ng, and plant their heels in your ribs if you are not very
active, and don't stand very close to them. On the directions for using
the whip, p. 55, with colts of a stubborn disposition, I can say
nothing, never having seen it so employed; but it is evident, that it
must be employed with very great discretion.

The directions for haltering are very complete, but to execute them with
a colt or horse that paws violently, even in play, with his fore-feet,
requires no common agility. But I may mention that I saw Mr. Rarey alone
put a bridle on a horse seventeen bands high that was notoriously
difficult to bridle even with two men assisting in the operation.

In reference to the hints for treating a colt in a little work from
which I have already quoted, a colonel in the Life Guards says, "The
great thing in horsemanship is to get your horse to be of your party;
not only to obey, but to obey willingly. For this reason, a young horse
cannot be begun with too early, and his lessons cannot be too gradually
progressive. He should wear a head-stall from the beginning, be
accustomed to be held and made fast by the head, to give up all four
feet, to bear the girthing of a roller, to be led, &c." But if all this
useful preliminary education, in which climbing through gaps after an
old hunter, and taking little jumps, be omitted, then the Rarey system
comes in to shorten your domesticating labours.

"A wild horse, until tamed, is just as wild and fearful as a wild stag
taken for the first time in the toils.

"When a horse hangs back and leads unwillingly, the common error is to
get in front of him and pull him. This may answer when the man is
stronger than the horse, but not otherwise.

"In leading you should never be further forward than your horse's
shoulder: with your right-hand hold his head in front of you by the
bridle close to his mouth or the head-stall, and with your left hand
touch him with a whip as far back as you can; if you have not a whip you
can use a stirrup-leather."

FOOTNOTES:

[47-*] See page 215--"The Wild Ponies of Exmoor."

[48-*] Made by Stokey, North Street, Little Moorfields, London.

CHAPTER V.

Powell's system of approaching a colt.--Haley's remarks on.--Lively
high-spirited horses tamed easily.--Stubborn sulky ones more
difficult.--Motto, "Fear, love and obey."--Use of a whalebone
gig-whip.--How to frighten and then approach.--Use kind words.--How
to halter and