222 THE ARMY HORSE. 



that every attempted innovation runs a great chance of being 

 received in this manner. 



Nevertheless I decided, not without great apprehension, to 

 make an experiment, and I took in hand a four-year-old 

 which had been well looked after. I found that he had quite 

 as much strength, and much more suppleness, than my other 

 pupils which were seven years old. Encouraged by this 

 result, I tried a three-year-old with the same success. Since 

 then I have broken-in for high-school riding a score of 

 thoroughbreds of this age, and have always obtained better 

 results than with older horses. 



Finally, I pushed the experiment further, in order to find 

 out the greatest amount of exertion which could be demanded 

 from a very young horse without distressing him. I broke 

 Viscope, a thoroughbred mare by Vermouth out of Vinai- 

 grette,* when she was two years old. At three years her 

 education was complete as a hack, jumper, and school horse, 

 and she received a medal at the horse show. She is now 

 seven years old, perfectly sound, unblemished, and had not 

 even a windgall when I disposed of her. 



I could cite many other examples. I only wished to 

 explain how experience led me to the conclusion that to take 

 a horse at three-and-a-half years old in order to break and 

 train him for any particular work, is to begin at an age when 

 all horses which have been properly brought up and fed, can 

 stand work. Further, it is to take him at an age when 

 progressive muscular exercise is indispensable to him. This 

 exercise, so far from wearing him out and making him un- 

 sound, strengthens his limbs and body, and quickly puts him 

 in full possession of all his powers. 



* The precocity of the thoroughbred will of course be put forward as an objec- 

 tion to what I say ; but we are not concerned with two-year-olds. Besides this, 

 the precocity of feeding and exercise has always appeared to me to have a more 

 decisive effect than the precocity of breed. 



