same exercise over again, twenty or thirty times, without changing the side, until he obeys the moment I close my heel to his side. I then give him similar work with the right leg.

When the horse accurately obeys both legs, I put on dummy spurs (stump spurs), in order to accustom him to obey something more severe than the heel. Then, each day I increase the effect of the leg, while diminishing that of the whip, which I gradually discard.^[1] Later on I come to the spur.

I use the whip, only to aid the memory of the horse, and to induce him to obey the spur without frightening him. We should not forget that the effect of a touch of the spur on a green horse at the beginning of the breaking, is exactly similar to that of the sting of a fly, which he at first tries to drive away with his tail. If he does not succeed in this, he will cow-kick on the side he is pricked. If the insect does not fly away, he will look out for some object, such as a wall or tree, upon which to lean or lie, in order to crush the author of his sufferings, the fly. Therefore, when we give him the first touch of the spur, how can we expect that his first movement will not be to cow-kick or to lean against a wall ?

We may see that it is a grave mistake to use the spur without having prepared the horse for it, by making him successively obey the whip, leg, heel and dummy spur.

If we spur a horse which is neither prepared for nor accustomed to it, he will not understand its meaning, and will not obey. If we try to force him to do so, he, not knowing what we want him to do, and feeling the pain which we inflict on him, will instinctively defend himself. The more severe the attack, the more stubborn will be the resistance at first, and