The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-01

he was supposed to have worked in a bus; while to-day the teams drawing
 the London coaches soon start quite
 handily on hearing the brake taken off.
 Some of our more elderly readers
 may call to mind the riding school kept
 by MT. Hall (formerly riding-master in
 one of the Household Cavalry regi- | ments) at the lower end of Albany | street; it is now a furniture-storing | place. The stud there included some | rather curious animals. One was a | black horse, which, on being asked to | canter, invariably kicked, and hun
 dreds of beginners have gone over his | head before they knew where they | were; but the quietest horse in the sta
 ble was one which had passed in and | out of many hands as perfectly incor- rigible. There was simply no holding | him; and MT. Hall bought him cheap at one of the repositories, only to find | himself completely beaten when he tried to ride his new purchase In the park. After some trouble he bethought him of a nose-band and standing mar tingale, and the reformation was com plete. The martingale was dispensed with and was not missed, but the use of the nose-band was adhered to, and the horse was as quiet as the proverbial
 sheep, and so remained until the break
 up of the establishment, when MT.
 Halls pupils and some of his stud were transferred to the Gloucester Crescent
 Riding school. There the horses pecu-
 liarity was not known, and an accident
 was narrowly averted, but on MT.
 Halls being told of the circumstance he
 remembered that he had omitted to
 mention the nose-band There was no
 necessity for it to be tight; so long as
 the horse had a nose-band on, that
 was sufficient. Why this appliance
 which really effected nothing, should have acted like a charm cannot be ex- l plained, but the fact remains that it
 did so work. Then there is the story
 told by Harry Hieover" of some one l buying, unknown to himself, a horse
 which had most unenviable reputa-
 ton for sitting up with his rider on the
 road. On the first occasion his new
 owner mounted him regular fight
 took place, and the horse was only in
 duced to proceed after long struggle,
 and these differences of opinion became
 so frequent that the owner at one
 time thought of getting rid of the horse.
 One day he was in the act of lighting a
 cigar, when the horse suddenly stopped,
 and was about to turn. The rider had
 dropped the rens, and instinctively
 tapped the horse over thesnose with his eli tolr ubo To bis ha cro1r m
 trying to turn, and at once walked off
 in the required direction. Thus, by the
 merest chance, was the secret of man.
 aging the previously unruly horse ac
 quired Tn another instance horse
 would always kick violently, to the danger of his attendant, if the bucket
 were taken from him while any water
 remained in it. So long as he was al | lowed to finish the last drop, even
 though there were no more than half a
 pint in the bucket when he began to
 drink, he never offered to kick
 Inquiries for hints how to treat a
 horse difficult to shoe have been print
 ed in these columns; and horses with
 one side to their mouths have ere now
 formed the subject of question and dis
 cussion. How these tricks first came
 to be practiced is an interesting pro-
 blem. A very common theory is that it
 is in consequence of some ill-treatment,
 intentional or not, that horses become vicious, and in a great many cases tn $
 Is doubtless the true solution; vet
 horses which are constantly whipped
 and spurred do not commonly seek to retaliate by vice On the race-course a
 horse often turns thief as the result
 of too many vigorous finishes; but a horse which has been beaten a good
 deal does not commonly take to sav-
 aging the man who has punished him. That he should do so would be the log ical outsome of the theory that vice and
 bad habits gre the result of an attempt , on the part of the horse to redress a grievance. Some horses which will go quietly enough when ridden by some . one In a short jacket will not stand the tails of a coat to touch them; others . have been said to object to scarlet-just } as some racehorses which will try their best when ridden by stable lad in sta- ble clothes stick their toes in the l ! and jacket. A great number of other l peculiarties in horses might be cited; and though, as we have often said, the l proportion of vicious horses is very , small, a goodly number have bad hab- It's, which we are inclined to think arise 7 in the generality of instances from be-
 ing used by unskilful or careless per- : sons. A one-sided mouth, for instance, } can scarcely come by nature; and it is l possible that 1t is often caused by peo- pie always riding with one hand Those who adopt that practice do not . commonly turn the hand so as to put a ; direct side pressure on the mouth. The left hand is generally carried toward
 the left side, and so the horse feels the pull of the left rein; but when asked to go to the right he receives the indica- tion by means of a false aid only-that is to say, by the pressure of the left rein on the left side of the neck l Then the fact of horse nearly always
 swerving to the left after refusing a l fence may possibly arise from the fact of the whip being carried in the right
 hand; so the horse, if he swerve at all