58 THEORY OF HORSE-CONTROL. 



time the horse is driven up a hill through a crowded 

 thoroughfare. In such a case, if the animal " shows fight," 

 he will gain the victory almost to a certainty, and the 

 attempted association of ideas will become proportionately 

 weakened. For vices unconnected with harness, the breaker 

 can, on the contrary, generally find some suitable place in 

 which to work his will on the disobedient one, under 

 advantageous conditions. I say this with every reasonable 

 reserve ; for we may sometimes meet with cases of saddle 

 vices, such as running away on a racecourse when galloped, 

 or when close to hounds that are in full cry, to which it is 

 difficult to directly apply efficient breaking remedies. 



Vices caused by undue sexual excitement, defects of 

 vision, pain in the legs or feet which might make a horse 

 refuse to jump, and other infirmities and diseases, do not 

 come within the scope of the breaker. Castration is, in 

 both sexes, an admirable means for rendering quiet those 

 animals which are vicious from sexual causes. Although I 

 have had many hundreds of horses with various forms of 

 " pain in the temper " pass through my hands, I have met 

 with very few which, so far as I could judge, were incapable 

 of being made serviceable on account of mental aberration, 

 which, in the horse, usually takes the form of extreme and 

 causeless excitability. I have known only one or two 

 healthy horses which were so listless and stupid that they 

 might be regarded as idiots. 



As the breaker has to work on the material at hand, and 

 as he has no power to change the nervous organisation of 

 the animal, however firmly he may establish the habit of 

 implicit obedience ; it is impossible for him to make a 



