BREEDING. 221 



Handle them from their earliest youth. As foals 

 they should have head stalls ; but allow not the least 

 familiarity. Check by voice the slightest inclination 

 to put down the ears and kick. They will be thus 

 insensibly broken. When their education begins, 

 however, in earnest at three years of age, accustom 

 them to cross banks and ditches, beginning with 

 comparatively small ones, directing them with a 

 leading-line. Do not ride them at fences to begin 

 with ; let them jump them in your hand. A colt is 

 not perfectly broken until he will walk, trot, canter, 

 gallop, jump standing or flying, at a word or signal. 

 When they are so broken the riding of them becomes 

 a luxury indeed — but not until then. 



Don't run them at loose hurdles stuck up; they 

 don't like being fooled, and soon take to chesting 

 them ; a habit which, if persisted in, will ruin both 

 horse and rider some fine day, Asheton Smith and the 

 gate-post notwithstanding. 



'Tis not all fun this breeding after all. Come with 

 me into Booth's yard. That heifer is a marvel ! You 

 smile. Ah ! you know not the art, the anxiety, the 

 toil, the infinite risk there is in bringing them to 

 that point of mellow bloom. You can little conceive 

 the dear-bought experience through which that dis- 

 tinguished breeder has waded to his present "pride 

 of place." You could not guess how often have his 

 hopes been snapped at the very moment when he 

 should have reaped the reward of his long study, his 

 expended wealth and energy. Oh ! the sickening 

 memory of that oppressive morning he could dilate 

 upon, when the affrighted herdsman came to say 



