CESARESCO'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TRAINING OF 



THE HORSE* 



Carl Rahn 

 University of Illinois 



This work represents the product of life-long study and 

 practice of the art of horsemanship. The first volume deals 

 with the mental and physical nature of the horse; the remaining 

 three volumes are devoted to the methods of training. 



We are told that " the horse's intelligence is limited, but the 

 animal is intelligent enough to understand that it must have 

 regard for what happens in its environment, and for its rider, — to 

 feel the justice or injustice of the punishments inflicted, — to try 

 to oppose, anticipate, and neutralize the efforts of its rider, — and 

 to choose that moment for injuring its master when the latter 

 is not looking." ' The horse," furthermore, " has a highly 

 developed imagination," and this combined with its great sus- 

 ceptibility to fear, makes the animal readily amenable to our 

 attempts to train it, for the one "enables it to grasp readily 

 the idea of our superiority" and the other "gives value to the 

 slightest stimulus or chastisement." 



In whatever way we may react to these psychological inter- 

 pretations, the account of the methods of training will possess 

 a positive value for the student of animal behavior, viz.: as a 

 stimulus toward the formulation of specific problems in con- 

 nection with the behavior of the horse. Such a student will 

 miss with regret, at times, the minute analyses of stimulus and 

 the significant classifications and tabulations of responses which, 

 e. g., make the work of Pfungst so valuable. Thus the changes 

 in the voice of the rider are emphasized as one of the most 

 effective helps, or means of control, and it would have been 

 highly desirable to have had an analysis of the kinds of quali- 

 tative or other changes in the form of stimulation that constitute 

 the really effective factor. At other points in the treatise 



1 Cesaresco, Count Eugenio Mantinengo: L'Arte Di Cavalcare, Con Aggiunto: II 

 Cavallo Attaccato Alia Carrozza. Devoti, Salo, 1914. 



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