that every attempted innovation runs a great chance of being received in this manner.

Nevertheless I decided, not without great apprehension, to make an experiment, and I took in hand a four-year-old which had been well looked after. I found that he had quite as much strength, and much more suppleness, than my other pupils which were seven years old. Encouraged by this result, I tried a three-year-old with the same success. Since then I have broken-in for high-school riding a score of thoroughbreds of this age, and have always obtained better results than with older horses.

Finally, I pushed the experiment further, in order to find out the greatest amount of exertion which could be demanded from a very young horse without distressing him. I broke Viscope, a thoroughbred mare by Vermouth out of Vinaigrette,^[1] when she was two years old. At three years her education was complete as a hack, jumper, and school horse, and she received a medal at the horse show. She is now seven years old, perfectly sound, unblemished, and had not even a windgall when I disposed of her.

I could cite many other examples. I only wished to explain how experience led me to the conclusion that to take a horse at three-and-a-half years old in order to break and train him for any particular work, is to begin at an age when all horses which have been properly brought up and fed, can stand work. Further, it is to take him at an age when progressive muscular exercise is indispensable to him. This exercise, so far from wearing him out and making him unsound, strengthens his limbs and body, and quickly puts him in full possession of all his powers.