FIT KOI! SAPDLK. 105 



but if not the light taps may be repeated until they are attended 

 to. Thus using the spur as lightly as possible to keep the colt 

 walking steadily on at a good parie, and the whip to enforce 

 attention to any neglected I'L'in signal, keep him some times on 

 one side and some times on the other of the old horse, generally 

 putting the old horse l)etween the colt and any serious object of 

 alarm. You must be very careful not to let him acquire a habit 

 of paying more attention to the rein on one side than the other, 

 a habit that is soon formed, and one that is quite fatal to pleasant 

 riding or driving. 



212. — After the first or second hour's riding, the experienced 

 horseman should be able to judge whether the colt will ever be fit 

 for a saddle horse or not. If he brings his toes to the ground 

 before his heels, or cannot put his fore leg well forward, he will 

 never make a safe saddle horse, and shonld at once be consigned . 

 to harness. All the pages that have been written about teaching 

 a young horse to step, by practising him over large turnips, or 

 uneven ground, are on a par with those that used to be written 

 about keeping a horse from falling down by reining him up, .or 

 Supporting his head with his tail. If a horse's legs and shoulders 

 are so formed that he can put his leg before him, with the heel 

 down first, he will always do it, and will always be safe, if they are 

 not so formed he cannot do it, and he will stumble in consequence. 

 It is a mere question of the length, strength, and direction of a 

 complicated set of ropes and pulleys, which are quite out of your 

 reach. Below the knee the horse has no muscles, nothing but 

 bones and sinews, worked from the powerful muscles above ; and 

 you might as well expect to improve the action of a steam engine 

 by working it over a rough turnip field as to improve that of the 

 horse. No man ever saw a stumbling horse made a safe one yet, 

 unless the stumbling resulted from weakness, or was the conse- 

 quence of a mis-shaped hoof or shoe, which could of course be 

 altered. You may whip and spur and curb him, and make him 

 lift his legs higher as long as you excite his fears, and no longer* 

 but that will not make him put his feet down the right way, nor 

 prevent his falling, even whilst you are giving your worse than 

 useless lessons. If on the other hand the colt's action is too high, 



