APPENDIX. 209 



place of resistance. The moment you^ake your point, keep to work, 

 requiring the horse to do over and over what is demanded, but re- 

 warding liberally for obedience, with apples or anything of which the 

 horse is fond ; and once making your point, don't flatter yourself, make 

 your success sure. These fellows (horses and mares) are treacherous ; 

 they will or may try you on, when not looking for it, hence make up 

 your mind, if the horse is one of courage and bottom, to try him over 

 and over most thoroughly, and if any inclination of resistance, contest it 

 until the point is made sure ; but once beyond this be the careful, adroit 

 manager, in a measure flattering and winning as you would a child. 

 Now there is often, in horsemen of even much practical experience, 

 manifested great lack of what I would call ordinary good sense or skill in 

 this art of management. If they learn a system, the system must do 

 it all ; break the horse down on the kill or cure principle, without 

 thinking that working along, carefully feeling their way as it were, is 

 indispensable. When a careful engineer lets on steam, he does it at 

 first slowly, that he may gradually get momentum without needless 

 strain. To put on full head of power, because he can and knows how 

 to do it, would be exposing to great hazard of spoiling and breaking 

 down the machinery ; and if the machinery is highly tempered and 

 nicely balanced there is the more danger of this. It is the tact, the 

 gentleness, the firmness, the clear conception of the whole duty and of 

 the possible consequences that makes success here. And so it is as a 

 master of this duty, for no machine was ever made by man more com- 

 plex, more fully and perfectly balanced and more necessary that its 

 laws and principles of government should be regarded in its manage- 

 ment, than that of a finely organized horse, or success in the manage- 

 ment of which more clearly shows the value of skill. 



When about leaving New York, a well known gentleman, a per- 

 sonal friend, requested that I would remain a day and show a horse 

 breaker, a man who attended all the horse-taming schools in that city, 

 a naturally good fellow, but crude in his ideas, how to manage a trot- 

 ting mare he had just purchased. She was high-toned, eager, coura- 

 geous and plucky, and had been subjected to severe treatment, but she 

 would resent the drudgery of any heavy pulling or rough handling, and 

 was acting badly. This man worked her and insisted upon hitching 

 her to a heavy express wagon. That is just what you should not do 

 with this mare, I insisted, and you will only spoil her by persisting in 

 doing so. I obtained a light sulky, walked her gently at first, then 

 let her out on a trot and soon could let her out as I pleased under any 

 excitement without trouble. The mare only needed working up slowly 

 and carefully, and with, perhaps, a few touches at the right time 

 and place, would have worked in nicely ; but worked as she had been, 

 and by such a man, I should regard it almost a miracle to make her 

 work successfully without breaking down her constitution, or spoiling 

 her. 



A three-year-old thorough-bred colt, of a very high-strung, bad dis- 

 position, was presented in New York to be driven in harness. I sub- 

 jected the colt to treatment and soon had her in harness, but knew 



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