87 



If the horse stops suddenly while in a fit of viciousness, 

 the lad should loosen the reins and cling to the mane. In 

 case he held to the reins and pulled him, the animal might 

 be thrown off his balance and fall back on the boy. This 

 would happen in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and 

 much trouble may be saved by a trainer apprising a boy of 

 this fact in time. 



The next thing to teach a boy is to avoid obstacles on 

 the track. When he has mastered this feature he may be 

 permitted to trot and walk horses about the track. Of 

 course, the idea is that the boy has had some experience 

 and knows how to hold his seat, for no absolutely green 

 boys are ever taken. 



In galloping, the boy should always keep a firm hold of 

 the reins in order to always have control of the animal. 

 Slow gallops should be kept up for more than a month, for 

 the reason that in the event the horse was sent along at a 

 good rate of speed the boy might lose his own confidence and 

 let the horse get the better of him. Then the boy would 

 lose all the knowledge you had spent so much time in teach- 

 ing him, and it might take months to restore it. 



By this time the boy has learned in a measure how to 

 protect himself and has learned something of what he may 

 expect of a horse. He can gallop, avoid bad places in the 

 track, keep out of the way of other horses that are being 

 sent along for trials, and is not afraid of the horses. 



Keep the boy on one horse all the time, for changing 

 off on animals of a different temperament can not result 

 efficaciously. His ideas then become fixed and he gets 

 accustomed to the race horse. 



If he is a bright boy, at the expiration of two months he 

 may be changed to another horse. In no stable are there 

 two horses that have the same habits and dispositions. 

 Therefore, the boy must become acquainted with the differ- 

 ent varieties. 



In due time he learns how to manage a horse tolerably 

 well, and the trainer is not afraid to put him on any horse in 

 the string. But he is far from being a jockey even then, for 

 he has not learned the more delicate points of the game. 



When he is able to gallop a horse at the highest speed of 

 the animal, the trainer must begin to instill into his mind 



