56 HOKSES AND HIDING. 



Now, the horse very soon gets to associate these 

 motions with the idea of quickening his pace, and soon 

 gets to take any motion on the part of his rider as 

 an indication that he has to quicken his pace, and 

 consequently he invariably starts off whenever his 

 rider does any thing except sit perfectly still. It is 

 not a very easy matter to cure a broken horse that 

 has acquired this habit, but a horse that has not been 

 taught it can easily be prevented from learning it by 

 simply adopting some other means of setting him 

 going. The proper way to do this is to start him 

 by your voice, or by hitting him with your whip or 

 stick behind the saddle ; and it is best to adopt both 

 of these plans simultaneously, for this reason, that if 

 you strike a horse without at the same time speaking 

 to him you will startle him ; and if he is a nervous, 

 sensitive horse you may frighten him considerably ; 

 while if you teach him to start at a given word you 

 are liable to start him when you don't intend. 



You can easily teach a horse to trot when you 

 say ' Trot,' and to gallop when you say ' Gallop.' But 

 if you do this the horse will akvays begin to gallop 

 when you say ' Gallop ; ' and if you were riding with a 

 friend and inadvertently introduced the word gallop 

 into your conversation the horse would set off at full 

 speed, which might prove very inconvenient. Now, 

 you can hardly both hit the horse with your whip 

 and tell him to trot or canter at the same time, with- 

 out intending: to do so. 



