126 Among Men and Horses. 



similar questions many hundreds of times, I reply almost 

 automatically : That repetition of the discipline which ob- 

 tained the desired control can alone confirm the habit of 

 obedience ; that each succeeding lesson will be easier to 

 impart than the one which preceded it ; that the effect of 

 the first lesson, if it were not repeated may, or may not, 

 quickly wear off; and that one act of injudicious mismanage- 

 ment, even in punishing the mare with whip or spur, may 

 undo in a moment all the benefit of the previous instruction. 

 All I know about Britomarte's further career, is that I saw 

 her a week later, being ridden about quietly by an indifferent 

 horseman. 



Mr John Hubert Moore was the first to impress upon me 

 the futility, as a general rule, of trying to cure vicious horses 

 for other people. Many years ago, before he had arrived at 

 that conclusion, he formed a partnership with the late Lord 

 Combermere to buy up all the cheap, but otherwise good, 

 horses which were troubled with a ' pain in their temper,' to 

 cure them of their respective faults, and then to sell them as 

 reliable conveyances. The frequent cases they had of these 

 supposed reformed characters being returned on their hands 

 for having ' broken out ' again, caused them to abandon the 

 scheme. Profiting by the experience of the great Irish breaker, 

 I have always found it more satisfactory to teach an owner how 

 to break-in a spoiled horse, than to attempt the task myself. 



Towards the end of my Indian trip I did some racing, 

 and ought to have made a lot of money on one occasion ; 

 but didn't. It happened in this way. That good sportsman 

 Mr (now Captain) Bates of the King's Dragoon Guards got 

 up at Rawul Pindee a meeting, at which there was some 

 brisk gambling. I had two of my own and a couple of 

 animals belonging to Mr Larpent (now Baron de Hochepied), 

 who, not being able to be present, occupied the most of the 

 time of the local telegraph clerks by wiring to me : ' Go Nap,' 

 or words to that effect. The instructions of the young Peeler 

 (he was then in the Bombay Police) were disastrous ; for by a 



