226 ART WILL ALTER EVEN NATURAL FORMATION.

2000l. If he goes fast, it would be most injudicious to risk altering his style merely to make it a handsome one. But the difference of carriage and mouth in the hunter, hack, lady's horse, or harness horse, increases or diminishes their value perhaps threefourths. With them, therefore, we cannot take too much trouble, or exercise too much patience, to bring about the desired and indeed indispensable qualifications of going handsomely, safely, and pleasantly.

I have said that all horses are not made alike. Now the way in which a horse would in a natural state carry himself depends wholly on how he is made; and how he will carry his head depends on how that head is put on to his neck, and how that neck is put into his chest and shoulders. The mouth in its natural state has of course nothing to do with this; but when we take him in hand, it is by acting on the mouth alone that we must trust to bringing the head and neck in proper position; and indeed it is acting on the mouth that enables us to perfect the general carriage of the body, and to alter, if necessary, the whole style of going. A man totally unused to horses might think the mouth could have nothing to do with the action of the hind-legs: men who are judges of the thing know it has everything to do with it. It may be said that the mouth has nothing to do with the natural formation of the neck: this is true; but it has a great deal to do, not only with the way in which that neck is carried, but in positively (to a certain degree) altering this natural formation. The muscles and ligaments in this early stage are yielding, and muscle will contract or expand from use or disuse. Those muscles or ligaments that tend to bring the head to an undue elevation, or its reverse, can be

HABIT RENDERS MOST THINGS EASY.

227

wonderfully altered by their tendency being counteracted in very early youth; but, if left to become firm and rigid, are fixed and immoveable; and then let the mouth be as good as it may, and the colt as willing as we could wish him to obey the bit and hand, he can no more carry his head in the position of some other horse than he can make himself the same colour if he is a different one. By beginning as early as I recommend putting the bit and reins on, we perceive their probable effect, and see at once the tendency the colt has to any particular carriage. Taking it in this early stage, we may bend it to what we like: the very bones in their sockets may be brought to unnatural pliability by beginning early. Any itinerant tumbler

daily shows us this; but the beginning must be made in the nursery, as I would make it with my colt.

use-though of

By getting the colt so early into usecourse I do not mean into work. we get a corresponding early knowledge of his propensities, be they good or bad, whether they relate to temper, mouth, or action. To get this it is by no means necessary to require any exertion on his part unfitted to his age. The being accustomed to feel a bit in the mouth is none; nor is it, to learn to bear being lightly borne up, or standing a short time on the pillarreins; but all this makes him amenable to restraint; and that restraint being slight and of short duration, and brought on by almost imperceptible degrees, he learns to submit to as a matter of course. I am quite aware that numbers of horses are ruined by being put to work too early; but this arises, not from being put simply to work, but from being put to improper work. There is a degree of exertion even the yearling is capable of; and if the two, three, and four years old

228

EARLY EXERCISE BENEFICIAL.

colt only got work apportioned to his years, so far from proper exercise (and his work should only be exercise) injuring him, I am quite satisfied he would be in every way better than if allowed to remain in perfect idleness: the muscles and frame altogether become more firm and developed by moderate work. Three or four journeys in a stage coach would perhaps ruin a three-year-old, so might probably a few days' hunting with twelve or thirteen stone on him; but an occasional airing in a light gig, or carrying a light weight for the same purpose, would do him no harm on earth; and at that age, if he had been properly brought up, he might stand in the place of some other horse for such light purposes.

We encourage

Let us reason a little from analogy. boys of seven or eight years of age to take strong exercise, like to sec them play their game at cricket, and of late years gymnastic exercises have been invented, and are recommended to call into play all the sinews and muscles of the youngest boys. We all know that a game at cricket, played as boys play it, is about as hard work as they could be put to; and gymnastics try every sinew and muscle to the utmost: yet we see youths thus brought up stronger, more healthy, and more vigorous than those who pass their time without similar strong exertion. Provided such exertion is used, whether it be for our own gratification or for the advantage of others, so far as it relates to the benefit or injury of the frame, it amounts to the same thing; so, whether the colt chooses to gallop about a plain to please himself, or is trotted round a lunge to familiarise him to obedience, could make no possible difference to him on the score of work. It may be said, that as boys will voluntarily take strong exer

REASONING BY ANALOGY.

cise, colts would do the same left to themselves.

is, however, by no means the case.

229

This

Boys take such

strong exercise as they do, not with a view to its beneficial effects on their health or constitution, but in the pursuit of amusement of some sort: you would never make a boy take a six-mile walk alone and on a dull road; he would rather play at marbles in a room; so the colt, not having many inducements to make exertion, would, left to himself, scarcely make any. The mere exercise of grazing would be sufficient to prevent sickness in him; so would a gentle walk in a garden with the boy: but the boy so brought up would never exhibit the robust frame of the one accustomed to repeated strong exercise. If we find this accelerates the growth and invigorates the health and muscular power of the boy, why should we doubt its having an equally beneficial effect on the colt?

It may be said that Nature would teach the animal to take as much exercise as would be requisite for his general well-doing: doubtless he would in a wild state find inducement to do this; but I am quite clear he would not in a domesticated one. But, besides this, we do not want an animal, that, when in a mature age, will only have to use exertion sufficient for his own wants and purposes: we want Vivians, Lotterys, Harkaways, magnificent chargers, and cabhorses: therefore we must do everything in our power to force horses into these, and not trouble our heads with what Nature might teach horses to do. She doubtless did and does teach them to do all that is necessary to make them such horses as she requires ; and if she rode steeple-chases or drove a cab, would doubtless know how to make a horse for her purpose: but as she does not do these things, and we do, great

and admirable as her work in this way is, we must improve upon it, or at all events try to do so. I have heard old-fashioned men say that they would never wish to see a horse do a day's work till he was five years old; others have said six. If by this they mean a real day's work, comprising long-continued exertion to the very utmost of the horse's powers, they are right but I have heard men go much further than this, and say, that, putting economy out of the question, they would let a colt run at liberty till five years old. This, with deference to others' opinion, I consider would be the very means to prevent his ever being capable of the exertion we want in horses in these days. Whether from such a mode of bringing up he might live longer, I will not say: put to the kind of work horses were a hundred years ago, possibly he might; but I should say he would not, in technical phrase, "live a day in Leicestershire now." The muscles, from want of early use, would have become fixed, and that elasticity necessary to speed would be found wanting. A horse wanting in elasticity will never make a jumper: he may get over a stile or a low gate, and he may be a very safe one at small or blind fences, but he will never be able to give the bound that is to carry us from field to field. A horse that will poke half-way down a ditch, and then get over, is very well at certain times, in certain countries, and for certain people; but I must confess I do not in a general way admire this mode of jumping by instalments: it is a very convenient way of clearing a debt, but a deuced slow one of clearing a fence. It is better than tumbling into a ditch full of brambles; but give me the India-rubber jumper that gets out of harm's way by clearing the trap and landing me in the next field.