

VICES AND UNSOUNDNESS OF THE HORSE. 555 



or straight ahead, with a force and rapidity that it strongly 

 taxes a driver's strength to restrain. Shying is not so seri- 

 ous, but it is very annoying. Many horses that start, shy, 

 and jump will not run away, but this is not generally the 

 case. 



RUNNING AWAY. A 



There is no trust to be put in a horse that has once run 

 away ; and a horse having run when harnessed to a vehicle 

 ought never again to be driven to the same vehicle. Nor 

 will it be safe, in most cases, to drive him singly, unless to 

 the plow. He may be ridden or worked beside some old, 

 steady horse in the wagon, but this is as far as it is safe to 

 trust him. It is to be remembered that scaring is the nat- 

 ural antecedent to running away. No horse will run away 

 that will not scare. 



BALKING AND BACKING. 



The habit of balking and backing is one of the worst and 

 most insufferable that a horse is ever addicted to, and one 

 which renders " horse-flesh " next to worthless. It is a habit 

 we are again compelled to attribute not so much to' the nat- 

 ural disposition of the horse as to faulty training and abuse 

 in colt-breaking. It is often the result of overloading the 

 young animal before he has been trained to hard pulling, 

 and before he has become strong enough to bear the strain 

 of drawing heavy loads. The overtaxed and weary beast, 

 perhaps midway up a long hill, gifes out from sheer ex- 

 haustion ; and then the wagon runs back, pulling him with 

 it, and in this way the practice of backing and balking is 

 begun, and at first a necessity, becomes in time a confirmed 

 habit. 



A horse that is not broken before the age of three years 

 is more liable to run into this practice than one broken 

 earlier. 



Of course there is no dependence to be put on a balky 

 horse. When you most need his services, he is most likely, 

 to disappoint you. Numbers of accidents are continually 



