292 RESTIVENESS I ITS PREVENTION AND CUBE. 



as weak backs, hind quarters, or something abnormal 

 about the head and neck lead them into insubordi- 

 nation in self-defence. Want of ability to do the work 

 demanded of them, in consequence of defective condition, 

 will produce the same effect both in young and old 

 horses ; starvation is, therefore, in most instances, a 

 positively injurious instead of a curative process. No 

 doubt a horse's temper may be subdued to a certain 

 extent by this means, but then it becomes unfit to do 

 work, so that nothing is gained in the end. As regards 

 disposition, some horses refuse their work from sheer 

 sluggishness ; others, again, from timidity or irritability. 

 This latter is very frequently the case with mares, 

 especially at certain seasons of the year, and may be 

 very often remedied by putting them to stud for one or 

 two years. It is obvious that one method of treatment 

 is not applicable to these very different cases. Finally, 

 a merely passionate temper requires different manage- 

 ment from a dogged one ; whilst sheer vice is the most 

 difficult of all to deal with, and usually a consequence 

 of injudicious treatment. When all this has been well 

 considered, and the cause or causes of restiveness ascer- 

 tained, one can begin to work with some chance of 

 success otherwise not. 



The second general rule is very easily deducible from 

 the first it is this : avoid giving the horse an oppor- 

 tunity of resisting your will successfully, so long as it 

 possesses the means of doing so that is to say, until 

 you have acquired, by the means already described, com- 

 plete control over its movements. Therefore have your 

 horse led into a riding-school or some enclosed space 

 where it has never shown restiveness, and do your work 

 there, and after each lesson dismount again, loosening 



