502 VICES OF THE IIOKSE 



CHAPTER XXV. 



THE VICES AND DISAGREEABLE OR DANGEROUS HABITS OF THE 



HORSE. 



The horse has many excellent qualities, but he has likewise defects, and 

 these occasionally amounting to vices. Some of them may be attributed 

 to natural temper, for the human being scarcely discovers more peculiari- 

 ties of habit and disposition than does the horse. The majority of them, 

 however, as perhaps in the human being, are consequences of a faulty 

 education. Their early instructor has been ignorant and brutal, and they 

 have become obstinate and vicious, 



RESTIVENESS, 



At the head of the vices of the horse is restiveness, the most annoying 

 and the most dangerous of all. It is the produce of bad temper and worse 

 education ; and, like all other habits founded on nature and stamped by 

 education, it is inveterate. Whether it appears in the form of kicking, or 

 rearing, or plunging, or bolting, or in any way that threatens danger to 

 the rider or the horse, it rarely admits of cure. A determined rider may 

 to a certain extent subjugate the animal ; or the horse may have his 

 favourites or form his attachments, and with some particular person he 

 may be comparatively or perfectly manageable ; but others cannot long 

 depend upon him, and even his master is not always sure of him. It 

 is a rule, that admits of very few exceptions, that he neither displays 

 his wisdom nor consults his safety, who attempts to conquer a restive 

 horse. 



An excellent veterinary surgeon, and a man of great experience in 

 horses, Mr. Castley, truly said, in ' The Veterinarian,' — ' From whatever 

 cause the viciovis habits of horses may originate, whether from some mis- 

 management or from natural badness of temper, or from what is called in 

 Yorkshire a mistetch, whenever these animals acquire one of them, and it 

 becomes in some degree confirmed, they very seldom, if ever, altogether 

 foirget it. In reference to driving it is so true, that it may be taken as a 

 kind of aphorism, that if a horse kicks once in harness, no matter from 

 what cause, he will be liable to kick ever afterwards. A good coachman 

 may drive him, it is true, and may make him go, but he cannot make him 

 forget his vice ; and so it is in riding. You may conquer a restive horse — 

 you may make him go quiet for months, nay, almost for years together ; 

 but I affirm that, under other circumstances, and at some future oppor- 

 tunity, he will be sui'e to return to his old tricks.' 



Mr. Castley gives two singular and conclusive instances of the truth of 

 this doctrine. 'When a very young man,' says he, 'I remember pur- 

 chasing a horse at a fair in the north of England, that was offered very 

 cheap on account of his being unmanageable. It was said that nobody 

 could ride him. We found that the animal objected to have anything 

 placed upon his back, and that, when made to move forward with nothing 

 more than a saddle on, he instantly threw himself down on his side with 

 great violence, and would then endeavour to roll upon his back. 



' There was at that time in Yorkshire, a famous colt-breaker, known by 

 the name of Jumper, who was almost as celebrated in that couutiy for 

 taming vicious horses into submission, as the filmed Whisperer was in 

 L-eland. We put this animal into Jumper's hands, who took him away, 



