104 Among Men and Horses. 



reins, which the driver, according to Professor Sample, should 

 violently jerk when he wanted to stop or turn the horse. He 

 claimed that these three methods had been invented by him. 

 He added a fourth, about which he made no claim to 

 originality. It consisted of a very easy manner of throwing 

 a horse by tying up one foreleg, and drawing his head 

 round to the other side. He also showed the way horses are 

 taught, in circuses, to come up to and follow one ; and a 

 device to cure horses of the habit of hanging on the rope or 

 chain which secures them to their manger in a stall. His 

 method, which was not original, of telling a horse's age up 

 to thirty years, was based on the alteration of shape which 

 occurs in the upper corner incisor tooth (on either side) from 

 five years old and upwards. This, taken in conjunction 

 with other dental indications not given by Sample, is useful 

 up to, say, eight years of age. After that, it is much inferior 

 to a method based on the conclusions drawn, on the same 

 subject, by MM. Goubaux and Barrier, in LExterieur de 

 Cheval. For ages under five years, Sample adopted the 

 usual routine of deciding by the milk teeth and ' marks.' Not 

 alone did he present to English horse lovers a large mass 

 of useful knowledge which was absolutely new to them, but 

 he worked his methods — even when one could not altogether 

 agree with them — in such a capable manner, that it was 

 worth a journey of a hundred miles to see him handle a quiet 

 animal ; to say nothing of vicious ones. 



An admirable principle, to which Sample attached great 

 importance in the breaking-in of a young horse, and which 

 is directly opposed to the ideas of the majority of horse- 

 owners in England, was that of forcing the pupil to ' stand ' all 

 kinds of terrifying sights and sounds, while proving to him 

 that they did not hurt him. With quaint stories, Sample 

 used to illustrate the folly of old-fashioned breakers who 

 do everything in their power to prevent a youngster getting 

 frightened ; the result being that after he has been thus 

 ' carefully ' broken, he will be ready to ' play up ' if anything 



