DOCILE HORSES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 664, 27 November 1902, Page 16

DOCILE HORSES.

From time to time we hear from the various professors a gre»t deal ab>ut scientific and | almost instantaneous horse-breaking; but tew .. people (says a writer in t .e English “ Live Stock ' Journal ”) appear to have noticed ihe high pitch | to which breaking is carried by men who know nothing whatever about systems, straps, or mechanical appli nces. It is not .always easy to get an ordinary horse to face the sea when quite small waves are breaking on the beach ; yet look at the bathing machine h rse. He faces any sea that is not too rougn for bathers; he ranges up to the machine, stands perfectly quiet while the man on his back hitches on his lope traces, and then the horse, instead of jumping into his , collar, endangering the harness and risking i.urling himself, g'adually tightens the traces, and then, throwing his weight into his work, sets the machine going. Tne curious thing is that it takes very little time to accustom a new horse to thesa duties. It is the same with the fireengine horses. If it can be avoided, two novices are never put to an engine, the less experienced steed . being usually willing to learn manners rom his companion, who may have seen many fires. After comparatively little tuition, the horses will gallop to a fire, and, amid the puffing tf the engines, the roar of the fire, the busing of the water, and the noise generally, will stand far more placidly than would our own hacks and harness horses at the front door. Then another triumph ot breaking is seen in the cas of the shnrt ng horse at a arge stati n. Trains come whizzing by, yet the horse stands in the six loot way as quietly as if he were in some shady meadow on a hot afternoon. When he has to take a horse-box dr two, or s me trucks, to the points, he knows exactly where to stop, while the slightest indication of the attendant’s v °ice suffices to make him go on or stop; while he picks his way over rails or point without ever putting a foot wrong From these and other instano s, those having the care of horses might learn how easy it is to tea h horaes to do certain things if the man only sets about it in the right way. . '