222 VICIOUS HORSES 



occasionally animal magnetism, or something akin 

 to it, may convert an apparently worthless mount 

 into a useful one, though it may not fetch much 

 money when sold. After quoting a number of 

 instances showing the likes and dislikes of horses, 

 the logical deduction follows, that if the latter are 

 disregarded, trouble will ensue. 



The hysterical horse is an equine fiend. A 

 bay charger was drafted out of a cavalry regi- 

 ment and became the property of an owner 

 who had a particular weakness for awkward 

 horses. And this one fully satisfied him, from 

 an eccentric point of view. She not only re- 

 sented being broken to harness, but squealed 

 with a piercing noise that could be heard half a 

 mile off, and kicked so incessantly that nobody 

 could go near her heels. Yet, when her harness 

 was taken off and a saddle put on, she became 

 perfectly quiet, and glanced round most amiably. 

 Her antipathy to pulling any sort of trap seemed 

 unaccountable, because she was apparently de- 

 signed by Providence for harness, having essen- 

 tially hackney shoulders. About the only person 

 who put this hysterical mare in the shafts half 

 drugged and wholly starved her. Of course as a 

 carriage-horse she was not worth the price of her 

 hide, but she was a cheap mount for an impe- 

 cunious elderly gentleman, whom she would have 

 carried to perfection, and gone as quietly as a 

 donkey on the sands, though in the stable she 

 rarely missed an opportunity of running at her 

 groom open-mouthed. The origin of this mare's 

 hysteria can probably be traced to being teased 



