946 VETEEINAEY HYGIENE 



Jumping must be taught without a man on the back ; the 

 horse must feel confidence in himself and know that he is 

 capable of jumping, before he is handicapped by asking him 

 to lift not only his own weight, but that of a ten or eleven 

 stone man. 



There are few things army horses hate more, or do worse 

 than jumping, and with many it can be seen that they have 

 not confidence in themselves, attributable in some cases 

 to a previous accident when they may have blundered 

 or fallen. A horse rarely forgets any difficulty he has 

 experienced of this sort, and it makes him unwilling to 

 face it again. At p. 814 it will be found stated that a horse 

 is not intended to carry a weight on his back while a man 

 is ; yet there are many men capable of jumping a certain 

 height who would find considerable difficulty in doing so 

 when handicapped with twenty or thirty pounds on their 

 back, and this is about the equivalent carried by the horse. 

 But apart from these considerations there are many horses 

 which possess no aptitude for jumping. 



A horse requires to be taught how to walk, it must be a 

 good free stride, with no jig- jogging, wearing out his own 

 legs and the man's seat. Few horses walk well, yet it is one 

 of the things capable of improvement by education, the first 

 principle of which is to give him his head and teach him to 

 walk out with freedom. 



The military training of a horse must not be hurried, 

 the animal is young and growing, and like the recruit 

 must be given time to condition and stiffen : there must 

 be no forcing, no hurrying through. It is admittedly a 

 peace training, because it would be impossible to devote this 

 time to training horses in war. This peace training is not 

 only to make the horse handy but to consolidate his limbs ; 

 and this cannot be effected in a hurry. 



The training for Artillery is mainly training for draught. 

 At first nothing is carried but the harness ; as condition 

 improves and no rubbing is evident, the gun limber is 

 employed for hooking into. One great advantage possessed 

 by the Artillery training of horses is that the young horse 



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