52 THE HORSE 



vice because, on some unfortunate occasion, he 

 discovered that in at least that one particular he 

 could do as he pleased after all and that his master 

 was powerless to prevent it. He repeats the vice 

 because, having committed it once with impunity, 

 he feels all confidence that he can do so again. 

 In the cure he must be met on his own ground and 

 the matter reasoned out, by arguments that he 

 cannot fail to understand, till he owns himself 

 mistaken. To do this — to make a vicious horse 

 unlearn the dangerous knowledge of his own 

 power — will manifestly require different and more 

 radical measures than are needed to check the colt 

 in his first disposition to go wrong. 



YOUE WILL AGAINST THE HORSE'S WILL 



As the horse, in the practise of any vice, shows 

 a rank disregard of his driver, the first step in 

 its cure is to impress him, in a general way, with 

 your supremacy and his own inability to resist 

 you successfully. This you can never do by 

 means of the whip or club. Whipping a horse 

 punishes him, it is true, but it is powerless to 

 compel him to do what you want and it also rouses 

 his resentment in a way that makes his training 

 all the more difficult. Remember that the first 

 thing you are striving for is his complete subjec- 



