448 VICES, VARIOUS. 



The horse-breaker's remedy, that of pulling the horse backward on a soft 

 piece of ground, should be practised by reckless and brutal fellows alone. 

 Many horses have been injured in the spine, and others have broken their 

 necks, by being thus suddenly pulled over ; while even the fellow, who fears 

 no danger, is not alw r ays able to extricate himself from the falling horse. 

 If rearing proceeds from vice, and is unprovoked by the bruising and laceration 

 of the mouth, it fully partakes of the inveteracy which attends the other divisions 

 of restiveness. 



RUNNING AWAY. 



Some headstrong horses will occasionally endeavour to bolt with the best 

 rider. Others with their wonted sagacity endeavour thus to dislodge the timid or 

 unskilful one. Some are hard to hold, or bolt only during the excitement of the 

 chase ; others will run away, prompted by a vicious propensity alone. There is 

 no certain cure here. The method which affords any probability of success is, to 

 ride such a horse with a strong curb and sharp bit ; to have him always firmly 

 in hand ; and, if he will run away, and the place will admit of it, to give him 

 (sparing neither curb, whip, nor spur) a great deal more running than he likes. 



VICIOUS TO CLEAN. 



It would scarcely be credited to what an extent this exists in some horses 

 that are otherwise perfectly quiet. It is only at great hazard that they can be 

 cleaned at all. The origin of this is probably some maltreatment. There is, 

 however, a great difference in the sensibility of the skin in different horses. Some 

 seem as if they could scarcely be made to feel the whip, while others cannot bear a 

 fly to alight on them without an expression of annoyance. In young horses 

 the skin is peculiarly delicate. If they have been curried with a broken comb, 

 or hardly rubbed with an uneven brush, the recollection of the torture they 

 have felt makes them impatient, and even vicious, during every succeeding 

 operation of the kind. Many grooms, likewise, seem to delight in producing 

 these exhibitions of uneasiness and vice ; although, when they are carried a 

 little too far, and at the hazard of the limbs of the groom, the animals that have 

 been almost tutored into these expressions of irritation are brutally kicked and 

 punished. 



This, however, is a vice that may be conquered. If the horse is dressed 

 with a lighter hand, and wisped rather than brushed, and the places where the 

 skin is most sensitive are avoided as much ns thorough cleanliness will allow, 

 he will gradually lose the recollection of former ill-treatment, and become tract- 

 able and quiet. 



VICIOUS TO SHOE. 



The correction of this is more peculiarly the business of the smith ; yet the 

 master should diligently concern himself with it, for it is oftener the consequence 

 of injudicious or bad usage than of natural vice. It may be expected that there 

 will be some difficulty in shoeing a horse for the first few times. It is an opera- 

 tion that gives him a little uneasiness. The man to whom he is most accus- 

 tomed should go with him to the forge ; and if another and steady horse is 

 shod before him, he may be induced more readily to submit. It cannot be 

 denied that, after the habit of resisting this necessary operation is formed, force 

 may sometimes be necessary to reduce our rebellious servant to obedience ; 

 but we unhesitatingly affirm that the majority of horses vicious to shoe are 

 rendered so by harsh usage, and by the pain of correction being added to the 

 uneasiness of shoeing. It should be a rule in every forge that no smith should 

 be permitted to strike a horse, much less to twitch or to gag him, without the 



