MAKING HORSE LIE DOWN. 



149 



horse relax his muscles, when the touch of the hand causes 

 him to contract them from fright or from resentment. The 

 object of the gentling is to show the horse that he need fear 

 nothing from the touch of man, and that he must submit to 

 it. To carry out the latter part of this condition we may, 

 if the horse shows fight while we are gentling him, pull his 

 head sharply round to his side by the cord (see Fig. 75) so 

 as to punish him ; and when he gives in, we may, as a 

 reward, relax the tension. 



Fig. 71. Wooden gag. 



It is quite immaterial to which side the horse's head is 

 drawn, provided that in either case the opposite leg be 

 tied up. 



If the animal goes down without a struggle, and sulks on 

 the ground, he should be forced to " show fight " by keeping 

 him in the constrained position depicted in Fig. 75, until he 

 has got rid, by ineffectual struggling, of most of his 

 " temper." When a horse begins to groan, and to con- 

 siderably moderate the violence of his struggles, we may 

 feel confident that " the sulk " has been taken out of him 



