PUT IN TOO SOON. 179 



way as you can at first. Take him on no heavy bad roads, and 

 do nothing that will be likely to cause him to stop. There should 

 be no danger of his stopping if all the precautions have been 

 previously taken that we have advised, but if from previous 

 neglect or bad management, that should happen, you must on no 

 account urge him forward either by voice or touch. Such a 

 thing should never happeu, and never will happen if you have 

 properly taught your colt to pull in the collar before hitching him 

 to any vehicle (380), and have done nothing foolish to spoil him 

 afterwards. But if from any cause it does happen, you must 

 at once recognise the fact that you have now to face the greatest 

 danger that can befall your colt's education. One touch with the 

 whip in that position will now make him an incurable jib for the 

 rest of his life. You must in no way urge the colt into the collar 

 with that vehicle attached to him. 



396. - If the stop occurs, as is most likely, at the starting, 

 take the horse out immediately and proceed to teach him to pull 

 (380), and let the lesson be safely inculcated before you again hitch 

 him to any vehicle. If it occurs at a distance from home, you 

 must let no consideration of inconvenience, or mortification, or 

 ridicule induce you to risk spoiling your horse. If he stops 

 going up a hill you must take him out at once, put the vehicle 

 on one side of the road, and drive your horse on to the top of the 

 hill. If you have an assistant who can hang on to the traces 

 and keep him pulling up the hill so much the better (380), but 

 let there be no delay, no noise, or fighting, or anything that will 

 impress the event on the horse's memory. When you reach the 

 top of the hill turn round and come down again, and put the 

 horse into the vehicle with his head down hill and towards home. 

 Then get up and start as at first (395), but drive home at a brisk 

 trot. In nineteen cases out of twenty it would be quite easy to 

 turn round when your horse first stops on a hill, and to start 

 down hill home ; and that would be far better than any whipping 

 or fighting, but there would be some danger that the horse would 

 pick up the idea that he could get taken home at any other time 

 by the same process. 



397. — If he has stopped on good, hard, level road, where 



