228 HANDLING AND BREAKING. 



horses under the old-fashioned system of 

 training, combined with occasional punishing 

 finishes on the racecourse, were naturally 

 calculated to act upon certain equine tem- 

 peraments, and provoke in extreme cases 

 results of this lamentable description, while 

 vicious tendencies so engendered may con- 

 ceivably prove hereditary ; but we may lay it 

 down as a general axiom that the temper of 

 the average horse is formed for good and ill 

 during the period of his early handling and 

 breaking. Further, it may be boldly asserted 

 that there is no animal in creation more 

 amenable to kind and gentle treatment. 



Most young horses, like young people, 

 have a will of their own, which generally 

 manifests itself in their wanting to go their 

 own way instead of the rider's, as soon as 

 they have become accixstomed to the sensation 

 of having some one on their backs. At first 

 they are usually somewhat overawed bv the 

 novelty of the situation; but after a ride or 



