14 THE ART OF TAMING HORSES. 



something frightful ; and from that moment the process 

 of training becomes easy, and, with the help of the long 

 spurs, is completed in a few days. This plan must spoil 

 as many horses as it makes quiet, and fail utterly with 

 the more nervous and high-spirited ; for the very quali- 

 ties that render a horse most useful and beautiful, when 

 properly trained, lead him, when unbroken, to resist 

 more obstinately rough violent usage. 



In a French newspaper article on Mr. Earey's system, 

 it is related that a French horse-breaker, in 1846, made 

 a good speculation by purchasing vicious horses, which 

 are more common in France than in England, and 

 selling them, after a few days' discipline, perfectly quiet. 

 His I'emedy lay in a loaded whip, freely applied between 

 the ears when any symptom of vice was displayed. This 

 expedient was only a revival of the method of Grisone, 

 the Neapolitan, called, in the fifteenth centmy, the I'ege- 

 nerator of horsemanship, predecessor of the French 

 school, who says — " In breaking young horses, put them 

 into a circular pit; be very severe with those that are 

 sensitive, and of high courage ; beat them between the 

 ears with a stick." His followers tied their horses to tho 

 pillars in riding-schools, and beat them to make them 

 raise their fore-legs. We do not apj)rove of Grisone's 

 mardms at the present day in print, but we leave our 

 horses too much to ignorant colt-breakers, who practise 

 them. 



The Arabs alone, who have no need to hurry the 

 education of their horses, and who live with them as we 

 do with our pet dogs, train their colts by degrees, with 

 patient gentleness, and only resort to severe measures to 

 teach them to gallop and stop short. For this reason 

 Arabs are most docile until they fall into the hands of 

 cruel grooms. 



