CH. XV HANDLING 367 



An amateur, if he has equal knowledge and 

 skill, can do the same, and on our side of the water 

 he usually must do it for himself. 



The breeder of a horse should beoqn to accus- 

 torn the colt at an early age to be haltered, to bear 

 a surcingle strapped on, to be led about, and to 

 have his feet held up and struck as if he were being 

 shod. All these things can be easily done with a 

 little weak foal, which will not resent them, if rea- 

 sonable care and gentleness are used, and thus the 

 way is well prepared for the after operations of 

 breaking, — a word expressive of the difficulty of 

 doing anything with a horse which has been allowed 

 to run wild until he is so strong that only brute 

 force can subdue him to obedience, — but which 

 should be replaced by the word framing, where 

 the horse has been properly handled as a colt. 



Assuming that a coaching owner receives a horse 

 as a fairly well broken animal, he will find it ad- 

 vantageous to handle him in the manner about to 

 be described. 



It is frequently supposed that the work done to 

 prepare a saddle-horse, is wasted if applied to a 

 drivinor-horse, and no doubt much of it would be ; 

 but a certain portion of it is most useful. The 

 elaborate systems of training saddle-horses, mainly 

 for military purposes, since the time of Grison and 

 Fieschi, in the middle of the sixteenth century, have 

 been gradually superseded by simpler methods, or, 

 at least, by methods requiring fewer appliances and 



