162 
VICIOUS HORSES. 
This I certainly, from having had a good many such horses through 
my hands, could and would with much pleasure state ; but I know 
I can give much safer and better advice, which would be—“ Use 
him as a saddle-horse, if he is fit for that purpose; if not, sell 
him.” No one can say with proper confidence that he can cure a 
determined run-away horse of the propensity : if a horse runs away 
from high temper, constant work will probably appear to have 
effected a cure; so perhaps it will while the work continues; he 
is subdued, but do not fancy he is cured. Let him recover his 
energy, and away he goes again; nor will work even always pro¬ 
duce the effect, for, if he is really a bad-disposed horse, he will sulk 
at it, and then run away from ill-humour instead of fright or 
energy. The cause of the starting off will be a different one, but 
the effect will be equally dangerous, and in the latter case so cer¬ 
tain as he runs away will he kick also, which a high-mettled or 
even frightened horse may possibly not attempt, though the proba¬ 
bility is that he does. 
I certainly never was absolutely runaway with by any horse in 
harness, excepting once by a pair of young ones. I in no shape 
mean to infer this has arisen from any very superior coachman¬ 
ship: many far better coachmen have had more than one or two 
such starts, but probably they have not had as much to do with 
such horses as I have, and consequently do not see by the com¬ 
mencing manoeuvres of the horse the favour he intends us. There 
is no case where the common saying that “ prevention is better 
than cure” holds good more than it does, I may say, in all things 
that regards horses. The want of prevention often brings on vice, 
where vice did not before exist. 
There certainly are some old offenders who are always on the 
watch for a start, and are knowing enough to make it when they 
find that from a decline or a particularly hard bit of road the car¬ 
riage will almost run of itself: for this reason a suspicious horse 
should always be slackened in his pace before he begins a descent, 
for, if he once get ahead down the hill, not only cannot the driver 
stop him, but very probably he will not be able to stop himself. 
But horses often get credit for this kind of cunning and vice when 
the run-away proceeds from quite another cause, namely, the state 
of his mouth. A very high-spirited horse would mostly run away, 
if we would let him; that is, he would get on from seven miles an 
hour to twelve, then he would break into a gallop, and thus end in 
a complete run-away, without its having been in any way pre¬ 
meditated. This is all from want of, in technical terms, “ hands” 
on the part of the coachman or rider, as the case may be. On first 
starting, the horse’s mouth is tender, and if properly bitted he feels 
the influence of the bit; this he would continue to do to his jour- 
