Now, reader, can you, or any one else, give one single reason how scent can convey any idea to the horse’s mind of what we want him to do? If not, then of course strong scents of any kind can be of no use in taming the unbroken horse. For, everything that we get him to do of his own accord, without force, must be accomplished by conveying our ideas to his mind. I say to my horse, “Go-’long!” and he goes; “Ho!” and he stops, because these two words, of which he has learned the meaning by the tap of the whip and the pull of the rein that first accompanied them, convey the two ideas to his mind of go and stop.
It is impossible to teach the horse a single thing by the means of scent alone; and as for affection, that can be better created by other means.
How long do you suppose a horse would have to stand and smell a bottle of oil, before he would learn to bend his knee and make a bow at your bidding, “Go yonder and bring my hat,” or “Come here and lie down?” The absurdity of trying to break or tame the horse by the means of receipts for articles to smell at, or of medicine to swallow, is self-evident.
The only science that has ever existed in the world, relative to the breaking of horses, that has been of any value, is that method which, taking them in their native state, improves their intelligence.
EDITOR’S REMARKS.
The directions for driving colts from the pasture are of less importance in this country where fields are enclosed, and the most valuable colts wear headstalls, and are handled, or ought to be, from their earliest infancy; but in Wales, and on wastes like Exmoor[47-*] or Dartmoor, the advice may be found useful.
Under all circumstances it is important that the whole training of a colt (and training of the boy who is to manage horses) should be conducted from first to last on consistent principles; for, in the mere process of driving a colt from the field to the fold-yard, ideas of terror may be instilled into the timid animal, for instance, by idle drumming on a hat, which it will take weeks or months to eradicate.
The next step is to get the colt into a stable, barn, or other building sufficiently large for the early operations, and secluded from those sights and sounds so common in a farm-yard, which would be likely to distract his attention. In training a colt the squeaking of a litter of pigs has lost me the work of three hours. An outfield, empty barn, or bullock-shed, is better than any place near the homestead.
It is a good plan to keep an intelligent old horse expressly for the purpose of helping to train and lead the young colts. I have known horses that seemed to take a positive pleasure in helping to subdue a wild colt when first put in double harness.
The great point is not to force or frighten a colt into the stable, but to edge him into it quietly, and cause him to glide in of his own accord. In this simple operation, the horse-trainer will test himself the indispensable quality of a horse trainer—patience. A word I shall have to repeat until my readers are almost heartily sick of the “damnable iteration.” There is a world of equestrian wisdom in two sentences of the chapter just quoted, “he will not run unless you run after him,” and “the horse has not studied anatomy.”