184 NO CHANGE OF DRIVERS. 



His winter feeding gives him still more confidence in man. His 

 natural good temper, his thick skin and thicker coat of hair, 

 prevent him from being very sensitive, so that we have often seen 

 him successfully, though very imprudently, put to work without 

 any special preparation whatever, 



408.— A professional breaker is seldom employed. He has 

 not the appliances at command that are found on every farm, 

 and it is not usual to meet with a horse breaker who understands 

 the work of a draft horse, and if he did it is far better that either 

 a horse or a dog should be broken in by the man who is after- 

 wards to work him. A change of drivers during the first year is 

 very undesirable. The pride which every man takes in his own 

 good work will always ensure a colt being taken more care of by 

 the man who is responsible for his education than he will be by 

 any one else, and nothing improves a carter or a ploughman so 

 much at his work as compelling him to learn how a young horse 

 should be treated from the first. 



409. - Having been taught to tie up (184), to lead well (188), 

 to bear without fear, any kind of articles rubbing about his hind 

 legs (;381 to 383), and above all to lean gently but resolutely into 

 the collar, with the full confidence that it will move when he pulls at 

 it (380), there is not one colt in twenty that will give any trouble 

 in introducing him to actual woi'k. Too often even these wise 

 precautions are not taken, and the raw colt that has just been 

 harnessed for the first time, is put in traces with a quiet horse 

 before, and another behind him, and left to take his chance. The 

 good tempered animal occasionally passes through even that 

 ordeal quite unharmed, and makes a good horse in spite of it, 

 but more frequently he gets to treat the collar as something 

 immovable, and is never afterwards so reliable at a heavy start 

 as he would have been with more care to give him the necessary 

 confidence in his power (375, 380). Sometimes the colt is even 

 put to begin with where he must pull hard to be able to get on, 

 and even whipped or tortured, or frightened in some way to urge 

 him against a resisting collar. Such treatment cannot fail to spoil 

 any colt, and is only practised by men too ignorant to be trusted 

 even with a donkey. 



