352 ON BREAKING RACING COLTS. 



very severely on the leg, and would no doubt have got 

 away from me, had not the groom, who was standing 

 by, looking on, come to my assistance. 1 recollect, he 

 gave me a good shaking and some abuse, and I should, 

 no doubt, have felt his ash-plant smartly over my 

 shoulders, (for he was rather familiar with his boys in 

 this way,) but, luckily for me, he did not happen to 

 have it with him. I was sent back to the stables with 

 orders to send a bigger boy to lead the colt, which is 

 what the groom ought to have done in the first in- 

 stance, as when a colt once gets the better of a boy, 

 he is very apt to try it again. 



Let us, for the sake of example, and merely to shew 

 how racing colts are broke, consider a number of year- 

 lings to be taken up from the paddocks of noblemen or 

 gentlemen who, having a large racing establishment, are 

 breeding on an extensive scale, and train and run their 

 own produce. Instead of sending them to be broke at 

 the stables of a colt breaker, we will consider that a 

 man well qualified for breaking racing colts is kept on 

 the above establishment. 



The month of October, or thereabouts, is generally 

 the time that colts come up, which are to be effectually 

 broke ; and it is about this time that many of the 

 horses of a certain age are put out of training, and are 

 removed from their stables to loose houses to winter. 

 In these stables, or any others on the premises answer- 

 ing the purpose, the colts and fillies may be put ; only 

 observe to class them properly, that is, the colts in one 

 stable and the fillies in another. 



