142 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 



Avcll persuaded ; still the difficulty existing from structural in- 

 convenience in the application of dranght and burthen in any 

 but the ordinary manner, and the immemorial adhesion of man to 

 the long established mode of harnessing and saddling, render it 

 almost impossible that it should get practically that preference to 

 which in principle it is clearly entitled. 



The only course, then, open to the breaker is the latter of the 

 two above mentioned, it being efficacious not only for the full 

 development of the powers of the animal, but also for complete 

 prevention and even cure of those ailments which I have already 

 enumerated. 



The earlier after three years old that the horse for ordinary 

 purposes of utility, fashion, or war, can be put into the hands of 

 the riding master the better. 



The cervical and dorsal vertebrae, which must in most cases 

 receive a new direction, are after the age of three years compara- 

 tively stiff and settled in that false position to which I have 

 adverted as being more or less entailed on the whole equine race 

 in these countries. This hereditary assimilation to a deformity 

 may be exemplified by an anaUxgous misfortune to be found in the 

 stooped shoulders, narrow chests, and shambling action of the 

 majority of the population of crowded manufacturing towns : and 

 as the drill sergeant, in forming recruits drawn from such districts 

 for the reception of the knapsack, begins by forcing back the 

 shoulders and elevating the head, so must the riding master, who 

 would qualify the young horse for the reception of his rider 

 or other burthen commence his operations by a corresponding 

 process of elevating this extremity of the spine ; not by the tem- 

 porary and ruinous expedient of straightening out the lipabs that 

 support it, and thereby bringing on all the complicated ills which 

 we have glanced at, but by a permanent alteration in the carriage 

 of the animal's neck and shoulders, not to be effected without a 

 corresponding improvement in the whole frame. 



This alteration is effected by mechanical restraint, adapted to 

 the varying figures submitted to it. The " ewe-neck," where, by 

 elevating the head we depress the cervical vertebras still further, 



