HANDLING AND BREAKING. 227 



or might, at any rate, if carefully handled 

 from foalhood (I don't know if any of them 

 were or were not), not haA'e developed the 

 savage tempers for which they were notorious. 

 Training, no doubt, renders some horses ex- 

 tremely irritable, and they have been known 

 to retaliate in a terrible manner for the 

 severities to which they have been subjected 

 in the course of it. Ellerdale, for instance, 

 would scream with rage when she heard 

 Tom Dawson's voice ; and Mentor would 

 manifest his wrath in equally unmistakeable 

 terms directly he beheld Matthew of that 

 ilk ; while Muley Edris's revenge upon Fred 

 Archer will still be fresh in our readers' 

 memory. A stud-groom named LaAvson once 

 told me, too, of a mare, which so resented 

 something which had to be done to her foot, 

 that she waited for his father when he re- 

 turned from his dinner, and struck him dead 

 as he re-entered her box ! The excessively 

 high feeding and severe Avork accorded to 



