230 MANAGEMENT BY VOICE 



kicking violently, burst the girths, and throwing off the 

 saddle, kicked it and the owner thereof clear from him 

 before he would be satisfied ; and yet this colt was 

 naturally of a good temper, but alarmed at the too sudden 

 and too tight pressure of these unusual bandages round 

 his body. It was invariably my practice with our own 

 young horses, which were broken at home (when keeping 

 a stud of brood mares to supply me with hunters), to 

 accustom the colts to a cloth and surcingle round their 

 bodies almost from the first day of their being handled, so 

 that they were thoroughly used to this kind of pressure 

 long before a saddle was placed upon their backs ; and 

 I am quite satisfied by experience that our gradual 

 system of breaking, although apparently slow at first, 

 was eventually the most successful, without risk of life 

 or limb to man or animal. 



Another part of our education, and a very necessary 

 one, was to teach our colts to do what we required of 

 them by the voice, without whip or spur. Stand still, 

 come on, go on, walk, trot, or gallop, are terms soon 

 understood by a horse when continually repeated, with a 

 corresponding movement of his breaker ; and it is of 

 great advantage to a horse to understand by the voice, 

 instead of by whip or spur, what he is required to do to 

 prepare himself for the action. For instance, by the 

 common usage, when wanted to trot, a dig of the spur 

 in his side, or a cut from whip or stick, springs the horse 

 at once into a canter, from the sudden pain inflicted ; 

 he is then puUed up again, when, from another cut or dig 

 in the side, he again breaks out as before. This is re- 

 peated, perhaps, several times, the rider being angry, 

 and the horse bewildered from not knowing what to do. 



Now aU this unpleasantness would be obviated by the 



