96 PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE. 



passed through no fixtures, and nothing must intervene between 

 your hand and the colt's mouth, and turn as he will you must 

 keep behind him. Until you know that the colt will guide fairly 

 well to the reins, do not let him out of a good yard, or some 

 place where he cannot get away from you. Besides the certainty of 

 losing your reins by passing them through rings, &c., you lose 

 the power to give a side rather than a back pull at first, which is 

 a very essential point in teaching a colt to guide pleasantly to 

 reins (198). When the reins are simply tied to the colt's bit, on 

 each side, you have always the power, in case of any entangle- 

 ment, to drop one of them, and to use the other as a lounging 

 line. Use the reins gently and teach the colt to guide, turn, and 

 stop with them, repeating at the same time the words that you 

 wish him to attend to when on his back. 



193. — Some colts will take whatever you put on them quietly, 

 indeed most colts will do so after a good dusting (187), whilst 

 others will want time to get reconciled to each new article. 

 Give whatever time is necessary and reconcile him to everything 

 you can think of before he is mounted. 



It is far better, both for horse and rider, that his first alarms 

 and most violent efforts should be directed against empty clothes 

 or light and inanimate objects. A desire to show off his riding, 

 or to " fight it out" with a colt, is one of the worst errors a horse 

 breaker can fall into. Too many persons labour under the 

 delusion that a colt is the better to try his best to throw his first 

 rider, so long as he does not succeed. This is a great mistake, 

 even if we could be quite sure that he would not succeed, which 

 we never can be. We have seen one colt throw successively three 

 of the best riders in the world, though the same colt was com- 

 pletely tamed by letting him try three days in a field to throw 

 off a common cart saddle, well secured with girths and crupper. 

 Plunging and bucking with a man on his back is very liable to 

 injure any horse, and especially a two year old colt. But apart 

 from all danger to man and horse it is not only useless but very 

 mischievous to unnecessarily enter upon any such encounters. 

 No horse is so well broken as the horse which has never tried to 

 throw a living rider, which has never pulled on a bridle or halter 

 and never refused to pull in a collar. 



