400 THE TROTTING-HORSE OF AMERICA. 



By making the horse understand that he is not to come 

 back in his breaks, and by learning how to catch him readily 

 and get him going on with his trot right forward, he will 

 be made a lively breaker, and you will have gained a very 

 great point in the art of driving. Some horses eventually 

 learn to catch their trot with their head straight and their 

 noses out ; but this can only be said of few. "When the 

 horse has caught after a break, cool nerve and steadiness 

 are wanted on the part of the driver. If the latter is in 

 too much of a hurry, and lets go of the horse's head as soon 

 as he lands on a trot, a double break is commonly the 

 result. It is necessary to steady the horse when he has 

 caught, and to see him settled down square to his trot 

 before you ease off to him, and call for speed. When you 

 do ease off, it should be gradually, so that he may get up to 

 the length and quickness of his stroke by degrees, instead 

 of trying to do so by a convulsive effort. 



This, in my opinion, is the method the driver should 

 adopt to teach the horse to be lively in his breaks, and to 

 catch well. I do not call this teaching them to break. 

 There is a great difference in principle between the two 

 things. I have long heard that a driver has no business to 

 teach a horse to break. The thing to be got into the horse 

 is to trot fast and maintain his trot for a mile or two miles, 

 if he is a stout and honest horse, without any break at all : 

 but as I have shown in prior chapters, and in the beginning 

 of this chapter, there are times when a horse will break ; 

 and then it makes a vast difference whether his break shall 

 be lively, and he shall catch well, or whether it shall be dead 

 into the ground or up into the air, bobbing about like a ship 

 in a ground swell, with no wind to steady her. Therefore, 

 distinguish the difference between teaching your horse to 

 break, which is mischievous and to be avoided, and teaching 

 him to break lively, with a free forward movement, and to 

 catch well when he does break. 



Sometimes a driver of good judgment will break his horse 



