228 RESTIVENESS : ITS PREVENTION AND CURE. 



With young animals especially, defects of conforma- 

 tion as weak backs, hind quarters, or something abnor- 

 mal about the head and neck lead them into insub- 

 ordination in self-defence. Want of ability to do the 

 work demanded of them, in consequence of defective 

 condition, will produce the same effect both in young 

 and old horses ; starvation is, therefore, in most in- 

 stances, a positively injurious instead of a curative pro- 

 cess. No doubt a horse's temper may be subdued to a 

 certain extent by this means, but then it becomes unfit 

 to do work, so that nothing is gained in the end. As 

 regards disposition, some horses refuse their work from 

 sheer sluggishness ; others, again, from timidity or irri- 

 tability. This latter is very frequently the case with 

 mares, especially at certain seasons of the year, and 

 may be very often remedied by putting them to stud 

 for one or two years. It is obvious that one method 

 of treatment is not applicable to these very different 

 cases. Finally, a merely passionate temper requires 

 different management from a dogged one; whilst sheer 

 vice is the most difficult of all to deal with, and usually 

 a consequence of injudicious treatment. When all -this 

 has been well considered, and the cause or causes of 

 restiveness ascertained, one can begin to work with 

 some chance of success otherwise not. 



The second general rule is very easily deducible from 

 the first it is this : avoid giving the horse an oppor- 

 tunity of resisting your will successfully, so long as it 

 possesses the means of doing so that is to say, until 

 you have acquired, by the means already described, com- 

 plete control over its movements. Therefore have your 

 horse led into a riding-school or some enclosed space 

 where it has never shown restiveness, and do your work 



