests . . 
 
 Reverence for Nature 
 Reversion 
 Ride, No. 1 . . 
 Riders 
 
 ,, Lady . . 
 
 ., Rough 
 
 ., Thrown 
 Riding 
 
 ., at a Jump . . 
 Behind Plough 
 Party at New Zealand 
 Risks from Ignorance 
 Rivers in New Zealand 
 ., Crossing 
 .. Forded in Tips 
 Road Waggons 
 Roadster 
 Rocky Mountains passed in Tips 
 
 Roll before Saddle 
 
 Roller as a Horse School . . 
 
 Rolling 
 
 Romancing Travellers 
 
 Roots 
 
 Rope to prevent Kicking . . 
 
 Roping Head 
 
 Rotten Row. . 
 
 Roughing for Ice . . 
 
 liule, Cardinal, for Horse Breaking 
 
 Rule of the Road 
 
 Rules with Sticking-up Horses . . 
 
 Running Away 
 
 Rushing Stable Door 
 
 PfiraRTuiih. 
 .. 463, 4(54, 4 7G 
 
 444 
 
 410 
 
 447 to 4.")U 
 
 447. 450 
 
 .. 384, 448, 449 
 
 2U5 
 
 .. 3.-.1, -iCA, 3(55 
 
 212, olO, .-,44 
 
 192, 536 to 539, 560, .561 
 
 219, 270, 271 
 
 148 
 
 641, 642 
 
 210 
 
 830, 525 
 526 to 530 
 
 239 
 
 193 
 
 505 to 530 
 
 236 
 
 20 
 
 308 
 
 391 
 
 260 
 
 260 to 265 
 
 ] 50 
 
 13 
 
 256 to 258 
 
 150 
 
 512 
 
 413 
 
 50O 
 
 277 
 
 93 
 
 453, 454 
 
 296, 339 
 
 206 
 
 163 
 
 375 
 
 545 
 
 466 
 
 64, 
 
 492 to 494, 539 
 .f^Ol 
 
 Saddle 
 
 „ Horses Unfit for . . 
 Safe Action cannot be Taught 
 Salisbury Races in 1610 .. 
 Sand Cracks 
 
 Saunders, Edward, on Hunting 
 Scotch Guiding "Words 
 Scotch Heads 
 Scratches 
 
 Sectarian Prejudices 
 Selecting a Horse . . 
 
 Self Will 
 
 Senses, Special, in Horses. . 
 
 Servetus 
 
 Sewell, Miss . . 
 
 Shank 
 
 191 
 212 
 212 
 29 
 758 
 
 229 to 238 
 428 
 273 
 
 745 to 747 
 31 
 
 576 to 610 
 
 465 to 475 
 
 173 
 
 10.3. 673 
 
 540 
 
 604 
 
Xil. INDEX. 
 
 ravagrnpli. 
 
 Shank Boues in Shire Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 ;^ 
 
 Sharper .. .. .. .. .. .. .. •• .. Si. ;V) 
 
 Sharps 8'.l 
 
 Shepherd's Dog .. 2iiH 
 
 Shetland Ponies .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7, 7!i, Sn 
 
 Shire Horse . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 13 to 15. 7'.l 
 
 Shorthorns Pedigree .. .. ... .. .. .. .. VA\) 
 
 Shoulder ;.VJ7 to :M) 
 
 Shoulder in Cart Horse . . . • . . . . . . . . . . 14 
 
 Shoulders, Care of . . .. .. 371i, HSS 
 
 Shying r,?,'.) 
 
