RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTER I 



KINDNESS 



IN our dealings with the brute creation, it 

 cannot be too much insisted on that mutual 

 confidence is only to be established by mutual 

 goodwill. The perceptions of the beast must be 

 raised to their highest standard, and there is no 

 such enemy to intelligence as fear. Reward 

 should be as the daily food it eats, punishment 

 as the medicine administered on rare occasions, 

 unwillingly, and but when absolute necessity 

 demands. The horse is of all domestic animals 

 most susceptible to anything like discomfort or 

 ill-usage. Its nervous system, sensitive and 

 highly strung, is capable of daring effort under 

 excitement, but collapses utterly in any new and 

 strange situation, as if paralysed by apprehensions 

 of the unknown. 



Can anything be more helpless than the young 

 horse you take out hunting the first time he finds 



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