HANDLING AND BREAKING. 219 



practised upon " poor clumb creatures " in 

 general, and horses in particular, insisted that 

 " breaking " was quite a wrong word to use, 

 and that we should rather say " training " 

 the horse to do what we want of him. In 

 idea she was quite right, but inasmuch as 

 it was already appropriated for quite another 

 thing, to wit, the preparing a horse for a 

 race, I had to explain that the term was 

 imavailable. Her notion apparently was 

 that breaking meant reducing a young and 

 generous creature to obedience, by the 

 tyranny of sharp bits, heavy cutting whij)s, 

 and lacerating spurs. Now, to break the 

 colt's spirit by dominating him in such 

 severe fashion is the last thing any competent 

 breaker desires to do : rather, he would direct 

 it, by the gentlest effective agencies, into 

 right courses, and teach the young animal 

 to control itself, which my sympathetic 

 Quakeress would certainly have admitted to 

 be essential in the case of the young of her 



