Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Special aptitudes. Every horse according to his mental nature. sensibility, intelligence and his physical qualities, is more or less adapted to a particular use or employment. The employment must be suited to the physical and moral qualities of the horse, and it must not be sought to adapt the horse to an employment unsuitable for him. If the light horse is put to pull a heavy car he will, be unable to do good service, and will suffer. It is possible to employ the heavy horse as a saddle horse, but he is not adapted for it whilst on the other hand the light aud agile horse is well suited. Importamr of a good disposition and good mental qualities in the horse for his instruction and his serviceableness. Among the good mental qualities of the horse, tlio most important is a good disposition, as by means of this the horse gives in to us immediately,resigns himself to obedience forthwith, and is controlled by the aid of this feeling of obedience. The body or mechanism of the horse renders us service if the horse's mind directs it to do so. It is impossible to obtain service from the bod)7 if the mind is unwilling to command it. A good will or a good disposition is the first quality required to obtain useful service from the horse, as in order to render this service he must be allowed freedom; he cannot do it like a galley slave with the hands whilst his feet are fettered. If he is well disposed and obedient, and willing by nature, he will serve us of his own accord, even if the structure of his body is such as not to allow of his being collected and thus actually coerced to do so. If he has a bad disposition, even the various coercive means will not avail to render him serviceable, owing to his unwillingness. With a bad disposition all the other good qualities of a...