 Sidney's Book of Horse .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 710 
 
 Signals. Dumb .. .. .. .. ,. .. .. .. 2!>1 
 
 Single Harness . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . 31)4 
 
 „ „ Putting into . . . . . . . . . . . . 3'.to 
 
 Size of Horse .. .. .. .. .. .. (>, 13, 577. 57S 
 
 Skin 682 to 692, 703 to 70C. 731, 734, 735 
 
 Skin as an Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5() 
 
 ., Diseases of .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 734 to 744 
 
 Slow Draft 4u4to4i3 
 
 Slowing Word Taught 4 -id 
 
 Smedley, Mr. and Mrs. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. t>-^4 
 
 Snowed In .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 3i() 
 
 Solomon's Stud . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . 3 
 
 Spoiling Mouth 41i;to41i> 
 
 Springs ^'atural .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 5'.i5 
 
 Spur, Why Better than Whip 127. 2u7. 2Ki 
 
 Stable Floors .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 52 
 
 „ Discipline .. .. .. .. .. .. •• 457 to 4i>0 
 
 Stabling 49 to 53 
 
 Stagnation ., .. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. 57 
 
 Stall Discipline 457 to 4(iO 
 
 Stalls 53,115 
 
 Standing on three Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 
 
 Starting Horse 224, 225, 380, 392, .535 
 
 Staying . . . • • • . . . . • • • • • • • • 583 
 
 Steady Pulling, Key to ._ 375 
 
 Stirrups .. .. .. .. •• •• •• •• 513, 514 
 
 Stock Horses 525 
 
 Stock Men 525 
 
 Stomach, Small . . . . . . . . * 70 
 
 Stone in Intestines (;94 
 
 Stopping 441 
 
 Stopping for a Fallen Rider 241 to 249 
 
 Straddling Gait t>08 
 
 Strains 749 to 751 
 
 Strangles 726 
 
 Strapping Up Foot 59, 353, 448 to 453 
 
 Street Arabs 61 
 
 Street Sights 215 
 
 Striking 168 
 
 Stumbling 212. 551, 606, 607 
 
 Subduing ?>51 
 
 Substitutes for Iron Shoes 164 
 
 Succulent Food . - 7, 74 
 
 Suckling 667 
 
 Suffolk Punch 10,23 
 
 Sulkiness Apparent 177 
 
 Sulky Jumping in Tips 150,235,238 
 
 Surcingle « 189 
 
INDEX. Xlll. 
 
 Paragraph. 
 
 Surfeit .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 736, 737 
 
 Surgeons, Veterinary . . . . . . , . . . . . . . 94 
 
 Survival of the Fittest .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10 
 
 Swamping a Colt 308 to 321, 33(5 
 
 Sweating .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 118 to 122 
 
 Swede Turnips .. .. .. ..93, (;(i8. (]t>'J 
 
 Swimming on Horse .. .. .. .. . .. 2(!0 to 2(>;> 
 
 Systems, Local .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 273 to 335 
 
 Tail 190, 3(i2 
 
 ,, Itching 733 
 
 Tales, Absurd .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 279 
 
 Tamers ot Horses in Xorth America .. .. .. .. .. 329 
 
 Tanner, Dr. . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ., lol 
 
 Teachableness .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 201 to 205 
 
 Teachers of Horse 173,181 
 
 Teaching to Pull 380,382 
 
 Teaching Words to Horse 431 to 439 
 
 Teeth, Indicates of Age .. .. .. .. .. .. GlltoG23 
 
 Temper .. .. .. .. G.")7 to ()59 
 
 ,, Lost . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. l'.i() 
 
