The horse's brain is practically devoid of reasoning power, although he may have natural cunning. At the same time he is endowed with an excellent memory. This fact should always be borne in mind when training horses.

From experience we know that training by means of gaining a young horse's confidence and repeatedly teaching him one simple lesson after the previous one is thoroughly learnt is preferable to exacting obedience by subjection to hasty and harsh treatment. The former results in permanent and reliable obedience; the latter will in most cases merely produce temporary obedience of a defective nature. The horse may become nervous, sulky, or in the case of a high-couraged youngster he may become vicious, and put up a defence which his natural cunning tells him may defeat his trainer's endeavours to control him. No two horses' characters and temperaments are exactly similar. Therefore endless patience and progressive training are essential if one wants to get the very best results. It is a sound rule that if a young horse is not going smoothly in his work at each of his paces it means that his education has been hurried, and he must not be pushed on to a more advanced stage of his training till he has acquired smoothness at the previous stage.