4B0 BREAKING AND TRAINING. 



Those who delight in a lofty crest may accomplish more by attention 

 to the health and diet than by the absence of humanity. The strongest 

 bearing-rein and the sharpest bit cannot exalt the head of a spiritless 

 horse. Clover, tares, beans and peas, by promoting the strength and 

 lending tone to the muscular system, will do more to raise the neck and 

 promote gayety of spirit than the harness-maker can accomplish. Bear- 

 ing-reins are disgraceful cruelties, and do no more than expose the moral 

 condition or the pecuniary meanness of those parties who employ them, 



In corroboration of the importance of the neck as an aid to motion, 

 the reader must pardon the author if he refers to a well-marked circum- 

 stance which has hitherto escaped observation. A horse with a thin or 

 narrow neck, measuring from the crest to the wind-pipe, should always 

 be avoided. It denotes bodily weakness, and testifies to an absence of 

 spirit. The cervical region always first exhibits the token of approach- 

 ing emaciation. If the reader will hereafter test the remark by observa- 

 tion, he will find all poor, exhausted animals, which carry the head as 

 though its weight was oppressive, invariably have the neck much im- 

 poverished and altogether attenuated. 



In short, a mere catalogue of the evils engendered by the injudicious 

 breaking of draught horses, would occupy more space than the author 

 has at his command. For this reason, the driver of a young animal 

 should never be intrusted with reins made entirely of leather; a part of 

 the length should be composed of India-rubber. Neither should he be 

 permitted to flourish a whip. All severity is but an indulgence of the 

 controller's temper ; it is unnecessary with a life which is eager to learn 

 an(^ is anxious to obey. The sound of the voice or the gentlest indica- 

 tion should be sufiBcient to excite the ability of such a pupil. No one 

 can doubt this, who has beheld its activity of ear whenever the horse is 

 addressed. 



After the foregoing fashion the educatioK may be perfected, without 

 allowing any professing brute, under the name of a "horse-breaker," to 

 spoil the temper and to lay the seeds of future disease, by ill treatment 

 of a few weeks' duration. Some years ago the author remembers meet- 

 ing a man, who must have weighed more than fourteen stone, seated on 

 a side saddle, and having a horse rug dangling about his heels. He was 

 supposed to be "breaking in" a colt, rising three, for a lady equestrian. 

 His employer must have been excessively developed, or her representa- 

 tive could only spoil the creature which was, ostensibly, preparing to 

 receive a lighter burden and a more delicate hand. An accident was 

 thus almost rendered certain, whenever the oppressed quadruped should 

 be relinquished to its future mistress. 



The matters which have been already pointed out being attended to, 



