VICIOUS HORSES. 
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ness, kick like trumps when put to; but l do not remember ever 
having seen one kick—that is, what I call kick—at harness, that 
ever shewed any courtesy to a carriage. Woe to the splinter-bar 
if it is not a strong one, and woe to such a horse’s heels if the bar 
is not well stuffed. This, it will be said, is vice in its extremest 
form. I am not quite prepared to allow this in the full meaning of 
the term, though I grant it does look a wee bit like it, or very like 
it; but still it may not be vice in the animal as to temper or general 
disposition. He has the vice of kicking in harness—perhaps has had 
good reason to do so; it shews he hates harness: but if he is willing 
to work in other ways with cheerfulness and good temper, I should 
lay his kicking in harness to the fault of some biped, and not to the 
quadruped. Depend on it, in such a case, the horse has been hurt, 
annoyed, ill-used, or frightened in harness, or very likely all;— 
tolerably cogent reasons, I think, to make man or horse dislike 
harness or any thing else. 
RUNNING AWAY. 
This, when a horse does it in harness, I conceive to be one of the 
most natural impulses that actuate him, inasmuch as it is natural 
for any animal to endeavour to run from that which either alarms 
it, or that it has a dislike to: it is one of those occurrences that 
more than any other should be guarded against in harness; for so 
sure as a horse has had one decided run-away with a vehicle be¬ 
hind him, so sure will he at least attempt the same thing again on 
the first provocation or incitement to do so. No doubt but in proper 
hands, that know how to counteract such a propensity, he may in 
most cases be prevented from accomplishing his purpose, for such 
a person will first guard against (as far as he can) the animal being 
excited to the attempt, and, should he do so, knows the proper 
means of preventing its being carried into effect; but, with an 
ordinary hand as a driver, a run-away at some time or other is 
certain. 
That the original, that is, the first, run does not arise from any 
vice I think nearly certain; for not having tried the experiment, 
of course the animal knows nothing of what the result of it will be; 
but if he has done so, and found that he got rid of the carriage, 
like the post-boys’ horse following Johnny Gilpin, “ right glad to 
miss the cumbering of the wheels,” he then probably runs away 
the next time to bring about the same result: this, then, becomes a 
decidedly vicious trick in harness, though not absolute vice in the 
horse as to general disposition. I might be asked by some one 
knowing less of these things than myself, what I would recom¬ 
mend as the best means of curing or counteracting the propensity. 
