NATURE OF COERCION. 23 



advice to either amateur or professional is, never 

 to give a horse a chance of doing wrong ; so, in 

 order to be consistent after having said this, I 

 shall endeavour to describe a method by which 

 any horse, unsecured, say, in a yard or loose 

 box, can be brought under complete control with, 

 practically speaking, no risk to the operator. 



On the nature of the coercion to be applied to 

 unruly Horses. — The only risk run in enforcing 

 the obedience which it Is absolutely necessary to 

 exact from unruly horses, Is that of spoiling the 

 animal's pluck and spirit — a contingency that can 

 be Incurred only when the fractiousness arises from 

 " nervousness," or from want of comprehension ; 

 for what we term pluck and spirit in the horse 

 should have no taint of stubbornness. The coercion 

 employed should, naturally, be limited to what 

 would be sufficient to overcome the wilfulness ; for 

 we should never employ a general effect, when a 

 particular one will answer our purpose. Thus, 



