SCARING A COLT 237 



nullify the effects of this scarifying — first impressions 

 being difficult to efface from the recollection of boy or 

 colt when made by birch or pig-whip. Now the most 

 hkely consequences of this scaring or scarifying a colt 

 would be to drive him over the stalls, or out through the 

 window ; and I should conceive he would ever afterwards 

 retain, not a wholesome, but a wholesale, fear of mankind. 

 It is as natural for a horse to kick as it is for a dog to bite 

 those whom they think intending to injure them ; and 

 a colt may kick, and will kick, from fear as much as from 

 any vicious propensity. What then can be said of a 

 system which recommends scarifying to make him still 

 more fearful, merely upon the supposition of his being of a 

 mulish disposition because he lays his ears back ? Now 

 if anything will make a colt kick, it is whipping him 

 about his legs and flank. 



Next follow instructions " How to halter and lead a 

 colt," in which there is nothing very objectionable, 

 except the holding in your right hand of the aforesaid 

 pig-whip, the very sight of which (if held over his head, 

 as recommended, to assist in adjusting the halter) would 

 be sufficient to frighten a colt which had once experienced 

 its scarifying effects. We are then advised " to have a 

 long rope or strap ready, and as soon as you have the 

 halter on, attach this to it, so that you can let him walk 

 the length of the stable without letting go the strap, or 

 without making him pull on the halter ; for if you only 

 let him feel the weight of your hand on the halter, and 

 give him rope when he runs from you, he will never rear, 

 pull, or throw himself, yet you wiU be holding him aU 

 the time, and doing more towards gentling him than if 

 you had the power to shut him right up and hold him to 

 one spot ; because he does not know anything about his 



