THE EDUCATION OF A HORSE 219 



preliminary lessons preparatory to being mounted. You 

 begin where we left off, entirely reversing the order — ^we 

 say necessary order — in a horse's education. We ground 

 our pupils well in their grammar before we put them into 

 Virgil or Horace. We say, Dimidium facti , qui bene ccepit, 

 habet ; in short, we will not get upon a colt's back until 

 we have taught him how to move and change his paces." 



I have seen scores, I may say hundreds, of horses 

 backed, but not broken. Colts at farm-houses are 

 mounted and ridden about by boys, when scarcely two 

 years old, and made to carry anjrthing, from a sack of 

 com to a sucking calf ; and a friend of mine had a good- 

 sized pony broken in in this fashion by a farmer, and as 

 quiet as a donkey to ride ; but as for guiding him, you 

 might as well have pulled at the head of a gate. He 

 ran away with his servant, who, finding it hopeless to 

 pull at his mouth, shoved his head into a thick hedge, 

 which had the desired effect of stopping him. 



A short time ago I watched three stalwart Vulcans in 

 a blacksmith's shop pursuing their system of horse- 

 taming, which beat Mr. Rarey's hollow. Two had a colt 

 by the head and fore leg, and one held him tight by the 

 tail, and in ten minutes he was perfectly subdued ; for 

 finding all his efforts to plunge, rear, or kick — (whilst 

 tackled fore and aft so unceremoniously) — perfectly 

 futile, the coit gave in after a brief struggle, allowing 

 himself to be handled just as his masters thought fit. 



Young horses may be divided into two classes for 

 education or breaking — one, those which have been 

 handled since the day they were foaled, and the other, 

 those which have been allowed to run wild until they are 

 three or four years old — seldom now till the latter period, 

 since it has become the fashion in these fast days to 



