HORSE DOCTOR. 29^ 



RUNNING AWAY. 



Some headstrong horses will occasionally endeavor to 

 bok wilh tfie best rider. Others with their wonted 

 sai^^acity endeavor thus to dislodge the timid or unskir* 

 fui one. Some are hard to hold, or bolt only during the 

 ■ excitement of the chase ; others will lun away, prompted 

 by a vicious propensity alone. There is no certain cure 

 here. The me' hod which affords any probability of suc- 

 cess is, to ride such a horse with a strong curb and sharp 

 bit ;, to h#ve him always firmly in hand ; and, if he will 

 run away, and the place will admit of it, to give him 

 (sparing neither curb, whip, nor spur,) a great deal more 

 ninning than he likes. 



VICIOUS TO CLEAN. 



It would scarcely be credited to what an extent this 

 exists in some horses that are otherwise perfectly quiet. 

 It is only at great hazard that they can be cleaned at 

 all, The origin of this is probably some maltreatment. 

 There is, however, a great difference in the sensibility of 

 the skin in different horses. Some seem as if they could 

 scarcely be made to feel the whip, while others cannot 

 bear a fly to alight on them without an expression of 

 annoyance. In young horses the skin is peculiarly deli- 

 cate. K. they have been curried with a broken comb, 

 or hardly rubbed with an uneven brush, the recollection 

 of the torture they have felt, makes them impatient, and 

 even vicious, during every succeeding operation of the 

 kind. Many grooms, likewise, seem to delight in pro- 

 ducing these exhibitions of uneasiness and vice; al- 

 though; when they are carried a little too far, and at the 

 hazard of the limbs of the groom, the animals that have 

 been almost tutored into these expressions of irritation 

 are brutally kicked and punished. , 



'J'his, however, is a vice that may be conquered. If 



"Ihe horse is dressed with a lighter hand, and wisped 



rather than brushed, and the places where the skin is 



most sensitive are avoided as much as thoroufjh clean- 



