OUT-DOOR VICES AND BAD HABITS 337 



purpose is gained. Nothing has so great a tendency to keep up the habit 

 as the plan so common among ignorant grooms, of chastising the shyer after 

 he has passed the object of his alarm. If he can be persuaded to go quietly 

 up to it and examine it with his muzzle as well as with his eyes, great 

 good will be effected ; but this can seldom be done with moving wagons, 

 and heaps of stones are generally only alarming from defect of vision, so 

 that each time they assume a new phase to the active Imagination of the 

 timid animal. 



Rearing is seldom met with excepting among raw colts, or if it is con- 

 tinued to a later period it is generally incurable. When existing in an 

 aggravated form it is a most dangerous vice, as a fall backwards over the 

 rider has often led to fatal consequences. 



The usual remedy for it in the colt is the ordinary running martingale, 

 which will keep down the reai'er who is merely indulging in his playful 

 fancies. When, however, the vice has become confirmed, nothing short 

 of severe punishment will be of any service, and the horsebreaker generally 

 resorts to the plan of knocking the horse down as he rises by a blow be- 

 tween the ears with a loaded crop. This stuns the horse for a time, and 

 alarms him so much that he is often cui'ed by one act of the kind ; but it 

 is attended with some danger of injuring the horse, and the rider does not 

 always escape. Another plan adopted by active breakers is to wait till 

 the horse is just on the balance, and then slipping off to the left, it is easy 

 to pull him over backwards ; but this also is often followed by severe 

 injury to the horse when the ground is hard. I have almost invariably 

 found that bad rearers have very supple necks, which increases the diffi- 

 culty of keeping them down by any kind of martingale, and probably this 

 will account for the habit having becoming inveterate. A stiff-necked horse 

 can scarcely rise high if his head is confined even by the running martin- 

 gale ; but when the side-straps are tightly buckled to the bit, he is 

 effectually restrained, whereas with a loose neck the head can be so bent 

 in to the brisket that no obstacle is offered. In such cases I have known 

 a cavesson with the noseband lined with sharp prickers, and the martin- 

 gale buckled to it ; a most effectual prevention, as the slightest pull opens 

 it, presses the prickers into the nose, and gives acute pain. Whenever the 

 rider finds a horse inclined to rise, he should at once lean forward, and 

 after ineffectually trying the martingale to keep the horse down, he must 

 loose his head, or he will be almost sure to bring him backwards and cause 

 a severe fall. 



For kickers, except when the habit is merely a mode of letting off super- 

 fluous spirits, severity is the only remedy, and a strong application of the 

 whip down the shoulder the best means of using it. At the same time the 

 snaffle-reins ought to be firmly held, and by their means the head kept up, 

 for there is always a tendency to lower this part in the act of kicking ; the 

 gag snaffle is very effectual for this purpose. 



Lying down is rare in the present day, being chiefly confined to underbred 

 horses and Welsh ponies, which are gradually going out of use. The spur is 

 the only means likely to keep a stubborn brute up ; but in some cases its 

 application is followed by the animal throwing himself down suddenly instead 

 of graanally. 



Plunging may be described as a series of bounds into the air, which when 



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