56 ON BALKING. 



we were placed in the horse's situation it would be 

 difficult for us to understand the driving of some 

 foreigner, of foreign ways and foreign language. 

 We should always recollect that our ways and lan- 

 guage are just as foreign and unknown to the horse 

 as any language in the world is to us, and should 

 try to practise what we could understand were we 

 the horse, endeavouring by some simple means to 

 work on his understanding rather than on the diffe- 

 rent parts of his body. All balked horses can be 

 started true and steady in a few minutes 5 time; 

 they are all willing to pull as soon as they know how, 

 and I never yet found a balked horse that I could 

 not teach to start his load in fifteen, and often less 

 than three, minutes time. 



Almost any team, when first balked, will start 

 kindly if you let them stand five or ten minutes as 

 though there was nothing wrong, and then speak to 

 them with a steady voice, and turn them a little to 

 the right or left, so as to get them both in motion 

 before they feel the pinch of the load. But if you 

 want to start a team that you are not driving your- 

 self, that has been balked, fooled and whipped for 

 some time, go to them and hang the lines on their 

 hames, or fasten them to the waggon, so that they 

 will be perfectly loose ; make the driver and specta- 

 tors (if there are any) stand off some distance to 

 one side, so as not to attract the attention of the 

 horses ; unloose their check-reins, so that they can 



