CURE OF VICES 65 



ways handled quietly and with no display of tem- 

 per or irritability, will soon come to yield the 

 cheerful and unquestioning obedience that is so 

 essential. 



There are very few horses that will not amply 

 repay the time and trouble necessary to cure them 

 of their vices ; in many cases it is making a useful 

 and valuable animal of one that was formerly 

 worthless. But the wise horseman will always 

 bear it in mind that prevention is better than cure, 

 for, although accidents will sometimes happen even 

 with the best of management, the great majority 

 of horses that have vices would never have con- 

 tracted them if handled rightly from the first. 



Many bad habits are formed when the horse is 

 newly broken and beginning to work. It is then 

 that he is getting his ideas of what he can and 

 cannot do, and double vigilance is necessary to 

 see that he does not make experiments in inde- 

 pendence that will lead to vice. 



Too often, the young horse is trusted too much, 

 he is left standing, tied with a weak hitch-rope or 

 perhaps without hitching at all, used by inexperi- 

 enced drivers or be driven in a ram-shackle wagon, 

 with an old harness tied together with strings. 

 Vice can almost always be traced to bad manage- 

 ment of some kind. It is a good while before a 

 young horse is fit to be used and trusted like an 



