104 COLT-BREAKING. [CHAP. 



is no more reason in nature why a horse should submit, 

 without resistance, to be ridden, than the stag to be slain 

 why the horse should give up his liberty to us, than 

 the stag his life. In both cases our " wish is father to 

 the deed." And if our arrogance insinuates that a 

 bountiful Nature created these animals simply for our 

 service, assuredly bountiful Nature left them in ignorance 

 of the fact. And it is to the sportsman and the colt- 

 breaker that we must apply, if we wish to know whose 

 victims are the most willing. Not to the cockney casuist, 

 whose knowledge of the stag is confined to his venison, 

 and who never trusts himself on the horse till it has been 

 " long trained, in shackles, to procession pace." If he 

 did, he would find that the unfettered four-year-old shows 

 precisely the same alarm and resistance to the halter as 

 the stag does to the toils ; and in breaking horses, the 

 thing to be aimed at, next to the power of indicating our 

 wishes, is the power of winning obedience to those wishes. 

 These, and these only, are the two things to be- aimed at, 

 from the putting the first halter on the colt, to his per- 



