ARABIAN HORSES. 277 
vt 
leg above the hock. The children play with it, and 
when it is a year old they mount it occasionally, and 
thus it gradually becomes accustomed to carrying 
weight. Before it attains two years of age it has 
been ridden by a half-grown boy, and a year later it 
is put through some long and severe gallops. The 
Bedouins inaintain — very unreasonably, as Western 
experience shows— that, unless a horse has done hard 
work before he is three years old, he will never be fit 
to do it afterward. It may be, indeed, that Arabian 
and “thoroughbred” horses can do hard work in 
their colthood with impunity; but of half-bred, still 
more of cold-blooded horses, Shakspere’s adage still 
holds true : 
“The colt that’s backed and burdened being young 
Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.” 
When the Arabian colt is about two and a half 
years old, besides being taught to gallop in the figure 
of an 8, and to change his leg, so as to become supple, 
he is ridden by his master on a journey. The conse- 
quence of this heroic treatment is, that splints are not 
uncommon in Arabian horses, and sometimes their 
shank bones become bent permanently. Occasionally, 
also, the colt gets a pair of broken knees by being 
ridden over rough ground at too early an age. But, 
strange to say, the Arabians make no account of such 
a blemish. Their horses, when full grown, never fall, 
despite their careless way of walking. “The Arabian 
horse is too sure of his footing to be careful, except 
on rough ground, and there he never makes a false 
step.” 
I own a Morgan mare which has precisely the 
same peculiarity. On ordinary roads she will not 
