Mental Limitations of Horses 13 



only necessary to let an animal uncc get the idea 

 that he need not perform some task, to find that, 

 either regularly or occasionally, he will ever after 

 attempt to shirk the matter. This evasion may con- 

 sist of any resistance, balking being the most com- 

 mon form, or refusing to turn one way or the other, 

 or turning round to go home, etc. Its form does not 

 matter; it is the rebellious act that is significant. 



The accepting of individual qualities and perform- 

 ances as characteristic of the equine race in the 

 abstract has been the cause, to those who keep and 

 use horses, of many fatal mistakes and much trouble, 

 and in these pages the general qualities of the average 

 horse are the only ones considered. 



^The reader must be asked to accept — or to inves- 

 tigate, at least — sev^eral statements as to the horse's 

 limitations which will not improbably at first meet 

 condemnation. These are, first, that the horse is a 

 fool ; second, that he is a coward ; and third, that, 

 like most cowards, he is a bully. It is through no 

 faults of his own making that the animal is thus to be 

 classified, but because nature has thus beneficently 



