IMrROVING ACTION PRIOR TO TRAINING. 109 



in training perhaps ; but if a colt has naturally a bad 

 way of going — by bad, I mean a way that militates 

 against his going fast or long — would it not be wise 

 to try, before he went into actual training, whether 

 he micrht not be tauo;ht to 2:0 better ? If we wanted 

 a ploughman or a countryman to dance, we should 

 not send him to Dehayes to commence with learning 

 a gavotte : while his heavy longing gait remained, he 

 never could have the ability to do it. Surely the 

 first thing would be to teach him to walk, and run, and 

 to give him that gait and carriage that would render it 

 possible for him to perform these saltatory feats ; for 

 while he retained his former habits he could not be 

 made to perform them. The same thing holds good 

 with the colt : if he goes in that way that we may 

 consider renders it almost impossible for him do 

 what we want, he must be made to go better some- 

 how ; and I do not think that simple ordinary exercise 

 training is the surest way of bringing this about. If 

 he goes badly from any natural infirmity or malfor- 

 mation, we can do no good with him, and certainly 

 could get no good by putting him in training : but if 

 it is only a naturally bad style of going, I am quite 

 sure in nine cases in ten it is to be much improved. 

 If before sroino; into trainino- he could be made a o;ood 

 goer, he should be made one : if not (and he belonged 

 to me) some one else might train him if he liked, but 

 I would not. If with good goers we get a race- horse 

 out of half-a-dozen colts, we may consider ourselves 

 fortunate; but with bad ones it is really training at 

 hiolier odds ao^ainst one than I should like to train 

 under. 



In seeing a string of horses go at exercise, we natu- 

 rally look at the style of going of each ; and supposing 



