BALKING. 



THIS habit is the outgrowth of ignorance and bad treat- 

 ment. It is also, when attempted to be done by the ordinary 

 system of rough, exciting force, seemingly one of the most 

 difficult habits to break up. The moment you go to whip- 

 ping and pounding a horse, as is usually done, you not only 

 irritate to greater resistance, but blunt the sensibilities to 

 such a degree, that in a short time the greatest abuse may be 

 inflicted without having any more seeming effect than to 

 make the horse more stubborn. When a horse finds you 

 cannot make him go, he will balk at the least cause 01 

 annoyance, or want of it. While in harness you should not, 

 by any means, commence your tactics by treatment which 

 forces you to defeat, and makes the horse worse. 



WHAT KIND TREATMENT AND A LITTLE PATIENT MANAGE- 

 MENT DID. AN INCIDENT OF EARLY EXPERIENCE. 



When but a little more than a boy, I acquired a great 

 passion for trading horses, frequently trading five or six 

 times a week. In this way I got on my hands from a sharp 

 horse-jockey, a pony mare, nine years old, that was known 

 as the most stubborn and reckless balker ever known in the 

 country. She had been through the hands of the best horse- 

 men in the country, but, proving wholly unmanageable, the 

 owner would trade her off as quickly as possible. When I 

 got her, the man who traded her to me, laughed and said 

 he "guessed I had something this time that would 

 stick me ; that if I could drive her I could beat any 

 living horseman ; that every possible means had been 

 tried to break her, and she beat them all." I said in reply, 

 that I did not anticipate any real trouble in making hei 

 work for me. I looked the mare over carefully, and made 



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