H E -:- H O R S E 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Running Away A dangerous habit and difficult to cure 

 Story of an incorrigible runaway and his fate. 



Running A way .--This is usually the mani- 

 festation of panic in a horse. He is con- 

 fronted suddenly with an unreasoning fear 

 and runs wildly, expending energy so power- 

 fully generated that it requires an outlet of 

 this kind. Blind fear will usually make a 

 horse run wildly. When he is madly running 

 away, it is far more difficult to stop him than 

 it would have been to prevent him from start- 

 ing in the beginning. A horse running away 

 becomes entirely obsessed with the idea of 

 running. It is a kind of inertia that carries 

 him along and usually ends only with ex- 

 haustion. Even though a horse has a good 

 mouth, fear and the terrific strain of the 

 muscles of his body will make that mouth 

 rapidly lose sensitiveness until it becomes 

 entirely impervious to even the action of a 

 very severe bit. 



An excitable horse will more readily run 

 away, since its excitability will quickly turn 

 to fear. Also a hard mouth shows a pre- 

 disposition to running away, because a horse 

 being so equipped will not readily feel the 

 restraining influence of the bit, and, perhaps, 

 will get his full stride before he can be made 

 to feel any attempt at control. 



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