CHAPTER III. 

 Vice and Its Correction 



NO sane horse was ever born vicious. Such 

 characteristics are invariably the resuh of 

 imperfect attempts by man at coercion and educa- 

 tion. All the animal's natural characteristics and 

 temperament are foreign to active aggression of 

 any sort ; nor does the fact that the wild horse or the 

 unhandled colt will bite, kick, or strike when cor- 

 nered, prove to the contrary. All his instincts are 

 for flight, and given the opportunity to exercise this 

 proclivity, he will always avail himself of such 

 means of escape. 



The occasional saucy colt, which lays back its 

 ears and runs at its care-taker or any stranger, is 

 not vicious, but only exercising, rather in a spirit 

 of play, that bullying propensity which is, in some 

 form, noticeable in all horses. Undue familiarity 



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