now TO TRAIN A COLT. 199 



come in the winner, instead of being disgracefully- 

 beaten. And yet the fault was more with the trainer 

 than with the horse ; because the horse could not reason, 

 while the trainer's business is to think, and think for 

 the horse, not only during the few moments of the 

 race, but during all the months, and years even, that 

 precede it. And here I wish to call the reader's atten- 

 tention to the influence of slow exercise in connection 

 with weight-pulling. Good steady team-work, such as 

 a horse finds in ordinary farm-labor, is, in my estimation, 

 one of the best methods that can be adopted to de- 

 velop many horses in muscular strength. Horses that 

 are narrow in the chest, and weak in the back, are es- 

 pecially benefited in this way. Many colts that cannot 

 command their legs, that hit their knees, "grab over," 

 "hitch," and the like, if put to team-service for a year 

 or two, will come out of the discipline in splendid 

 health and condition, and able to go fast without hitting 

 a hair. This I know from actual experience. A great 

 many colts are being trained on race-courses to-day, 

 at great expense to their owners, and risks to them- 

 selves, in reference to which it may be said, that it 

 would be vastly better for all concerned if they were 

 taken from the track, and given to some old farmer to 

 use on his farm for two or three years. In that time 

 their frames would spread, their chests expand, their 

 bones harden, their muscles enlarge, and they would 

 escape the fate which now awaits them, — a premature 

 break-down and an early death. I hold that slow 



