VICIOUS HORSES. 
159 
From long practice, and longer observation, in putting horses 
in harness, T feel perfectly confident in the opinion that with Eng¬ 
lish-bred horses (I will not say the same of Irish-bred ones), if we 
were to put fifty into harness, not perhaps one out of that number 
would attempt to kick, if we could keep pole, shafts, or traces 
from touching his hind quarters. It is, in most cases, this collision 
that he kicks at—not from vice, but from feeling something touch¬ 
ing him that he cannot see ; consequently cannot judge whether 
it is any thing likely to hurt him or not. So he endeavours to 
kick it away, as we should strike at an insect that lit upon our 
cheek without our perceiving it. Few things induce horses to do 
mischief so much as surprise of any sort; in instance of which, I 
had put my horse up at an inn while I dined : on going to the 
stable with the ostler his light was extinguished, as I stood at the 
end of the stall pointing out my saddle. While he was gone to 
re-light it, I imprudently put my hand on my horse’s quarter; he 
immediately kicked out with both heels. Fortunately for me I 
was quite close to him. Had I been four feet away my death 
would have been as certain as if I had stood at the mouth of a 
cannon. As it was, I was carried senseless into the inn, and there 
lay a whole week. Now, that was as fine a tempered animal as 
ever lived. He was alarmed, or at least surprised ; but vice was 
not in his composition. 
I am quite aware there are some horses that will kick in har¬ 
ness, put them in as carefully as you may, and are, in fact, incor¬ 
rigible in that respect. If such a horse was savage and vicious 
on all occasions, I should set down his kicking in harness to in¬ 
herent or contracted vice; but suppose, as would very probably 
be the case, he was good-tempered on all other occasions, I should 
infer that, from some unknown cause, he had (and likely enough 
with reason) contracted a dislike to or fear of harness. Such a 
horse would be more difficult to cure of kicking than a vicious 
one. The latter kicks from vice and ill temper—he may perhaps 
be cowed or coaxed out of the habit; but the other does it (if I 
may use the expression) upon principle; and we might never be 
able to eradicate from his memory whatever it was that caused 
his fear or dislike of harness, and unless we could, kick he would, 
more or less, to the end of the chapter. 
On the other hand, it is not a very uncommon circumstance to 
find horses, in a general way vicious both to ride and to persons, 
go perfectly quiet in harness. My inference would be that such 
a horse had had a something done to him that caused dislike botli 
to man and the saddle; but the same thing, or any thing that had 
annoyed or alarmed him, had not been done to him in harness, 
consequently there he would go quiet. 
