STUD BOOK. 107 



and generally in pain. He is a sad specimen of poverty, 

 misery, and cruelty." 



The purpose for which the animal is adapted will deter- 

 mine the age when the progress of breaking must commence. 

 Thorough-bred ones are taken in hand in tho summer, after 

 they have attained their first year. Those which are destined 

 for other employment will not require the attention of the 

 breaker till they are three years old. This is a process on 

 which will materially depend the temper and value of the 

 horse, and the pleasure of the rider. The foal should be 

 handled and haltered, and led about by the person who has 

 the chief care of him, and whose conduct towards him should 

 always be kind. "The principle," says the author of "The 

 Horse," "on which the after-usefulness of the animal is 

 founded, his early attachment to, and confidence in man, and 

 obedience, resulting principally from these." 



A horse is well-broken when he has been taught implicit 

 and cheerful obedience to his rider or driver, and dexterity in 

 performance of his work. A dogged, sullen, spiritless sub- 

 mission may be enforced by the cruel and brutal usage to 

 which the breaker so frequently has recourse; but that 

 prompt and eager response to the slightest intimation of the 

 rider's will that manifest aim to anticipate every wish, 

 which gives to the horse so much of his value, must be 

 founded on habitual confidence and attachment. The educa- 

 tion of the horse should be like that of the child. Pleasure 

 should be as much as possible associated with the early les- 

 sons; while firmness, or if need be, coercion, must establish 

 the habit of obedience. 



It is surprising how soon, under a system of kind manage- 

 ment, the animal which has been accustomed to go where he 

 pleased, and to do as he thought fit, may be taught to yield 

 up his will to another, and to obey with alacrity his master's 

 bidding. If there is a kind-hearted and faithful servant 

 about the premises who will undertake this task, the breeder 

 is fortunate : for, without this, he is often compelled to re- 

 sign his colt to the tender mercies of a colt-breaker a man 

 who seldom has any conception of obtaining his object by 

 the moral influence which kindness would give him over the 

 youngster, but who has too frequent recourse to violence, 

 and that of the most outrageous kind, until the colt becomes 

 a dull, dispirited, useful, but desponding and ill-treated 

 slave through life, or, cherishing a deep feeling of wrong 

 and a spirit of revenge, becomes determinedly vicious and 

 dangerous. 



