26 MENTAL QUALITIES OF THE HORSE. 



or less successfully to resist control. This act of insub- 

 ordination having revealed to him the knowledge of his 

 own power, which is a pleasurable sensation to every 

 animal, was naturally repeated on every available occasion, 

 until the vicious habit became confirmed ; although its 

 necessity may have been disproved to him scores of times 

 by the fact that the saddling or mounting had been ac- 

 complished without the infliction of any pain or irritation 

 to him, however great the trouble may have been to the 

 groom or rider. As in horses, so do we find among dogs, 

 that nervousness often degenerates into ferocity. The 

 young dog who barks violently from nervousness, on seeing 

 that the noise he makes causes persons in his vicinity to 

 run away, is tempted to follow them, and, having dis- 

 covered his own power, is apt to exercise it, with the usual 

 result that he becomes bad-tempered and vicious. 



I am inclined to think that nervous horses are not as 

 " game " as their more placid fellows, and am thoroughly 

 convinced that the majority of so-called nervous horses 

 are sulky, treacherous brutes. Although there are ex- 

 ceptions to this rule, it would be most unwise to ignore 

 the fact that the repetition of any trick which tends to 

 render an animal difficult of control, whatever way it may 

 have been contracted, has an increasingly bad effect on him 

 the longer it is continued. 



Sulkiness or obstinacy in the horse, which we may regard 

 as the antithesis to " courage " (see page 23), is of various 

 forms, is produced by many different causes, and is often 

 complex in its nature. It may be entirely due to natural 

 impatience of control, as I have frequently seen in freshly- 

 caught animals, which, when haltered for the first time, on 

 finding that they could not escape, have thrown themselves 

 down on the ground and refused to move. In such cases, 

 as indicated on page 7, it increases with age, It may be 