 Temperaments .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 5S0 to .jStO 
 
 Temperature .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 07, 108 
 
 Tethering . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . 2(56, 2(J7 
 
 Theory of Breaking to Harness .. .. .. .. .. 3<i8 to 378 
 
 Thorough Bred Horse , .. .. .. .. 11, 2oto 4(), (iol, 057 
 
 „ „ „ as a Gambling Ttlachine .. .. .. 41 
 
 „ ,, „ as a reliable Traveller . . . . . . . . 46 
 
 „ „ „ in Coaches . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 
 
 •„ „ ,, Large 44 
 
 Throwing Horse 353, 354 
 
 Throwing Riders .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 193 
 
 Thrush .. ., ; 747 
 
 Thirst 98 
 
 Time for Feeding . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . 73 
 
 Timid Horse 357 to 363, 366 
 
 Timothy Hay 91 
 
 Tips 141 to 164 
 
 Tools, Improved .. .. .. .. ,. .. ., .. 274 
 
 Trainers .. 70, 71, 123, 222 
 
 „ Amateur 122, 123 
 
 Training Race Horse 177 to 128 
 
 Hunter 129, 130 
 
 „ Roadsters 131 to 135 
 
 Tram Cars .. .. .. .. .. .. ,. .. ,. 2I6 
 
 Tran-smission, Power of ., .. .. ., .. .. 643 to 645 
 
 Travellers Romances .. ,. ,. .. ,. .. .. 277 
 
 Travelling Overland .. .. ., .. .. .. 259 to 272 
 
 Trotting 332, 658, 659 
 
 Trotting Horses 658, 659 
 
 „ Matches 36 to 40 
 
 Trying a Horse 631 to 635 
 
 Turnips 79 to 85, 93, 668, 669 
 
 Turpentine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700 
 
 Turpin, Dick .. .. .. .. .. .. .... 136 
 
 Tying together with Bits 416to419 
 
 Tying Up 184,495,490,665 
 
 Unaccountable Conduct .. ,. .. .. .. ., .. lyf 
 
 Urinary Organs Diseased . . .. .. .. .. .. 726 731 
 
XIV. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Paragraph 
 Valantine as a Racer . . . . . . • . • . • • • • 21) 
 
 Varieties of Horse .. .. .. .. •• •• •• •• l'* 
 
 Vices and Bad Habits 444 to 502 
 
 Vocabulary for Horse .. .. .. .. •• -• -^•^lr ■'•'■i 
 
 Walk iu Cart Horse 14,20 
 
 ,, in Saddle Horse . . . . . . • • • • • • • • 209 
 
 War Horse 239 
 
 Warrantries . . . . . . . . • - . • • • • • • • R-^'' 
 
 Warming Tents . . . . . . - . • . • • • • • • -^ 1 ' 
 
 Water 94.98,677 
 
 Waterfalls ?>0B, 309 
 
 Watt, Dr ''01 
 
 Washing Horse '"'-t- fi-5, 120 
 
 Weaning Foal 'i''^ to (if) 9 
 
 Weight Carrying 270.271 
 
 Weight of Feet and Legs, Effect of • 13,43 
 
 AVeight of Horse ^'>'>f 
 
 Wellington's Funeral Car 403 
 
 Welsh Ponies lU 
 
 Wet Pack fiSti to 092 
 
 Whip and Spurs 127, 207, 342 
 
 Whip, How Used ■"><'S to 575 
 
 White Turk, Place's ^^2 
 
 Whoa and Whay 251.433 
 
 Wild Colt to Halter .. •• 337 to 34.5 
 
 „ Beasts Feared by Horse .. .. .. •• •• •• 17S 
 
 Wild Herds of Horses 3,295,302 
 
 Wild Horses to Handle 296 to 298, 337 to 345 
 
 Withers, Fistula in 765 to 768 
 
 Wooden Bit for Cleaning 59,498 
 
 Woody Fibre in Food . . . . . . . . • • • • • • 67 
 
 Words for Horse 431,432 
 
 „ how Taught 4:'>-i to 439 
 
 Work Daily 131.135 
 
 Worms 738 to 740 
 
 Woimds 753 to 7.57 
 
 Yarding . . . . • . . . . . • • • • • • • • 295 
 
 Youatt 072,698,711.722,726 
 
 Young Horses to Feed COS to 669 
 
 to Shelter fi"t> 
 
 Printed at tho EASTtEN r.lOKNiNG News Offcc, Hid". 
 
 ^^ 
 
Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine 
 
 Cummings School of Vetennary IVledicine at 
 Tuits University 
 200 Wesiboro Road 
 North Grafton, iViA 01536